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

theatlantic.com

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

#391

Post by lowbloodsugar »

Miraste wrote: post #202
actfrench wrote: post #91

It's slightly amusing to me that people are upset kids are "forced to sit still" in zoom as if the didn't have just as much trouble being "forced to sit still" in traditional classroom environments. The big difference is that parents weren't around to see how much suffering this very unnatural forcing of kids to sit still was causing them. A lot of schools have 30 minutes of recess if they're lucky. All kids, especia…

While I agree with your broader point, kinesthetic learning isn't real [0], and modeling education on the idea of learning styles can be harmful [1]. [0] https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/04/the-myth... [1] https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2019/05/learning-sty...

VARK might not be real, but ADHD is and if someone attempts to force my youngest to sit still it doesn't go well for anyone. OTOH let him move while setting boundaries has worked wonders.

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

#392

Post by easytiger »

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…

HN has a lot of users who will say and do anything to denigrate in person attendee workplaces

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

#394

Post by 29athrowaway »

Zoom is not a replacement for a classroom. You can switch tasks from Zoom to something else, like a game, web browser, or any other distraction.

But in some ways, Zoom could be better. You can mute people that interrupt the class, or simply remove them from the meeting, preventing them from disrupting everyone else. And you have a chat where you can keep asynchronous discussions.

Yet, schools are far from perfect, and standardization is not necessarily beneficial. The current way students are grouped results in kids with behavioral problems being grouped with well behaved students, to the detriment of both.

One group gets their bad behavior reinforced, and the other group gets slowed down and demoralized. It doesn't have to be that way.

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

#395

Post by pfortuny »

megablast wrote: post #249
function_seven wrote: post #26

I'm amazed how dismissive all the comments are here. I read the article and it seems totally normal for a little kid not to be able to do "school" on a laptop. Kindergarten is so much different than later years of schooling. It's not about lectures and subjects, or homework and tests. It's about much more fundamental lessons, interspersed with creativity, socialization, and learning to be separated from your parents.…

What is your brilliant solution then??? This is clearly the best we can do know.

This is the first thing that came to mind, not the best we can do.

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

#396

Post by obmelvin »

dpcan wrote: post #241
james_s_tayler wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, so the original comment is predicated on the assumption that all adults are capable of doing that for their kids. Some are. Some aren't. Same goes for the kids.

I'm saying that all adults are capable of making distance learning work for their kids. They CAN do it, but it will be HARD.

Some parents are ESL with low literacy rates and little access to technology in their homes. It's very privileged to preach to such people and tell them they need to just get over it, stop complaining, do the hard work.

Not everyone lives the same life as you.

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

#397

Post by forgotmypw17 »

I don't have kids of my own, but I know parents, and I was also parented when I was a child.

I think part of the problem is that the adult is expected to still put in 40 hours a week while raising a child, which is not easy, especially when you only have 2 parents.

I was lucky enough to be raised in a family where one parent stayed home, and it made my childhood so much more richer than if I had gone to kindergarten and followed the standard programs those years.

My parents remembered the programs from their childhood, and did not want me in there.

I grew up in USSR, but I don't think it's that much different in the U.S.

"Public education" teaches kids to conform, submit, normalize, and suppress their own imagination and enthusiasm. I don't think it's worth the "socialization", which can be accomplished in many other ways.

But even worse, the conditioning forces children to develop an inner dialogue, something many adults spend the rest of their lives trying to silence.

I am grateful to my parents for letting me have quiet time for thinking and reflection when I was a child.

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

#398

Post by yibg »

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.

So why don’t we make everything as hard as possible? Ditch the washing machine, wash your clothes by hand. Skip the grocery store, go hunt for your food instead.

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

#400

Post by tonyedgecombe »

war1025 wrote: post #280
Shared404 wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At an elementary school near me they would only get to do recess on Fridays, and that's assuming they behaved.

The more I hear about public schools the more I understand the outrage against public education.

You should qualify that with American public education, there are lots of countries in the world that do better. In fact the country at the top of the table has pretty much banned private education.
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