Vanessa Parra Suárez

Advance English Language I

24 July 2020
BACK TO ON-SITE CLASSES BY 2040

This year, the world has been facing a new pandemic called Covid-19. This virus has spread all over the

world and has caused many consequences in the different scopes of life, such as economy, health, employment, etc.

One of those is education. All the schools and universities had to close their doors and started implementing an

online class modality as a measure to help stop the spread of the virus and keep students and teachers save.

Anyways, in many countries there are schools that are opening their doors and starting normal classes. Even if this

is what is happening in other countries, we do not know what it is going to happen in the future in the school

system in Chile. However, it is very possible that by 2040, schools will re-open and classes are going to get back to

normal if the virus is controlled.

To carry out this scenario, the first step it is not just something that will help education but will be also

helpful for every scope that this pandemic has affected, this is the creation of the vaccine against the Covid-19.

Now many countries are working on a vaccine that can cure people from this virus. Many scientists think that a

“vaccine is likely to become widely available by mid-2021, about 12-18 months after the new virus, known

officially as Sars-CoV-2, first emerged.” (Gallagher, 2020, para. 11) Also, it is seen that in some countries, the

vaccine is in its last tests and are being used in some people. However, in Chile there will be some test of a

vaccine, which is MRNA-1273, which is still in phase II. Dr. O’Bryan (2020) an Infection Disease Specialist and

member of the Advisory Council COVID-19 said,

“If everything goes well and the vaccines show that they are more than reasonable safe and the efficacy
appears good, and the vaccine follows this path during the study, the Institute of Public Health could
eventually be considering the use of vaccines under this exceptional regimen, maybe within the first
semester of 2021. " (p.15)

If this vaccine is ready at the time that experts predict, by 2040 the virus should be under control in many

countries and schools can reopen but following some sanitary norms. Schools may be opened before 2040 and

students will restart going to face-to-face classes.

With the decrease of Covid-19 cases because of the vaccine, the government will decide to gradually open

schools and children can go back to on-site classes, but with some changes. The wish of reopening schools and not
continue through online classes comes from what it is seen in our current scenario. Because of our present reality in

relation to classes, it is noticed the big technological inequality that students have. According to Ingrid Quintana

(2020), students

“Report unequal availability and access to learning materials, library and computer supplies; problems of
technological access or Internet signal, problems of economic access of families to finance fees and / or
new expenses arising from the need to hire connectivity services, as well as the need for more training in
the use of inclusive information technologies to those who are part of the educational institution.” (p. 10)

As it was previously stated, not all families have availability to the different technological resources that are

necessary to use in an online class, and this inequality cannot be easy resolved by the government or schools. For

example, in the case of internet, there are families that live in very remote areas that they do not even have signal

for internet. Another reason that the government has to go back to on-site classes is the little training that teachers

have about teaching online. They were trained to teach in a real classroom, not by computer. In relation to the

present scenario, Juan Silva (2020), academic of the University of Chile said, “Education systems at all levels are

not prepared for distance education. The teachers were trained to give classes in person, not online, and were not

trained” (para.1). This fact of not having training in online classes can affect the learning of students and the work

of teachers.

It is for those reasons that, when the government see the cases of people with Covid-19 positive decrease,

either because of vaccine’s implementation or quarantine, and they can offer good sanitary conditions to study,

they will start with the process of getting back to classes. Once schools reopen, it would still be important to

practice the sanitary norms that we have now because in this scenario the virus will be just controlled but not

completely eliminated. Before the opening of schools, the people who are in charge of schools and the city

governments will have to implement some changes in school modality. One change for this reopening, it is the

gradual start of classes by year group, as Leopoldina (2020) recommends,

“Educational institutions should be reopened as soon as possible, although gradually and differentiated by
year group. The circumstances of each individual educational institution must be taken into account. For a
considerable period of time, all measures will have to be implemented in compliance with the regulations
concerning hygiene, physical distancing, mouth and nose protection, testing, and rigorous application of
quarantining.” (p.12)

As a way to do this, schools must began with one group of students, then another and so on, in order to have

time to reorganize school places and classrooms. This also will help to continue with the social distancing because
by having less students in the school it would be easier to control the distance and respect the sanitary norms in the

first weeks of classes. In addition, children would also have to wear masks in schools, maintain distance from each

other in order to continue with the social distancing and wash their hands constantly, because, “Social distancing

techniques, along with careful hygiene, cleaning, and use of quarantine, can reduce the spread of disease in

schools.” (Melnick, et al., 2020, p. 1)

Also, the first week of classes attendance would be optional, especially for those who have health issues. As

it is the reopening of classes, many parents can be reluctant to let their kids go to school, even if the pandemic is

controlled, so in order to not have problems, the attendance would be optional for the first week. As it has

happened in other countries, “on-site school attendance has generally been voluntary for all students in the first

wave of reopening. Denmark and Norway, for example, have made on-site student attendance optional for the

2020–21 school year.” (Melnick, et al., 2020, p. 4) This option lead parents to see if there is no problem with the

opening of schools and can give a margin to see what sanitary norms schools are implementing.

In the next year, if there is not another pandemic and there is not another Covid-19 outbreak, schools can

return back to normal and start having classes but, still trying to have a little distance between one another. This

can be difficult considering the class sizes that we have in Chile, but schools should try to accommodate their

students in a way that class sizes can be reduced or at least, student’s desk can be separated from one and other.

One scenario of this can be the change and reduction of class hours plus the division of classes into morning

classes and afternoon classes. In that way, schools can reduce the amount of students in a classroom and just have

different schedules. The aim of this is that students can receive the contents by going to school and stay safe

because of the distancing in classroom. The reduction of class hours or the suspension of full school day, was tried

in 2010, after the earthquake, the government allowed the diminution of school hours in order to make schools

share the building with other schools. This same thing can be done in this scenario but instead of sharing with

people from other schools, students from the same school will have classes at different times.

All these actions will be for the first couple of years of this new normality in schools. This scenario may

happen after the distribution of the vaccine and the beginning of a new normality. It is a slow process but with the

passage of the years, classes in 2040 would be just on-site, unless some things or problems happen.
 Even if in 2040 classes will be on-site, teachers would have to be prepared in case of a new outbreak of

Covid-19 or a new pandemic. Thanks to the big pandemic that we are facing in the current scenario, many

scientists are investigating the possibility of a new global pandemic. David Murdoch (2020) says,

“In the next few decades, we will likely see other pandemics. We can predict that with reasonable
confidence because of the recent increased frequency of major epidemics (such as SARS and Ebola), and
because of social and environmental changes driven by humans that may have contributed to COVID-19’s
emergence.”(para.2)
The predictions say that a new pandemic can happen in a few decades, so by 2040 or after that year it is

possible to experience a new one. As we can see, we are not free of a new dangerous pandemic. It is for that

reason that teachers and schools have to be prepared in case of a new pandemic.

In a scenario in which a new pandemic happens by 2040, “schools may need to be prepared for distance

learning in situations in which schools need to close temporarily to prevent further spread of the virus.” (Melnick,

et al., 2020, p. 4). Teachers have to be prepared for everything, and by 2040, they will have the special training in

TICs and, thanks to this pandemic of Covid-19, they would be able to know how to work online, in order to do an

efficient online class if it is required. By that year, “online and offline (teacher) education cannot be thought of

without each other” (Jandrić, et al., 2018, p. 4) because in the case of a new pandemic, teachers have to be

prepared to change their modality again. Consequently, in 2040, the teaching program courses should have new

subjects where students are taught about how to teach an online class in order to deliver all the knowledge in a

correct way to all their future students in the case of a new pandemic. As Arriagada Toledo (2020) stated, the

current pandemic of Covid- 19 will lead to a

“Revision of the curriculum for initial training in teaching careers, with a view to promoting the
acquisition of technological management tools, technical-pedagogical knowledge to incorporate
collaborative learning practices, project-based learning, which allow flexibility in the curricular processes,
such as transversality in the learning objectives” (p.3)
Making possible the idea of a new curriculum for future students of teaching programs that can be focus not

just in teach how to teach in classrooms but also how to do it online.

Coming back to classes will be a large process in which schools will have to manage the followed of a new

normality after the virus. This scenario showed the process of how to get to the reopening of schools because of the

decrease of cases in a couple of years and showing that by 2040, classes will be on-site again. The fact that classes

will come back to normal in a few years will just be possible if people follow the sanitary norms that we have in
our current scenario, such as social distancing, quarantine, the wearing of masks and washing hands. Even if we

have a vaccine that can help to decrease the cases of Covid-19 positive and can become a plus to think about

reopen schools, how we take care of ourselves is crucial. As it was presented in this scenario, even if schools go

back to normal, by 2040 students will have to follow those rules and schools will have to ensure that there will be

no problems of infection, because that will be part of our new life. Nobody can predict if the virus will completely

disappear but, as it was stated above, it can be controlled with the necessary regulations. Knowing that the

reopened after the decrease of cases and the implementation of the new vaccine will lead to the reopening of

schools in a few years is very important. If we go back to school now it will be risky but in a few years it shouldn’t

be a big problem. By knowing beforehand, parents can have time to teach their children the new norms that we

have to follow as a society and that they also will have to follow when coming back to school. In the case of the

other scenario presented in this essay, which is a possible new pandemic by 2040 or in a few decades, people

should be prepared and aware of the things and rules that will have to follow if this happen. Also, people since

now, should be training in the technology area, just as the teacher’s example that was presented in this scenario, in

which they by 2040 will have more training and be will be prepare for classes online. For those reasons, thinking

about how it is going to be the future through scenarios can be useful to prepare ourselves for this new reality.
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