I'm not the world's biggest fan of high school sports--for years I've had too many students miss too much of 6th period (usually my pre-calculus class) because of sports, especially in spring. Having said that, we need better reasons than coronavirus to get rid of sports and justify this kind of silliness:
High school sports as we know it in Sacramento County will have a wildly different, scaled-back look this coming academic year and perhaps much longer if recommendations laid out by the Sacramento County Office of Education are followed...The following sports for schools in Elk Grove Unified, Twin Rivers Unified, Natomas Unified, Sacramento City Unified, San Juan Unified and Folsom Cordova Unified could be permitted “If social distancing is feasible and modifications are made,” according to the document: Cheerleading, diving, golf, swimming (every other lane), tennis, track and field (which has clusters of people in some races) and cross country (which starts and often ends with large groups of runners in a pack).
Have these people never seen cheerleaders perform? Is there any scientific justification for the every-other-lane requirement in swimming?
This whole business reeks of pseudoscience and of people doing something so they can say they're doing something, even if that something has no value at all.
Every other lane in a pool????
ReplyDelete1) Average pool lane width is 7-9 feet. You are practicing social distancing while standing on the block waiting to dive in.
2) Once in the water, you are in a pool of chlorine which kills the virus. It is virtually impossible to transmit the virus while in a properly chlorinated pool.
This is a perfect example of politicians/bureaucrats making rules to 'feel good' while dictating stupidity.
The only issue I might have with pools has nothing to do with the social distancing. It is what if a life-saving procedure is needed? Mouth-to-mouth is not social distancing. However, in the next 2 weeks, if there is no spike in the cities with all the protesting, there will be a HUGE backlash if things are not opened up in a hurry.
ReplyDeleteHasn't the whole Corona virus response been this very thing? Statistically insignificant chance of getting it in any type of serious way. 6 million cases world-wide against a US population of 325 million. I know you can do the math. Just politicians doing what politicians do. ..screwing over the voters.
ReplyDeleteI'm not usually a fan of bans, but I am considering a ban on the phrase "social distancing". It's one of the stupidest phrases in our current parlance. At the very least, it should be surrounded with air quotes or preceded by the phrase "so-called".
ReplyDeleteYou do know that the phrase came from a 2006 high school science project?
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