Are the schools getting it backwards?
It’s been 15 years since I taught school, and a lot of things have changed. They’re absolutely freaky about “germs” now. They have the kids putting hand sanitizer on their hands constantly. They wipe down desks and tables with Clorox wet wipes.
Kids still get sick like they always have, though.
The kids no longer have their own desks. They sit at communal tables. They put their book bags and coats on the floor. I about broke my neck trying to walk through the room on Friday. They also leave their bags and coats on the floor in the hallway. Pretty sure that’s a fire violation.
But by God, they’ll be germ free when they trip and fall trying to get out of a burning building.
Last time I taught school, kids weren’t allowed to eat in class. Now some of the students are eating something ALL the time, and the schools send in extra food twice a day, aside from breakfast and lunch.
Something just doesn’t seem right here.
What do you think?
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31 Answers
Guess they are afraid of lawsuits and school shooters pulling a glock out of their bags.
Hysteria for Bacteria, no, not a Guns n’ Roses album…
The germ thing has been proven. I wish caravan would chime in as a doctor.
My daughter has brought home some sort of virus at least twice a year until high school.
Some of her teachers have had hand sanitizer available, but I have never seen any of her schools provide it.
Funny this, I have seen her less often with colds since she has reached kissing age.
Maybe airborne illnesses are less of a threat when they are swapping spit, ergo personal helpful bacteria?
I don’t know, but I don’t think schools could do anything notably effective against sharing illnesses unless they adopt the same environment as operating rooms.
I think that it varies so much by place, that it’s hard to make a general statement about it. The schools around here still have individual desks. The only time I came across communal tables was in kindergarten. As for the germophobia, well, kids will be exposed to germs regardless of how many Clorox wipes you use and hand sanitizer won’t have any affect on viruses or anything airborne. So that’s just pissing in the wind as far as I’m concerned. Plus I don’t think it’s necessarily a good idea to expose kids to so many cleaners and microbicides; kids build up immunity by exposure to germs. That kind of insulation from such things may explain the increase in allergies.
@Patty_Melt, actually the reason she isn’t coming down with so many colds is because once you have a cold virus you are immune to that virus. However, there are a few hundred different viruses that cause cold symptoms, but only about 60 are very common.
That’s why older people almost never catch any more colds.
I agree @Demosthenes.
They’re wrong on the germophobia. Normal hygiene, like washing your hands was long ago proven healthful. But there is evidence that going crazy with anti-bacterial products and antibiotics reduces our beneficial exposure to microbes, while leaving only the microbes that can aren’t bothered by the cleaners and drugs to survive.
Clean is good, but fanatical sterilizing is not.
A BBC intro to the phenomenon.
Well, Rarebear once pointed out that the antibacterial stuff just has rubbing alcohol in it, so it’s pretty harmless.
Actually, we moved twice, allowing for her to become exposed to all new stuff, and, I caught each one she came home with. I’m in my fifties, so my exposure opportunities have been numerous.
Kind of off topic, but I finally got around to reading the 27 notes of apology that the student’s regular teacher told them they had to write on Friday. One said, “I am serry I was not lessining to you I was under the table.” LOLL!!!
I was just explaining the reason she wasn’t getting as many colds now.
Believe it or not, I agree with Call Me on this one. Excessive use of antibacterials is no longer recommended. Yet its still everywhere. Guess rarebear- caravan can tell us his opinion when he come back on.
I don’t think rubbing alcohol helps create resistant bacteria.
Thank you for the correction. Alcohol kills ALL the germs and does not leave behind the resistant X-Men.
But killing all the germs isn’t necessary, and wipes out both harmless and beneficial critters, and may prevent kids from developing immunities.
Plus the message of “don’t go germophobe bananas” is easier to get across than explaining more details.
The whole country went crazy about hand sanitizer (which is not anti-bacterial, but anti-everything including virtues) back during the bird flu threat. We came in to work one day and dispensers were everywhere.
It happpened in the schools,too, at the same time. The kids came home with “classroom needs” lists that included hand sanitizer in addition to Kleenex and paper towels.
Lolll! I lost my virtue to hand sanitizer!
^^^^damn auto correct, it changed “virus” to virtues…..
I wonder if any of the germ measure have actually lowered the spread of illnesses in the schools now doing more to prevent disease from spreading? The problem with colds and flu is if you touch your nose when it’s runny, and then touch anything, you’ll be spreading germs. Kids touch their faces constantly. Especially, in cold weather where your nose runs even if your healthy, germs will be spread.
After everything I said above, I like the idea of kids washing their hands or using sanitizer within reason.
As far as desks and tables, I think that friends on the school and on the teacher. At least when I was a kid, each teacher had their own style. In kindergarten I definitely don’t think the kids need their own desk. Older than that I lean towards each child having their own desk.
In the late Mesozoic era when I went to school sanitizers hadn’t been invented. We might be pulled up occasionally if for having too much grime under our fingernails but that’s about as far as it went. The playground was for playing in and how can you play and stay clean we would wonder. We had our own desks and our outdoor clothing was hung up in the cloakroom. We were not allowed to eat in the classroom and the idea that a lunatic might burst into the classroom with a gun and shoot at us indiscriminately was a concept no one had as yet imagined.
I forgot to mention, we ate in our classroom in elementary school, but only at lunch time. There wasn’t a cafeteria to sit in, in my elementary schools.
Probably
We are surrounded by more bacteria than you could ever imagine. If you kill off a few in a given environment, they are quickly replaced, and in some cases by a variety that you may not have immunity to.
And then, like you said, the kids get sick anyway.
I seriously doubt hand sanitizers have reduced the spread of germs. If you don’t catch that cold, or sore throat this go around, you’ll catch it the next. It’s impossible to avoid it forever. Why not just get it over with?
@flutherother I went to school in the Mesozoic era too. It was considered really rude to eat in front of other people, unless you brought enough to share. Kids are eating all day long, now.
Our biggest concerns were:
1) Fire. (They showed a video of a little girl jumping from the 2nd or 3rd floor of her burning classroom….and she died. I’m still traumatized to this day.)
2) Attack of the Killer Weed.
3) Passing notes.
It’s not impossible to avoid catching cold and flu if you take precautions. But, it’s probably closer to impossible in a classroom full of young kids.
I move out of the bedroom when one of us is sick (my husband or me) and we take precaution to wash our hands if we are sick before touching the kitchen. We almost never give each other a cold or flu. Some of it is immunity differences I’m sure, but some of it is being careful I think also. We only do it when one of us is known to be sick. We don’t obsess about it daily.
Washing methods to control infection has saved lived historically. Especially, for things like surgeries, but that’s more of a focus on bacterial infection than viral.
Yes, it is. It is impossible not to pick up on viruses if you are around human beings to any degree, especially as children.
By the time you start taking precautions after you’re showing symptoms it’s too late. Everyone else in the house has come into contact with the virus 20 times over. If they don’t get sick too it’s because they already had it at some point in their lives, and have an immunity to whatever virus you have.
Not everybody benefits from hand sanitizer and disinfecting wipes. I have never seen hand sanitizer that is not full of some kind of nasty fragrance. I hate the stuff because it makes me sick. Lysol can put me in the emergency room.
You people who are obscessed with germs to the point that you are constantly putting that stuff on your skin are polluting both your bodies and the air.
Hand sanitizer just smells like rubbing alcohol. I guess that smells pretty nasty.
The stuff I see used has perfume in it. Nasty! Add to that Lysol spray, Chlorox wipes, Febreeze, and God knows what else. Schools are a nasty toxic environment for anyone, let alone a child!
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