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Kids are far behind in school

theatlantic.com

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Re: Kids are far behind in school

#5

Post by kkfx »

There is a meaning issue here: school in Democracies, in substantial ones, are the tool to spread a certain level of culture needed to be Citizens, those who intellectually can get opportunities to going further, those less smart can still acquire a minimum culture to be Citizens peers between peers. In formal BUT not substantial democracies witch means in wannabe dictatorships school means just indoctrination so they are the same "entity" formally, but with different substantial targets.

Oh, I forget to say that actually we humans live or in dictatorships of in only-formal democracies.......................

Re: Kids are far behind in school

#6

Post by mcv »

My oldest son started in secondary school last year, so his first two years were largely in lockdown. He's quite introverted (and by now extremely so), so he enjoyed not having to meet people, but his school discipline suffered enormously. I already caught him gaming instead of following classes during the lockdown, and he apparently never learned to finish his homework. He's got more failing than passing grades.

Still, he's smart, seems to understand all the material, and he still has a couple of years to work on his problems before his exams, so with enough work from him, school, us, and the extra tutoring we fortunately can afford for him, he'll probably be okay. But there are probably tons of kids far worse off than he is.

Re: Kids are far behind in school

#7

Post by ovi256 »

I've heard from private school teachers that they expected exactly this to happen, and enrollment in private schools has boomed as parents that could used the schools that cared about staying open (and opened as soon as they could).

This was well supported and non-controversial pre-pandemic, where we had research results showing that simply having participation in remote schooling lowers high school graduation rate by a significant fraction. But during the pandemic, we still closed schools for most pupils in the developed world.

This was one more problem where the contemporary governance mechanism is "we pretend it won't/isn't/didn't happen because it's politically inconvenient as it contradicts high level leadership decisions (and we can't cause face loss to said leadership)".

Re: Kids are far behind in school

#10

Post by gilbetron »

ovi256 wrote: post #7

I've heard from private school teachers that they expected exactly this to happen, and enrollment in private schools has boomed as parents that could used the schools that cared about staying open (and opened as soon as they could). This was well supported and non-controversial pre-pandemic, where we had research results showing that simply having participation in remote schooling lowers high school graduation rate b…

No idea why you were getting downvoted this month, what you said was largely fact. I have a son that went through 6th grade virtually, and 7th grade in-person but masked. We were able to stay on top of him, so he's doing well enough academically (honor roll for 3 terms so far this year, although the work has been easier). Socially and developmentally has been a big issue, and he suffered a lot, in a first world way. He'll be fine, but this has scarred his generation and the results will be felt on society in the coming decades - I don't know how, but it will.

But he tells me of all the kids that are just simply failing, and have barely learning anything this year, let along last when many were sitting home by themselves all day.

We did our kids dirty last year :(

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