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My kid can’t handle a virtual education, and neither can I

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Re: My kid can’t handle a virtual education, and neither can I

#101

Post by ativzzz »

actfrench wrote: post #31

In my opinion, the issue here isn't virtual learning (the what), the issue is how we are doing virtual learning (the how). We can't use zoom the way we use a physical classroom. It's a totally different medium. I teach a group of kindergarteners online every morning for 3 hours. The first thing we do is make sure their space is set up to allow for movement. They can jump up move, around, wiggle, whatever they want. I…

It's great that you are a technology-savvy teacher who is capable of taking advantage of these tools. Unfortunately, a large number of teachers and school districts do not have the skills, resources, or leadership to support this kind of experience for their students and teachers.

Most school districts would need

1. the desire to transform the way they teach

2. the leadership capable of driving this change

3. the teachers who are tech-savvy or capable of learning these technologies/skills (many aren't!)

Re: My kid can’t handle a virtual education, and neither can I

#102

Post by Nasrudith »

actfrench wrote: post #64

A glaring irony for me here is that historically, wealthier families have significantly more access to online courses. Rather than being the great force for democratization of education we all hoped for, research shows they are privileging the elite. What if we worked to expand access to online courses and improve them for all? https://edlab.tc.columbia.edu/blog/18957-MOOCs-Are-Not-the-S...

Working to expand and improve is a worthy goal. I believe before the lockdown it remained an under invested niche for those not suitable for the existing schooling like outright remote (rural to even rural), very ill children, or those who had especially severe social issues from the "Lord of the Flies/prison run by the prisoners dynamic" dysfunctional norm structure of schools and bullying. It was viewed as the worse option especially for corner cases before it got forced into primetime at scale.

On a side note you clearly didn't mean it in the negative sense but the rhetoric of "arbitrary option for improvement technology/advance is privileging the elite" bugs me as very zero sum. If any ammount of additional resources can yield at least a smaller edge then by definition the elite can perform better. The only alternative to that situation category is "no additional human effort can help". The framing in effect spitefully disregards the masses of "non-elite" both within and without access to the option and implicitly dismisses anything which helps because another gets helped more.

Re: My kid can’t handle a virtual education, and neither can I

#104

Post by danShumway »

dpcan wrote: post #65
mumblemumble wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If, by "a little time", you mean a few years, until they're psychologically developed enough that you can expect this of them. "The way we need them to learn" strikes me as a very telling choice of words. This is a moment where we need to be meeting their needs, not just molding them to our expectations.

My son had to miss pre-school when he was 4. I created a home-based program (week to week) where we learned everything I could find that would normally be in a regular pre-school curriculum. We worked for 3 hours every morning "studying", and he was 4. I made it fun. I made it productive. We took breaks. We had snacks. We had recess. It worked. By the end of the summer, he was reading and more prepared for Kindergart…

Effectively, what you're advocating for is that parents should all homeschool their children.

Which... I mean, that's a position some people advocate for. But if every parent was equipped to do that, then their kids wouldn't have been in public school in the first place.

Re: My kid can’t handle a virtual education, and neither can I

#105

Post by einarfd »

A lot of people complain about Zoom fatigue, and while on one hand I'm fairly happy that it is a competitors offering that has ended up with being a part of that moniker, and not the product I'm working on, it is somewhat unfair to blame Zoom or the software stack for that. The main culprit for messing up meetings are the cameras and the microphones on laptops. I'm not sure if there are any vendors at all, including Apple which is the laptop vendor I use, which has god quality camera and microphones on their kit. I'm lucky enough to work in a group where everyone has dedicated video conferencing kit, and this makes a big difference. The quality gap between someone on system with proper camera and microphones, and someone calling in on laptop is huge. I get that not everyone can go out and buy dedicated kit, and maybe the dedicated kit don't work with you video conferencing vendor. But getting the people you work with on a decent USB camera with inbuilt microphones, is something everyone should have a look at. The chances are high it will make your days more pleasant.

When It comes to five year olds doing schooling over video conferencing. I'm far from an expert on kids, I don't have kids and I don't want kids. But it does sound to me like a fools errand, and I'm super happy I'm not going to participate in that nightmare.

Re: My kid can’t handle a virtual education, and neither can I

#106

Post by throwaways885 »

codefreakxff wrote: post #13

Wow. Agree with all the other comments. I read the whole article, and there is some next level self-centered entitlement here that has wholly passed on to "Raffi" the 5 year old who is only now learning not to deliberately make his little brother cry, and who has learned that spitting his drink on a laptop makes mommy and daddy take him to the park. While I want to empathize with the parents, the fact that they blame…

Maybe have have some empathy for the parents who are working from home, before you start insulting their parenting?

Of course the 7 year old is acting out, but it's probably more to do with being stuck in a box/house all day with no interaction with their friends. And no, Zoom calls don't class as interaction for kids. This child desperately needs to play outside, not stuck behind a blurry screen learning maths.

Re: My kid can’t handle a virtual education, and neither can I

#107

Post by baq »

causality0 wrote: post #17

hit his parents, hit his brother, broke things, and spat a cup of juice all over my laptop. Barring some kind of psychiatric problem like ODD, that's a significant failure of discipline, the responsibility for which lies squarely on the shoulders of the parent. I would not trust any kind generalized behavioral prediction from someone who can't keep a five year old from striking their siblings and intentionally destro…

you either don't have kids plural or won the lottery.

Re: My kid can’t handle a virtual education, and neither can I

#108

Post by bcrosby95 »

tboyd47 wrote: post #35

I just pulled my own kids out of public school because I can't stomach it either. I can't in good conscience subject my kids to 6 hours of online class 5 days a week. Whether or not you want to judge me for feeling this way or call me nasty names, "psychic torture" is exactly how I'd describe the solution these educators have come up with.

Our first week was rough. But our school came up with a much better schedule for our kindergartener.

Class is now from 8:20-9am, meet in small group with the teacher for 30 minutes (time depends upon your group), then closing instruction at 12:45pm-1:15pm.

The rest of the time is "self study". Basically, you have assignments you need to do and complete with your kid. You can do it during self study time. Or at night. Or whenever.

The first week they tried to do 8:20-11:10 (with 10 minute breaks every 50 minutes) of instruction. It really didn't work. This new schedule has been much more feasible to deal with.

Re: My kid can’t handle a virtual education, and neither can I

#109

Post by vkou »

dj_mc_merlin wrote: post #40

All of these comments make me think HN has never interacted with a 5 year old. Adults are barely able to make it through a day of Zoom meetings without feeling drained, how do you expect an almost toddler to react when forced to sit in front of a screen? The only reasons adults can do it is years and years of learning impulse controls and suppression of bad emotions for everyone's good. A 5 year old does not have the…

> how do you expect an almost toddler to react when forced to sit in front of a screen?

The same way that you expect a kid to sit more-or-less still, and not-too-disruptively in a classroom with 29 other children for 6 hours a day.

When they, to the surprise of absolutely nobody, can't, we diagnose them with ADHD and give them a Ritalin patch.

I get it. Remote learning isn't great. It's worse than in-person learning, which isn't a high bar to begin with. Unfortunately, in-person learning currently carries with it the risk of death and disability to teachers. We could have taken some steps to deal with that risk, three months ago (Smaller classes, isolating students from teachers, training glorified babysitters who aren't over the age of 50 to mind classes during non-instruction time, etc), but it seems that all of our leaders and planners were convinced that this COVID thing would blow over by August.

Re: My kid can’t handle a virtual education, and neither can I

#110

Post by throwaways885 »

dpcan wrote: post #70
coderholic wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the point is it can't be done. I think it's just acknowledging that it's HARD. Both for the kids, and the parents.

What the hell is wrong with HARD???? Why is everyone so lazy? We are going backwards as a society. I was raised thinking that if it wasn't hard to do, it wasn't worth doing. Every uphill path should not be looked at as an arduous journey, but as an adventure with an amazing reward at the top.

I like your take on life - thanks for reminding me of this little fact.
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