Reflections of a teacher on possible Covid infection at school

Posted by Caterina Lombardi – Hello, I am an elementary school teacher with almost forty years of experience behind me who has always carried out her role with great interest and eager to renew herself.

As proof of my desire to keep up with the times and the evolution of society, 5 years ago at the age of 55 I obtained a master’s degree in computer science, writing a thesis on the use of ICT in teaching.

The reopening of the school puts me before the need once again to completely rethink my work; Anyone with minimal teacher awareness knows how important group work or peer tutoring is and it is not trivial to hypothesize how to achieve all this while ensuring distancing and, alternatively, how to replace these working methods.

All of this represents for me, but I think for almost all teachers, a tremendously intriguing and motivating challenge that pushes me to document myself and, once again, to reinvent new approaches that can be meaningful and rewarding for students.

In view of the commitment this requires, it saddens me enormously to see how teachers are almost totally ignored in the various ongoing debates; in the equation healthy and happy students and satisfied parents school personnel are never considered and, in fact, they are totally criticized when they ask their employer (see Ministry or whoever for him) to guarantee their safety at work in compliance with the law and your health.

During the period of confinement, all the media have hammered us with constant alarms about the risk for those over fifty-five years old represented by Covid19, inviting us not to leave home, not even to go to the supermarket (see Technical Document Inail_21072558 “In this perspective, the “Exceptional Health Surveillance” that would be carried out on workers over 55 years … ..). Now that those over fifty-five years have to guarantee the reopening of the school, the risk seems no longer it exists, and indeed if some teachers try to express their fears, they are suggested to quit.

I am surprised to see that a biologist who lives and works in the United States believes that he knows the Italian situation and Italian teachers so well that he can afford to make judgments and establish dictates (see il Giornale.it Saturday 29/08/2020>) in a teaching class that despite being the lowest paid in Europe has always carried out its work with a great sense of responsibility.
Constantly following the news and statements of various experts only increases my doubts.
When the virologist Carlo Perno affirms: “If you pay attention and keep your distance, the school is no longer at any greater risk of contagion than a supermarket or a cinema,” it makes me think that he does not have a clear image of the situation.

Do you really think that in a kindergarten or an elementary school it will be easy to keep your distance?
Do you know that I go to the supermarket only once, at most twice a week or, in the worst case, I don’t stay more than an hour and I really choose not to go to the movies? I will go to school every day for 5 hours a day!
In this particular contingency, I am convinced that all teachers only ask that their safety be protected in the workplace, as I believe any nurse or police officer does. Alone
With this in mind, the serological test for teachers is welcome, I gladly did it, but I would have liked my students to do it too.

I go back to work knowing that I am not contagious but, equally, I cannot say about my students that during the summer they could have been on vacation who knows where and who may not present symptoms or have them very mild.
Under these conditions, it seems more than legitimate for some teachers, including myself, to express perplexity and doubts about the way our health is protected.
That is why I am starting this school year again with the great bet of “inventing a new way of doing school” marked by the rule of spacing and use of the mask and many other indications that still seem smoky but, also, with great bitterness to have the perception, once again, that teachers are not taken into account or even considered “expendable” for the “common good”.
A spontaneous question arises, a bit provocative: “Teachers who want to protect their health will really have to think about quitting ?????”