Covid-19: Shanghai Schools Return
Being at the source of the COVID-19 outbreak here in China, people are wondering what the so-called ‘new normal’ is going to be like in schools. As restrictions are being relaxed and Shanghai is returning to (masked) business-as-usual, international schools have begun a staggered return. Older students started back at the beginning of the month, with younger students following in small groups. For me, after seventeen weeks and three days, I will return to school on Monday, May 18th.
The lead up to this has been complicated and fraught with changes. Understandably, seeing that we are again dealing with entirely new territory. Between the zoom meetings and long, daily emails, we have an idea of what our return might look like. However, I’m not betting on any of this staying the same over the coming weeks.
The first and most important thing is temperature checks. The day starts with both teachers and students recording personal temperatures before leaving home to ensure we don’t exceed the maximum of 37.3°C. Temperatures need daily recording on the required two-page health declaration form (sorry, trees), which also includes reporting on those living in our household. If you are a student who takes a bus, you will take your temperature before being allowed to board it. If you arrive by car, you will walk through the designated temperature check station when you arrive at school. Anyone reading above 37.3°C will need to return home.
During the day, teachers will again measure every student’s temperature at lunchtime. If anyone has an abnormal reading, it must be reported. That student will be taken to an isolated nursing station for monitoring and, if required, then be sent off for further testing at a designated centre.
If more than one student has an abnormal temperature in a class, then the whole class itself could be quarantined until everyone can be checked out. Sounds fun, being actually trapped in a room with twenty 10-year-olds while waiting for test results. Parents who have been trapped with one 10-year-old throughout the quarantine can surely attest to how great that is. If someone in that class tests positive, well, that’s a whole new ball game.
Students will always have to keep a 1-metre distance from each other — including at recess. This makes me laugh because anyone who has dealt with children knows that controlling their movements is akin to herding cats. These are 9- and 10-year-olds, not robot soldiers. They don’t move in unison and are constantly touching everything. Let’s be real: kids are gross, which is why we haven’t been in school in the first place. Their very presence in a situation trying to prevent the spread of anything is going to be debatably successful. I think I’ll just keep a metre stick on me and wield it like Miss Trunchbull.
Classrooms desks have been moved to honour the 1-metre distancing rule, eliminating any real space to socialize. Students will line up and clean their hands before entering the room, and then need to wipe down their space after classes are over. They are also not allowed to work in groups, but I imagine I’ll just have them talking in 1-metre squares very loudly at each other. I usually have a pretty noisy and boisterous class, so that won’t bother me, but I feel for those teachers who like order and quiet. Maybe I’ll get them some earplugs.
Lunches are now in our classrooms, which I am so looking forward to (not). I have carpeted flooring and, even after a simple snack, my classroom looks like there was an epic food fight with packages and crumbs littering the floor. I cannot even imagine what lunchtime will be like with the smells, the mess and stains, and the time it will take to clean all that up. Plus, kids like to hide things, so I’m already betting on who will be the first one to grow a science experiment in their desk. Yuck.
Masks are the thing I dread the most. These must be worn at all times. Now, I understand that this is the least of sacrifices one has to make for the greater good, but that isn’t really why I’m writing this. I will wear a mask with some fierce smizing (thank you Tyra Banks & wikihow for having the foresight to know the world would need to perfect this), but teaching kids with it on is going to be tough. How will they tell when I’m mad when I can’t give them my infamous, disapproving, pursed lips? That’s half my teacher-power.
Finally, there is no sharing of anything. After years and years of teaching kids to share, that is now a huge no-no. As an elementary teacher, that, well, sucks. So much of life is a shared experience, so we will need to devise a new method to connect, without getting too close. I guess I’ll have to get good at transmitting love via ‘air high five’ instead of a friendly hug or shoulder squeeze.
If the last four months have taught me anything, what I write here will be different by this Tuesday and even more so by this Friday. But, I’m going to smize my way through it and have a great last few weeks with the students who made it into China before the border closed. Then, the summer holiday will come — albeit late, now that we have an extended school year- and I can go back to tending to the garden I grew during quarantine.
I’ll keep you updated.
