A Tale of Two Queens
A Thought-Experiment in the Wake of the Brown Study on Covid Policy and Childhood Development
My little tale of modern education is going to be a tad gruesome, albeit much tamer than the Christmas-season story about King Herod, so let’s start with something sweet, my own fond memories of the teacher who was likely the greatest contributor to my own educational development—Mrs. Williams. She was my teacher for grades three-through-five at a California public school in the 1970s, and she was the best. She did everything right. Really, subsequent conversations with my parents make me believe she was the best teacher at Westwood Elementary, and while my memories of her are obviously rose-tinted, even then I could tell, “I am in most capable hands.” Loving. Demanding. Morals-teaching. Organized. Encouraging. Not Cloying. Fair. I do not know if she is still with us, nor if so, do I know if her views on Covid-19 education policy are like those I will be putting into the mouth of my idealized “Queen Williams” below. I thank her from the bottom of my heart for her great service to myself and so many others.
In my tale, it is the year 2020, March, and in one nation, which happens to be on the far-away planet X, there rules an evil absolute monarch, Queen Herodias, and in another nation on our plain ol’ planet Earth, there rules a good absolute monarch, Queen Williams.
There is no Covid-19 on planet X, but Queen Herodias has just received a report from her minister Bob Fauci Comeaux, that persons above age seventy who devour one (and only one) pinky finger from a young child usually gain an extra year or two of life.
So Queen Herodias (full name: Queen Karen Weingarten Herodias) issued a decree: “Whereas my power as the representative of the people’s will is supreme on all possible policy questions, and whereas our elderly citizens deserve a longer life, and whereas a sacrifice inflicted upon one’s very person is a powerful symbol of societal solidarity, and a good moral lesson for children to learn, I decree that all children, from ages 4 to 10, shall have one pinky finger chopped off, from the hand of their choice, and said pinky fingers sent within an hour of removal to a designated distributor.”
And so it was done.
Back on Earth, there was no such report, but Covid-19 was advancing. So Queen Williams issued a decree for her nation in response to the questions the pandemic raised about education: “Whereas we do not yet know how much developmental harm will be inflicted upon children due to Zoom-learning and widespread mask-wearing by their teachers and peers, nor do we know the actual spread-prevention efficacy of masks, I decree the following: 1) All schools will retain in-person learning, to be delivered by newly-hired temporary teachers and any existing ones who wish to do it, while they will simultaneously provide, up through December 2020 but no later, remote delivery instruction. 2.) No teachers shall be fired or penalized by choosing this remote delivery instruction. 3.) Cuts across the budget of the entire realm, and a bundle of tax increases, including ones that particularly apply to big-box stores and internet-shopping-only companies, shall fund the temporary teaching staff needed for the eight months of this dual-system instruction. 4.) No teachers, except those who have documented extraordinary vulnerabilities to Covid-19, shall be permitted to wear masks during instruction. None of the temporary teachers hired shall be permitted to wear masks regardless of their vulnerabilities. 5.) All parents will have the right to choose whether their children wear masks or not.”
“6.) Studies on the developmental effects of mask-wearing and of remote instruction, will be immediately funded and set underway. A significant portion of these studies will be required to deliver some results in six months, and if those results show developmental harm above a 5% range to the typical child from the mask-wearing of his peers, we will explore options to incentivize all parents to ditch masking their children, though their personal choice on this matter will remain guaranteed. 7.) As I seek to be a just Queen, my subjects should have confidence that no vaccination mandates or passports of any kind will be permitted in education, nor in any part of my realm. For they are an abomination.”
And so it was done.
Meanwhile, also on Earth, you already know the policies that were enacted by democracies like the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Australia.
And today, we have a new study that points to horrible child-development results from those policies. The size of its sample seems fairly small to me, but it’s a careful study, and there already have been results from less rigorous ones suggesting similar outcomes. This study’s results are nothing less than devastating, as these headlines and bullet-points convey:
COVID rules are blamed for 23% dive in young children's development: Disturbing study shows scores in three key cognitive tests slumped between 2018 and 2021, with face mask rules among possible culprits.
--Face masks and other social distancing measures may in fact impede on children's development, a new study executed by Brown University has found.
--The probe analyzed the cognitive development of the youngsters through infancy, childhood and adolescence.
--The report found that there was a 23 per cent drop in scores measuring kids' intelligence quotients since the start of the pandemic.
--The study also found similar dips in the same span in regards to developing children's ability to communicate, both verbally and though subtle facial cues.
Twenty-three percent! Think about what that loss of intelligence quotient will translate into, long-term. Such losses at the younger ages are often irreversible. And we know darn well what the main explanation is: masks on the children's teachers and peers, and the widespread use of Zoom-type instruction.
To those who say this is just one study, and that its sample is small, I would reply, in the spirit of Queen Williams, why have our federal and state education taxes not been used to fund many such studies, and more short-term “best-guess” ones, given that this was such a crucial factor to have known about for our policy decisions?
Now for the thought experiment. There would be little point in comparing Queen Williams’s policies to our own, as they are so clearly superior. If this Brown University study’s result are confirmed, we will know that had many of our states adopted even a few of Queen Williams’s policies, our children would have been much less damaged than they in fact have been, and WILL CONTINUE TO BE. (That “continue to be” is going apply especially if our states and districts don’t require most teachers to ditch masks during instruction.) And we now know what we couldn’t for certain back in March 2020, that children are themselves barely threatened by Covid-19 (Omicron could slightly change that), and that super-spreader events at mask-optional schools seldom (if ever) occur. All in all, our results utterly suck compared to those Queen Williams’s policies would likely have achieved.
(I’d guess a 5% drop for the children of her realm rather than our 23% one, as some portion of the temp teachers would have been weak, and significant aggregate damage due to the many parents who would have chosen online instruction would still have occurred.)
A more useful thought experiment, then, would compare what Queen Herodias did to what we did. Would we in America, under the typical leadership of our governors, health officials, school boards, and teacher-union bosses like Randi Weingarten, have done less damage to our children had we committed the mass pinky-stealing atrocity, than what we in fact have done?
Which is worse for a child in the long term? To lose 23% of their intelligence quotient score at a young age, given the fact that they will live in a modern society, or, to lose a pinky finger? The loss of a pinky would diminish grip in one hand, and the very fact of its being forcibly taken and consumed would be a deep indignity, with its absence a perpetual reminder of the initial trauma, but if you had to choose one of these two harms for your own child, which would you?
Our thought experiment assumes that the children in question would not suffer both harms, i.e., the choice is between a child suffering Queen Herodias’ harm, or the one we have inflicted. I say “we inflicted,” because my thought experiment rests on the assumption, I think an entirely true one, that even though we did not enjoy the clarity of decision that comes from having a wise Queen of absolute power, we could have exercised our best democratic abilities had we wanted, despite our corrupt elites, and chosen a significantly different policy that would have diminished many of the harms to child-development.
So this piece is not really a “Tale of Two Queens,” as it is clear from its outset that Herodias is evil, and Williams good. Rather, it is parable that compares us with a child-hating tyrant.
Its final question is this:
Who did worse, my fellow Americans? Us, or my imagined Queen Herodias?
I appreciate the Walker Percy touch!
Yeah, how come Americans have shown such cruelty to kids, makes you wonder...
I think Love in the ruins is the better novel, but since now America is apparently well stocked with Jeffrey Epsteins & Ghislaine Maxwells, Thanatos is the better beginning...