Kids learn a lot from Peers;
My kid can’t handle a virtual education, and neither can I
421–430 of 467 posts
Re: My kid can’t handle a virtual education, and neither can I
#422Give your kid a copy of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HowStuffWorks
Re: My kid can’t handle a virtual education, and neither can I
#423Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thinking you need infinite money to go for a walk is peak HN.
No, it's peak UK, the chances of the weather being agreeable for me to go for even a 5 minute walk without it pouring down are not good for much of the year.
I live in the Pacific Northwest where it’s a similar climate. I know we don’t get much right here in the US but we have invented raincoats!
Re: My kid can’t handle a virtual education, and neither can I
#424Earlier quoted context omitted.
What exactly is your daily routine then. Raising 4 kids while working full time with your spouse working 11 hours outside of the house is a pretty large claim.
I run my own business. Been a web consultant / developer for over 17 years. I have a pretty steady clientele right now. I work 6 to 9am, then 10-11pm, and I usually get a hour or two in during the day. Plus I work 6am to 10am weekends, maybe more if my wife isn't tired and hangs out with the kids on Saturday and Sunday afternoons.
So you have flexible hours and on top of that, even if you go to sleep immediately at 11 and wake up exactly at 6, you don't get the average amount of sleep people need.
You may be an outlier who can do this, but the average human will break down with that schedule over the long term
Re: My kid can’t handle a virtual education, and neither can I
#425Earlier quoted context omitted.
You essentially work a half day. Burying the lede here a bit.
I never get to stop working, but thanks. Every day, all day, I get email and have to respond to a vast customer base. While I may not be coding away at my computer, I have to stop about 10 times a day to respond to customers, help them solve a problem, make an update, etc. It never ends, I never get vacation, I never get a weekend, I never get a holiday. I literally had a customer call me on Christmas last year becau…
> it’s very difficult to maintain this lifestyle
Serious question, why bother? Any normal job would have you working less (assuming it’s true that you never get a free weekend or holiday, which I kind of doubt). What do you get out of this? The ultimate satisfaction of helping a stranger receive email instead of being with your family on Christmas?
Re: My kid can’t handle a virtual education, and neither can I
#426Are people really trying to get primary kids to do stuff on Zoom? I mean my nephews had Zoom classes during the lockdown but it was like 1 hour a day, and they got assignments for the next hours. Obviously no one expects kids to sit still behind a laptop for 6 - 8 hours.
Anyone expecting a 5 year old to do virtual education has never met a 5 year old. I'm sure off that.
Re: My kid can’t handle a virtual education, and neither can I
#427Earlier quoted context omitted.
> how do you expect an almost toddler to react when forced to sit in front of a screen? I'm sure any parent will say that it is impossible, and the issue is not the screen, but sitting still. I am in fact surprised that the teachers even asked to make video calls at that age. I don't know about USA preschools but here 5 years olds don't study sitting on a desk all day long, so I don't know how they can expect a kid t…
A lot of US kids are forced to sit still whether they're in front of a screen or in a physical classroom. Typically it's better in preschool, but many kindergarteners only get 20 minutes a day to play if that. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/05/learning/do-kids-need-rec...
Basically torture
Re: My kid can’t handle a virtual education, and neither can I
#428The problem is not so much that kids can’t handle virtual education as much as we not being able to care for our kids because we have a jobs. Think about it... Do you think it’s normal for a human child to be institutionalized just because his/her parents are working? Where is their hunter-gatherer band when your kids need it? Nothing about 2020 nuclear family society is normal for a human child. Nothing at all.
It takes more than one adult to give children enough direction per unit time for proper development.
As our society has progressed in the last 50 years, almost half of children only have one adult in the household.
The nuclear family as defined by two generation households is not ideal, we have found it amazingly helpful during the pandemic to have three generations in the same house, which is less common in our area of America.
Re: My kid can’t handle a virtual education, and neither can I
#429Earlier quoted context omitted.
Educators did not come up with this plan, politicians did by their lack of any sort of COVID response. Do you really think educators want to do remote learning? My heart goes out to all the teachers who have to deal with this. It's as hard on them as it is parents and students.
Ah, excuse me, I didn't mean to slight the real educators. I meant the phony ones who think this is a reasonable plan. I agree with you completely. We love the teachers at our kids' school and saying goodbye to them was the hardest part of leaving. They are just as frustrated. But the people who think that this solution is a reasonable one are insane.
Yea, it's a tough situation; I wish you and your family the best.
Hope you didn't take my comment the wrong way either -- I'm just looking out for all good teachers out there :)
Re: My kid can’t handle a virtual education, and neither can I
#430Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
You should consider that a lot of families in that country (Finland I assume) are moving abroad because having zero control over education of your child is not good, and schools in Helsinki might be nice, but it's not Helsinki everywhere. Even if the quality is OK, there are many kids that simply can't function in the classic subjects/tests/marks-oriented education system, and then there is bullying.
as someone from another country where homeschooling is not allowed and private education is shunned upon, let me give you the other side of the argument.
private education created a large divide between people of different social classes and it absolutely removes social cohesion. (which results in a ton of other problems).
Some kids do indeed not function in normal classrooms, but this is the reason why special needs education (i don' t know if that is the correct english term) exists. In my opinion, homeschooling does not adequately provide child with the experience it needs to grow up, especially in regards to social skills.