Keeping Kids at Home Inflicts a Heavy Toll
Of all the age groups that emerge from this crisis, the very young will be most marked by it.
Reopening schools is both urgent and fraught.
Photographer: Jane Barlow/PA Images
The coronavirus may mercifully pass over the very young, but of all the age groups that emerge from this crisis, they will be most marked by it. The longer schools are closed, the deeper those marks will be. Yet reopening is both urgent and fraught, because there’s no simple way of going back to the way it was.
Even if this particular pandemic is novel, history has taught us that the effects of interrupting education can be profound. During World War II, the last crisis that is remotely comparable to today’s, bombing damaged about one in five schools in London, while another two-thirds were requisitioned for government use. Millions of children were sent to the countryside for safety. There were shortages of books and stationary supplies; rural schools had to share classrooms with evacuees, so groups of students were staggered between morning and afternoon learning sessions. By January 1940, only a quarter of children in London were receiving full-time education.