What self-isolating future? In the USA, as soon as coronavirus blows over the boss will say: "Okay, back to work. I need you in the office during core business hours." And hour+ long commutes will come back with a vengeance. It's part of American work culture. It's a form of virtue signalling. By showing up at the office every workday, early in the morning, you are indicating your commitment to the company and to del…
Our Self-Isolating Future: How working from home could reshape society
131–140 of 159 posts
Re: Our Self-Isolating Future: How working from home could reshape society
#132But a lot of people treat work as more than a transaction. That's fair but not for everyone.
Re: Our Self-Isolating Future: How working from home could reshape society
#133Outside of young, childless tech workers, this sudden remote work experiment is not going well for most people I know. This isn’t the controlled trial of remote work that these think pieces suggest. Instead, everyone is forcefully stuck at home without time to prepare. Parents are juggling childcare with getting work done, while fighting an uphill battle against IT systems that weren’t prepared for everyone going WFH…
It’s also been a week . Like you said, this is anything but a controlled experiment. People are trying to push through a lot of psychological stress right now. Families are suddenly responsible for homeschooling — 2 young kids and a toddler in our case. It’s a lot. If people look back at this period and use it to judge the effective remote work is, that would be pretty ridiculous. (Of course, some people who are fund…
I was a homeschooling parent and was, briefly, on the board of directors and the lead mod for an educational organization because of it.
Most people overestimate how much work they need to put into homeschooling. They think they need to teach their kids like eight hours a day because that's how long they are in school usually and they feel overwhelmed.
This is not true.
One article I read years ago indicated that after standing in line, changing classes, doing lunch, having roll call, etc was accounted for, students in public school spent between one and three hours a day on actual learning.
Similarly, under California law (back in the day), one legal option for homeschooling was to hire a tutor for three hours a day. Not eight. Just three.
Public school teachers typically deal with classes of twenty or more students. Homeschooling parents have a much better student-teacher ratio and the one-on-one teaching is much more intensive than public school education.
You and your children will both experience rapid burnout if you try to spend eight hours a day actively teaching them. You don't need to and you really shouldn't. It's an unsustainable pace.
You can check Learn in Freedom for ideas etc, authored by tokenadult https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=tokenadult (he's a teacher by profession, but homeschooled his own kids):
Re: Our Self-Isolating Future: How working from home could reshape society
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
Bias warning: I am a public school teacher myself. And this is also exactly what I feel the people who are now pushing for online schooling in general don't get (apart from the fact there's a non-negligible part of the population that doesn't have consistent/good internet access). There's a lot more to school than just going and learning 'stuff that doesn't affect real life', as some seem to believe. It's about socia…
Because maybe in their experience - it definitely was in mine - it didn't happen at all in school. I always disliked school because of the other students that got in the way of my peaceful life. Never had a single friend throughout school and college, either. Maybe you think social learning just happens by putting kids together, but that's bullshit. People like me who'd needed it the most didn't get any of it during…
If you never had a friend all the way through college, you are nowhere the majority.
Re: Our Self-Isolating Future: How working from home could reshape society
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was talking with a friend and former educator last night. She's been thinking about the child care and homeschooling issue a fair amount; how parents can organize their day (such as when to take lunch) to best care for their kids. Then, a lot of performing arts folks I know are trying to find work, and one of the suggestions is remote nanny'ing (aka, entertaining your kids over video), I think there's an opportunit…
As in Stephenson's Diamond Age .
As a parent it would need to be FOSS though.
Re: Our Self-Isolating Future: How working from home could reshape society
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
I realized after I had kids that a huge amount of "new urbanist" thought is driven by the young and childless and does not incorporate the needs of people with children or of children themselves. This falls under the same category. Without child care or some place for the children to go, it's absolutely impossible to work from home. If only one parent works it can be done, but if both parents have to telework it's a…
It sort of makes you wonder where we went wrong. Other social forms had children integrated into the things adults do.
when we moved from communal intergenerational lifestyles to the insular nuclear family. David brooks wrote a great piece about it.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/03/the-nuc...
Re: Our Self-Isolating Future: How working from home could reshape society
#137Outside of young, childless tech workers, this sudden remote work experiment is not going well for most people I know. This isn’t the controlled trial of remote work that these think pieces suggest. Instead, everyone is forcefully stuck at home without time to prepare. Parents are juggling childcare with getting work done, while fighting an uphill battle against IT systems that weren’t prepared for everyone going WFH…
Parents already get so many additional benefits at work compared to those without children, plus all the excuses to not do work/leave early. It’s discrimination.
I don’t feel sorry for them at all.
Re: Our Self-Isolating Future: How working from home could reshape society
#138Outside of young, childless tech workers, this sudden remote work experiment is not going well for most people I know. This isn’t the controlled trial of remote work that these think pieces suggest. Instead, everyone is forcefully stuck at home without time to prepare. Parents are juggling childcare with getting work done, while fighting an uphill battle against IT systems that weren’t prepared for everyone going WFH…
»8:45 each weekday morning, I drop off my four-year-old at preschool, hug him goodbye, and drive back home». Well, in that case it wouldn’t be a challenge at all for us. Here kindergarten and schools are closed, and it’s quite a challenge to produce full workdays whilst taking care of two little ones at home.
Re: Our Self-Isolating Future: How working from home could reshape society
#139Oh this life i chose is so hard. Potty me. Let me barely work, but still collect my entire paycheck.
Booooohoooooo
Re: Our Self-Isolating Future: How working from home could reshape society
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was playing it safe and assuming a family adding one more room to a multi-room house. The 10% is on the low side. Where I live, it's an extra $100,000 between a 3 bedroom house and a 4 bedroom (or adding a bonus room), and then bump that up another $50,000 for the total cost after mortgage interest, utilities, etc. But nobody (that goes into an office) seems to want to believe it costs $150,000 to work from home (b…
Add TWO rooms to that house. It sounds like you live in an area with inexpensive housing. Folks who rent face an entirely different economic reality.