How Can We Reopen Schools If We Can’t Even Open Windows?
I’m seeing a lot of well-intentioned rhetoric lately about the importance of good ventilation in schools to mitigate the spread of Covid in school classrooms, with the best advice being to “just open a window,” and “use a simple box fan to circulate exhaled air.” The example shown was of a “real classroom” with an entire wall of windows, a teacher, and 9 students socially distanced at 6 feet between desks.
That disturbance in the force you may have just felt was created by every public school teacher in the country rolling their eyes, hard, in unison. Because they understand, in a deep, rich way, that nothing about these “simple recommendations” is, in fact simple.
Allow me to share a few thoughts, based on my time as a teacher…
- In my 41 years as a music teacher, I have never taught in a room with a window. I’ve taught in basements, closets, boiler rooms, trailers, and band rooms with no windows and egress doors permanently locked. The only time those doors could be opened was in the event of a fire drill, and then only if the CONTINUE READING: How Can We Reopen Schools If We Can’t Even Open Windows? | Eclectablog