Academia’s State Between Pandemics
As schools around the world rush to reopen classes, let us look at how they might look like by drawing parallels from the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic, an outbreak that is similar in nature to the current COVID-19 pandemic, which also had schools close and reopen within it happening.
In the span of a hundred years, medical technology has seen a lot of progress; however, the opposite ends of this period saw worldwide pandemics that had comparably similar impacts to our schools — namely, the Spanish Flu outbreak of the 20th century and the COVID-19 outbreak of 2020. Both pandemics saw school closures and emergency measures in place to prevent further spread of both viruses. However, the Spanish Flu outbreak revolutionized the way schools emphasize health and wellbeing by emphasizing the importance of school nurses and health reforms around the world. On the opposite side of the spectrum, what will the COVID-19 pandemic mean to Philippine schools slated to reopen classes?
One of the noticeable immediate effects of the ongoing pandemic is the shift to an online mode of education. When COVID-19 began to spread like wildfire, many were worried about the health of schoolchildren and faculty. Thus, face-to-face classes were prohibited, causing some schools to end the academic year 2019–2020 prematurely. However, continuing the pursuit of education, the Department of Education shifted to different modes of teaching, most notably the online and televised mediums, slating the opening of the school year 2020–2021 on August 24, later moved to October 5.
The shift to a non-interpersonal medium of education was not possible during the H1N1 outbreak when the Internet or television was not widespread. Instead, the Spanish Flu pandemic forced reformists to adapt schools into friendlier environments, with clean, airy spaces for children to go around. It also ushered in lunch programs for students and emphasized the importance of outdoor learning. These school reforms came after the realization that while education is significant, life and health are ‘more important.’
In line with this epiphany, schools both then and now take steps to ensure the medical safety of their students amid outbreaks. As a matter of fact, it was also the Spanish Flu outbreak that emphasized the importance of regular medical examinations that are evident today in schools. At a time when school closures are everywhere, some cities relied heavily on regular medical inspection, thus emphasizing the significance of sanitation and bacteriology in the schools’ medical systems over the ‘non-pharmaceutical’ solution of school closures. It was in these programs that made these cities give better funding to their citywide healthcare systems, thus making them more prepared to handle the worst of the pandemic by the fall of 1918.
More than 100 years later, however, the significance of hygiene seemed to have waned with advances in medicine. Thus, with the rise of COVID-19, academia will likely revisit these tactics, integrating further the importance of hygiene and proper health etiquette in Philippine education systems usually sidelined in the Music, Arts, Physical Education, and Health (MAPEH) subject. Medical inspections and awareness will likely be commonplace as well as schools try to avoid becoming the new hotbeds for future outbreaks when face-to-face classes do return.
Furthermore, with the awareness of mental health issues that plague the common populace today, academia will also likely highlight the importance of mental wellbeing among its students and even teachers and parents as they recover from the effects of the pandemic.
Finally, though separated by a full century, the two pandemics made important the role of school nurses. First introduced in 1902, school nurses began to be employed everywhere after studies indicated that school nurses cut abstention rates by half. These nurses would later play a key role against the Spanish Flu outbreak as children went to school, with some city officials noting that ‘constant observation of a qualified individual’ gave students some degree of relief.
Today, just as with the Spanish Flu, the COVID-19 pandemic emphasizes the significance of school nurses. While they may not be able to watch over students because of the lack of face-to-face classes, their presence will be reassuring to students when they do go back to school as everyone else recovers from the effects of the pandemic.
In the span of 100 years, medical technology has advanced a lot; however, alongside medicine, education has evolved too. When the Spanish Flu rocked the world, academia was at a standstill as the world locked down. On the opposite side of the spectrum, COVID-19 has left academia in the uncertainty of what to do next.
Education is a flexible institution, a flawed system with lots of room for improvement and leeway, yet whose aims to better the wellbeing of humanity, both medical and holistic, have outlasted even the Black Death.
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