Blog 37. Swine Flu

Swine Flu
    The truth is the swine flu is here. Originating from Mexico, the swine flu is spreading across the country from tourists escaping the wet northern spring. Returning home, these unsuspecting vectors are spreading the disease across the world. Currently there are cases of the flu in Canada, USA and Europe as well as New Zealand. As of yet no one knows how much damage this disease will cause. What is known is that this disease originated in pigs and it may contain strains of the avian flue. It’s spreading and it’s here.

    So what does this have to do with education? The direct answer is nothing. However, indirectly there are several ways that the swine flu could have severe effects on schools. First of all, states with state tested classes could be troubled. Should this flu hit one part of a state during testing time some schools might have to be closed. This would compromise the integrity of the test. Unaffected areas would have already finished the test when affected areas would still be writing. This could result in some cheating.

    More severely, yet within the distant realm of possibilities, should a contagious virulent strain of swine flue hit, it have catastrophic consequences. It could kill the entire population of students, or perhaps kill a significant number of them. Like the plagues in the fifteen  and sixteen hundreds this plague could wipe out a lot of people. This would hurt schools because of teacher shortages and student shortages. Since a majority of teachers are older and consequently would have poorer immune systems, the teachers death toll would be higher than that of the students. This would further create a teacher shortage and cause class sizes to increase. Increased class sizes would result in more difficulties in classroom management and student learning. Not to mention the psychology effects of having so many parents die due to the disease.

    Although this flu is less than ideal, I highly doubt the severe scenario listed above will happen in the near future. What I do see in the realm of possibilities is that this flu would cause a lot of students to become sick. With a high proportion of these students becoming sick it would create havoc for teachers trying to teach students who are coming sporadically. Many teachers would also be likely to come down with the disease as well. This would cause issues for administrators because they would be scrambling to find substitute teachers.