Ask HN: How do we build the new remote education system

As an early elementary school teacher, I see these cracks from the other side too. Current tools for synchronous learning also exact a "tax" on educators, as even the most technologically proficient teacher must dedicate some attention to managing the platform. This is exacerbated by the fact that many tools we are using (Zoom, Google Meet, MS Teams) are not made for education or are not well adapted to remote and hybrid teaching, particularly for young children and their teachers (Google Classroom, Seesaw). I know educators are working hard to meet the needs of their students, but I know many feel we're not doing our best teaching right now because of these limitations of that technology and, of course, the stress of the pandemic and US political situation. To be honest, I have seen so many teachers work flexibly to adapt to teaching in this world but have not seen the same level of innovation from edtech companies, particularly among larger vendors, who have the most resources and the most responsibility to make change for our students. (Google Classroom, I'm looking at you.)

Coming from a different country I don't really know why remote is not the default option.

Listening to a professor speaking to himself from a distance of 10 meters is an awful experience compared to a video recording that you can stop/rewind. Heck, you can even take some proper notes that you will actually understand!

For labs it's not like you get any help either. You just have to follow some instructions point by point and if you do not understand something, tough luck, the professor has already moved to the next exercise.

The worst part is that you have to spend 6-8 hours a day, 5 days a week like this and then you still need to find online materials to actually learn the thing. Some people have to work too.

Did I mention 2 hours of commute time every day?

> Mastery is achieved when you do

This is the important thing. I learned how to code on my own by reading/watching tutorials, then picking a project and working on it solving all the issues that come up. This works great but there's one huge catch: you need to have a TON of motivation, otherwise you'll drop it halfway because some times there's no one to guide you, to simplify things, explain another way, etc once you run into something you just don't get. By your own it can take 2 weeks solving an issue that could just take a couple of hours if there was someone to guide you more personally.

I managed to learn a lot of things this way at 18-19 year old, if I doudbt I could pull it off when I was younger than that when I had interests like football or being a rockstar.

I was a homeschooling parent for some years. The world would probably do well to look to what homeschoolers know about educating children at home rather than trying to replicate classroom schooling via computer connection.

I was also Director of Community Life for The TAG Project for a little while. So I joined email lists that supported homeschoolers and discussed this stuff with experts, etc.

Public school is about eight hours a day because it's "free daycare" for working parents. One article I read years ago indicated that a parent went and observed their child at school and found that the kind only really was actively learning about one to two hours a day. The rest of the time was spent taking roll call, changing classes, having lunch, etc.

At the time, I was in California and one of the ways to legally homeschool was by hiring a tutor for three hours per day. Not eight. Just three.

My very first blog began because of interest in what I was saying on homeschooling lists via email. A friend wanted to publish something I had written and it grew from there. And then I started another site because people were asking my permission to forward my emails and I was like "Oh, I will just make it a website and then they can share the links and don't need to email me."

So I've never really gotten good traction and yadda, but when I see some of the frustrations people have with the current situation, I'm like "Yeah, I should maybe do something about that..."

Only, I mean, everyone seems to want me to help them for free, because I "care," and then almost no one "cares" when I can't pay my bills. So I don't feel very excited about the idea that, "Oh, this is a thing I know a bunch about (and could potentially help people with this)."

But, really, there is a wealth of knowledge that already exists concerning how to teach kids at home. There are lots of books, email lists, etc by, for and about homeschooling and homeschooling is best done in a way that doesn't actively try to recreate public school classrooms because a lot of the methods used in public schools are used precisely because it is a means to wrangle 20 to 40 students by a teacher who will have 20 to 40 new students every year and that's not the case if they are your kids in your home.

Kudos for stating your position but also presenting an opposing view. HN, heck the world, needs more of that.