There was a lot to unpick in last night’s news. Parliament had voted to renew the coronavirus act, which allows a small group of people within government to engage in groupthink and pass laws without scrutiny. This act has to be renewed every six months and although there were some calls for it to be abolished the renewal coincided with a steep rise in reported cases. There was only 90 minutes given to debate this and Lindsay Hoyle, the speaker, criticised the bill, saying that the government had shown total disregard for parliament. In the end, and even with one MSP jumping on a train to vote despite having COVID-19, only 24 MPs voted against it and so there is no scrutiny for whatever laws they want to set under the cover of protecting us against this new virus (which actually isn’t new any more). The MSP was in the news. Nicola Sturgeon was furious and Margaret Ferrier is at home, shamefaced, waiting to see if she will keep her job and wondering how big a fine she’ll have after reporting herself to the police.
As soon as the bill was passed a law was enacted through it to make it illegal for schools not to provide remote learning if a student has to self isolate. Education is too important. I get that but this is monumental buck passing. It puts a lot of pressure on schools to require teachers to double their workload. Teachers, who, lets face it, are just as exhausted as the rest of the population in trying to navigate this situation are going to teach a class in person, often in a way that goes against all their training. They will have been playing a game of whack-a-mole, trying to keep five and six year olds in their seat and kids to follow rules about not sharing equipment that goes against everything we know about teaching children to share. They will have the usual planning and marking with the added task of trying to fit everything in, not only to cover the curriculum but also to ‘catch up’ even though 20% of the day is now spent hand washing. Now there will be pressure to make videos or do Zoom (other platforms are available and choosing the right one can be a nightmare) lessons for those not in school. The question of whether this extends to children who have taken a couple of weeks off because they’ve got a sniffle and they belong to parents who like any excuse to have them at home isn’t covered. It also doesn’t say if the school is legally responsible if the pupil doesn’t engage with the remote learning.
At the same time as this is going on there are MPs suggesting that people who make their living in the arts should use this time to get a ‘proper job’. Under coronavirus restrictions it seems to be illegal to do anything creative. Actually, that’s not true. You can be creative but purely as a hobby. Don’t expect to do anything that helps you get paid for that work.
The news left me feeling simultaneously too important and not important enough. I dreamed that I was the Cheshire Cat. How weird it is to be living through a time when Alice in Wonderland feels normal? Lewis Carroll had his opium pipe and we just have a coronavirus and a bizarre government.
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