Thoughts of a former minister of education from WWII

Romania's minister of education during the second world war was Ion Petrovici. His thoughts on education were that even in war school has to continue independent of the problems that the country passes through. He believed that this continuation has to be on equal, steady ground and not be conquered by hardships. In consequence, he surrounded himself with like-minded colleagues who understood the importance of education in spite of the times.*

My grandmother taught mathematics in this period close to the front lines in Balti, Basarabia. All state employees would go through regular pay-cuts also known as sacrificial curves, which meant sometimes they would get paid and at other times they would not, but work and sacrifice went on. She would teach in the day-time and volunteer to help with the wounded after school-time was over. When I was growing up she did not dwell on memories, but did the best she could for us and for the myriad of pets that we brought home. However, as her time came near the end, she did not want a TV or radio or other forms of noise. She would spend the hours reliving her own life. She would see the people she interacted with again, as they were then, and be angry with some of them, and still feel guilty that she did not do enough for others. From her time as a volunteer, her strongest memory was that of a child without external injuries who came to the field hospital only to die in her arms. All she could do was hug him, and at the time she almost felt that the hug could give him life. She also remembered hugging me when I fainted at 10 months old in the same way, and shaking hands with Ion Antonescu who thanked her for her service.

Today we no longer consider education as essential. Before educators struggled to keep kids off the streets. Now, we struggle with keeping them off their phones and are yet happier with online learning since it involves fewer risks and often less effort on both sides. Will the COVID-19 depression be as bottomless as that in the 1930s? will we make it this time?

* Some of Ion Petrovici's thoughts were written down by Ion Zamfirescu in "Oameni pe care i-am cunoscut" ("People I have known"). Ion Zamfirescu, himself, was one of the personalities of the 20th century. He writes how Ion Petrovici asks for his help at the ministry. Also, mentioned is his time as a silent pallbearer for Nicolae Iorga -- the man who outlawed the extreme right movement in 1932 and opposed both fascism and communism. No verbal tribute was allowed in Romania after Iorga's torture and murder by the Iron Guard. The murder outraged the world. More than 40 universities world-wide raised their flag in Iorga's honor... but the war and injustices continued.

How does Ion Petrovici compare with ministers from our time? Well... he was capable and talented -- a person to admire -- whose work lived on independent of politics. At home he studied with/learned from Titu Maiorescu and Nicolae Iorga, while abroad he attended lectures by Wilhelm Wundt and Hans Volkelt in Leipzig and by Friedrich Paulsen, Wilhelm Dilthey and Alois Riehl. 

He stopped writing from 1940 when fascism came to power till 1966. In this period he was sentenced to 10 years of hard labor and once he returned to deportation in Baragan. After all this, he retained his sanity, and had the strength to continue to write about Kant's philosophy and about his own life.  Our leaders can't speak properly -- and often if they publish it's a copy of somebody else's work.

What do antibody tests say? Results from Ischgl

Comprehensive tests were done for 1473 people (1259 adults, 241 children) between April 21st to 27th. These are 79% of the population of Ischgl. 42.4% of them were found to have antibodies, which is 6x more than those that tested positive earlier via PCR tests. This means 85% had Covid19 were asymptomatic. However, herd immunity still cannot be assumed. The majority of cases was of age 18-60 years. They will do more tests to see if the antibodies were retained. Two people died from the pandemic and 9 were hospitalized, which is consistent with Mihai's estimate.

This article was translated and pointed out by Werner.

To teach or not to teach -- in person?

 Students at all levels consider online teaching to be sub-par education. This is especially true in the US, where education is so expensive. I happen to agree with the students. We already have a problem in that people of all ages spend too much time online, and the COVID-19 rules have exacerbated this problem. I see this with David first hand -- who can no longer be separated from his phone. The most important part of the college experience and of school is social interaction. The networks one builds and the friends one makes play an important role not only in how we make use of the knowledge acquired, but also in motivating us to acquire the aforesaid knowledge in the first place. Teenagers particularly seem to need their peers in order to study since it's an age when they no longer listen to their family. This being said, online teaching is a tool just like books are tools, and the COVID-19 environment offers us an opportunity to perfect this tool.

What about heath risks? How deadly is COVID-19?

The highest death rate in the world was in NY and NJ. There the COVID-19 deaths reported per million was close to or slightly over 1700, which imply a death rate 0.17% -- slightly under Mihai's 0.2% estimate from early data of the pandemic. Mihai did a more careful estimate, and ended up with similar numbers within a factor of 2. The number of new deaths in these states is close to zero today -- they have flattened the curve. If Mihai's estimate is correct, this would be because a form of herd immunity has been reached in populated areas of NY and NJ, where a second wave is not expected. Other states, however, have catching up to do. Of course, the numbers will vary based on factors such as population distribution, its poverty, and heath, and likely on the weather, too. Air conditioning systems play a primary role in transmissions in states such as CA and AZ.

Anyhow, if all states are to reach the NY and NJ death rate, more will die -- and we will see that if the counting continues. Of course, if the death rate is higher, things will be worse everywhere.

In the US the number of cases are roughly 10000/million, which is about 1%. The number of deaths so far are 400 per million, which is 0.04% -- a factor of 5 off from Mihai's 0.2%. If 4 to 5 times more people have to die, that is scary. The hope is that they missed many asymptomatic carriers. They would have to have missed 60 times the number of cases for moderate safety from COVID-19. This is not impossible since it seems that over 80% of people are asymptomatic. However, most predict a second wave is expected in the fall.

Can we create a safe environment? e.g., put the professor behind a plastic screen like we do with those who sell in stores, make the groups of students smaller to maintain some form of distancing, and so on. 

I would say this is not realistic -- just like it's not realistic to maintain spacing in flights. If one thinks of first and second year classes, where there are hundreds of students, the proposal is to split the students in smaller groups. This means much more teaching in the same room, which cannot effectively be cleaned. Teaching many times in a row is tiring, and it's unclear the chances of getting sick would be smaller than teaching once in front of a larger group of people. On the other hand, splitting students in smaller groups results in more attention to each individual, which is good for the student. It's, however, a question of having enough professors to do this effectively without overworking them.

The average age of a full professor is 55 in the US. This puts them in the higher risk zone. While many are healthier than the average US population, the risk is still there. Andy said that the director/dean who forces professors to go back to teaching should attend every funeral personally. I hope it won't come to that. Also, note that while professors are mostly old, and some have pre-existent conditions, not all who teach are full professors -- many are not.

Given the correlation between age and mortality, perhaps a solution would be to have the teaching in person done by those who are younger, and can meet with multiple groups of students without getting sick.

 

Is education an essential service? Well... it was seen so in WWI and WWII. Independent of how many bombs fell, and of what happened politically, schools continued to teach.

Should education continue during a pandemic independent of the price paid? It's hard to say. NYC kept schools open during the 1918 pandemic. They said it kept children off the streets. Now, school keeps children off their phone IF done in person. The children who spend a lot of time on their phone are absent and cannot see around themselves anymore. This zombie child/young person of the 21st century is more scary to me than the pandemic itself. Young people should have goals and should want to do things, and somehow the various mobile devices are more often robbing them of a future instead of enabling one. Of course, the phone is tool as is the computer -- tools that are being misused.

What about Romania?

Romania has had 20-30 recorded deaths a day at the peak of the pandemic. The average number who die daily is 800 due to all causes. While there is a second peak, so far the numbers are small, and well within the ability of the system to handle them. For example, Odobescu and Bega -- the two major state hospitals that specialize in Obstetrics and Gynecology in Timisoara -- have split work: Odobescu handles the cases with negative COVID-19 results and Bega handles the ones with positive COVID-19 results. So far I've been told the number of births Bega handled has been zero.

Most things have opened -- not schools because it's summer -- but I hope the relaxation will continue. As of today, it seems that quarantine is no longer enforced and even people with a positive COVID-19 test can go home after signing a form that they have conditions to isolate, but that it is now a recommendation and since it's not a law it can no longer be enforced. Since we had very few cases we could afford to hospitalize every one of them. However, Germany and other countries in Western Europe have only hospitalized cases that needed treatment. So, it may be that there won't be many repercussions from Romania finally taking the same approach.

Most of Eastern Europe is in a similar situation with relatively low numbers of COVID-19 deaths, and secondary peaks occurring. These are peaks in the noise relative to what happened in most of Western Europe or America.

Storms, floods and inches of freedom

me and James in the river

A strange bug -- saved by Edward

June has been the rainiest month in the past 60 years. Our president blamed the heavy rains on climate change and he is likely correct. A dam broke on the Timis river and so they closed the iron bridge, which is one of the two main bridges in Lugoj. However, by the end of June, the water has mostly retreated and the danger seems passed. The clouds were dense enough that the sun did not have power for more than two weeks. It felt like fall instead of summer. The rain was impressive -- it was the heaviest rain I have witnessed to date. It rained so hard that there was ankle deep water in the garden and this happened every day, several times a day. Seven of the chickens and our three baby ducks fainted due to exposure to the cold rain water. We managed to revive the ducks and four of the chickens with the hairdryer.  This was the driest year for decades because it also did not snow in the winter or rain in the spring, and then it became rainiest with all rain happening almost at once. The fields were flooded in many places as was our garden in Salbagel. There were frogs everywhere. The children played in the garden instead of at the river. It's been a year to remember.

With COVID-19 discussions about climate change came to a halt. World-wide farms and produce have been destroyed. This is not seen as important -- it's just the economy and lives -- human ones -- matter more. Every once in a while an article makes it to the media about cruelty on farms where animals are destroyed in even crueler ways than before because there are not enough people to handle the individual destruction. Germany and the US closed some  big meat processing plants. Then the men-power to slaughter each animal is gone. It's so much easier to destroy than to give away produce since no infrastructure in place for getting rid of 'excess' produce that is not perfectly packaged and warranted. Of course, all excesses are local maxima, meaning need can be found pretty close to the place of 'excess'.

Farms in Romania has been spared as far as the COVID-19 outbreak went. Agriculture went on -- it suffered from drought, and from the floods, and soon it will be suffering from extreme heat combined with occasional heavy rainfalls, but it was not closed because of the pandemic. The number of COVID-19 deaths were minimal -- did not surpass 20-30 per day (to put this in perspective, the daily death is 800 per day on average due to all other causes combined; so COVID-19 has been negligible to date) -- and now there is a secondary peak in the number of cases. The government is discussing more restrictions instead of the relaxation that was promised with the 1st of July. So far we travel freely and are not locked in. Most stores are opened as are restaurants. They are discussing closing touristic areas since they think most spreading happens there -- it would be another blow to an already struggling industry when countries like Spain and Italy are putting COVID-19 behind and are trying to attract tourists.

The borders opened to most European countries and flights restarted without quarantine. Andy managed to squeeze through after four canceled flights -- once he gave up on a direct flight from the UK and flew through Germany. We debated flying through Serbia and/or Hungary. We, however, were worried about the randomness of the measured that change from day to day and by the lack of regular transportation from the airports. So, he chose to go through Germany, which is the safe/known route. He is now in self-quarantine in Chizatau -- he has 9 days left of almost quiet time.

David was allowed to take his final exam and should start highschool next year. However, the long time spent on the computer and on the phone due to this pandemic affected his ability to function properly. His room looks like that of a drug addict and his behavior is not much better. So, once school finished I took his phone and computer away. I now hope that in time the situation will improve. To be a role model, I also put my computer and my red phone away. We both have cracked phone for calls...and no other means of communications. I cheated today to write this blog post. He keeps reminding me every day he wants a new phone. I pray and hope that in time he will get over this and have actual goals in mind beyond gadgets and toys.