I know it sounds amusing, but HR (our public TV network) laid out this 7-line story here in the AM today.
Because of the ban-rules and standards set in Frankfurt....school kids (student council of the city) held a meeting and voted up a strike for Monday, at the city health department.
What's it all about? Well, the kids believe that the situation has reached the level where alternating classes (half the kids on this day, and the other half on the next day) would attend. They want the health department to sanction this.
Part of this logic is that buses and trains....at least in the minds of the kids.....are the big worry to the virus. So if you had lesser kids going to school, it'd be a lesser threat.
How many participants to expect in this strike? Unknown, and left out of the story. I would take a wild guess here and just assume a minimum of 500 kids, and maybe even getting up to several thousand. Would they practice social distancing at this strike? Might be an interesting question.
I would offer this humble opinion. Over the past ten months, I think most German teachers would readily agree that the whole situation has screwed up kids advancing academically. This period from August to June of 2021? It might be the most worthless school year since 1945.
I wish the kid strikers luck, and I'd bundle up for the Monday strike (local temperatures have been around five degrees C for day-time highs the past week in the region.
Monday UPDATE: Police say around 300 kids were in strike mode there in Frankfurt. Temperature locally? Near 1 to 2 C....so it was a bit chilly out there.
4 comments:
Sad when the kids are smarter than the government.
If you lined up kids, teachers, and parents....I think three-quarters of them would say that the system since March has either barely worked or generally failed. Kids have the stress of masking-up, washing hands constantly, worrying about social contact in a limited world. Toss in the threat of teachers getting sick, or doing quarantine for two weeks while one family member has it. It's a screwed up period to be a kid.
Then the kid continually asks why ban rules change or get tougher, with limited logic behind it other than the authorities had to do 'something'.
Instead of changing the rules they should just increase the fines. Really make people think about breaking them.
I used to believe in the fine business....that it made some difference. Earlier in the year, Wiesbaden set up a no-weapons zone (from like 6 PM to 6 AM, police could stop and frisk you within this mid-section of town). If you carried a knife or any type of weapon, it was an automatic fine (5k Euro). The feeling and intent is like you suggest....people would think.
So I follow the police blotter a bit on crime/police reports. week after week....frisks turned up young fools carrying the forbidden weapons (mostly all knives) within that zone. These all mostly all people who really can't afford the fine, and while the police do their job...no one says much what happens a month later with the judge/court action. It's a topic not openly discussed, and one might imagine that the threat of fines didn't matter....the judge just exercises a review to find that the guy can't afford it.
Curiously, the only thing that really changed the knife/frisking results is the bar/club closures from early November. Cops are still picking up the hardcore alcoholics but these are guys who buy via the local grocery stores and just hang out in the parks.
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