School is quickly approaching, and this year will doubtless be the most bizarre anyone involved will have ever experienced. This is not a letter to talk about the “unprecedented challenges” and praising our brave and selfless educators. I am writing to hopefully wake a few parents up.
What are we doing to our children? My children normally attend Fargo Public Schools, not this year. FPS will likely begin the year in some type of hybrid learning, three days at school two at home. Masks are required all day (good luck on that), lunch eaten in the classroom, seating charts the same all year, as little moving from the classroom as possible, art class online, if a child has a sniffle immediately sent home and required to stay home 14 days if not tested. These draconian measures make school feel like prison (many students already feel this way).
We are doing this for a virus that has virtually no effect on children. Children are unlikely in the first place to contract the virus. If they get the virus, they are usually asymptomatic and therefore do not transmit it. If you do not believe me, for just one example of many, a study in Ireland could not find one single case of a student transmitting the virus to a teacher. Not one. Since this whole pandemic started more children age 0-14 have died from influenza than the coronavirus. All these measures are completely unnecessary and in truth incredibly harmful.
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Has anyone considered the deep psychological damage this will likely inflict on our children? Masks have a dehumanizing effect by removing our individuality, our identity, our ability to express and read expression. Masks reduce our ability to familiarize, form bonds and socialize the way we were designed, too. Masks also dis-inhibit people and make them less, not more, likely to follow rules and social norms.
Unsurprisingly there are many laws against wearing masks in public. Think bank robbers. Now imagine you are 5 years old starting your first day of school and you are surrounded by strangers in masks who are supposed to be your new friends. You feel no connection to your teacher because though she sounds nice, she always looks upset to you. You will see your peers as a potential threat, they might give something dangerous to you so you will fear them and not form relationships and feel isolated and alone. Far-fetched? Adults already behave this exact way.
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What kind of administrators, school board members, teachers, grandparents, and most of all, parents are we to subject our children to this? The answer is we are pathetic cowards.
If you are a school employee of any type afraid to go back to work, quit. School board members who dreamed up this nightmare, do us a favor and resign.
Parents you can stop this, I implore you, do whatever you can to not put your children through this. I know it will be difficult, but your kids are worth it. Find any way possible to remove them from the public schools and homeschool them until sanity is restored. A simple search will yield countless resources, many more affordable than you may think. Your children are your most precious possession, you must bear any cost to protect them.
