My kid can’t handle a virtual education, and neither can I • Hacker News Board

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

#191

Post by TaupeRanger » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 9:25 PM UTC

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…

It's very clear that you have some weird grudge and have never actually set foot in an elementary school classroom, where kids are very frequently moving around and active. Talk to literally any elementary school teacher.

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

#192

Post by dageshi » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 9:26 PM UTC

maps7 wrote: post #69

actfrench wrote: post #54

Here's a crazy idea: What if we raised our children to process their difficult emotions instead of suppress them and stay active and move freely while working and studying (instead of sitting in a chair at a desk)

I feel I would thrive in a movement based work environment. I think and articulate much better when walking.

If I had infinite money, I'd build an office on an entire floor, with the desk in the middle and a kind of walking track around it that I could do circles on, sometimes I just really have to walk.

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

#193

Post by bonoboTP » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 9:26 PM UTC

nradov wrote: post #126

learc83 wrote: post #97

Kids can't learn all day long in a classroom. I don't know why we expect them to be able to do it remotely. School has always been 1/3 learning 2/3 baby sitting. When my parents were kids, they only went to kindergarten for half a day.

Kindergarten in the US became far more academically focused after the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, and the adoption of Common Core curriculum. Most schools also changed the age cutoff date for kindergarten so the average student is now slightly older.

Sounds really crazy to me, here in Hungary most kids start structured classes at 6 or 7 years old. Before that it's just playing outside, singing, listening to fairy tales, going to hiking trips, to the zoo etc.

This tight grip on American kids looks extremely stressful and harmful (helicopter/bubble wrap parenting, structuring every waking hour with classes and extracurriculars, driving them everywhere, never leaving them to themselves etc).

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

#194

Post by freewilly1040 » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 9:28 PM UTC

dang wrote: post #100

debacle wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

dang I didn't find your link super helpful. What is the contrarian dynamic?

The "contrarian dynamic" is that HN threads (and internet comments generally) are propelled by people making objections. [1] The objections come in waves. In the earliest stage of a thread, they tend to be rapid negative reactions to the article. It's not that these are a community consensus, it's that they're the fastest reactions to feel, and the fastest comments to write—especially when the topic is provocative, w…

A lot of these bad ideas aren't even in comments any more, I've been seeing them more and more in hyper short blog posts, eg: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24109726

I guess it's an easy way to get high up on HN.

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

#195

Post by function_seven » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 9:29 PM UTC

zelphirkalt wrote: post #179

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.…

But what about children in Australia, where remote teaching has been done for many years? Are they all somehow specially gifted children, so that they manage?

I don't know all that much about how it's done there, so I can't really answer that.

I'm assuming you're talking about kids in the Outback, where vast distance makes it harder to have classroom instruction?

There was a recent NYT article about that[0], and my takeaway is that it's really homeschooling with support from teachers. Not a Zoom videoconference where they fake like they're in the same classroom. The parents are much more involved in the early years. Once the kids are old enough to know how to learn, then it can become more of an instruction/homework style of teaching rather than what's required for preschool and Kindergarten kids.

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/10/world/australia/australia...

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

#196

Post by actfrench » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 9:29 PM UTC

ativzzz wrote: post #101

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 tea…

A lot of teachers tend to have really high emotional intelligence which makes them great caregivers, but may not have great tech skills. I'd love to see school districts provide more professional development to teachers in effective strategies using online teaching. I don't think this is even taught in teacher's college. But hopefully now with the world changing, this will change as well. I'd be happy to provide training to any teacher who wants tips on using technology to teach. The great news is a lot of teachers are really highly motivated to learn and really highly motivated to teach well so I am sure they would pick up these skills quickly given the opportunity.

I knew virtually nothing about tech, but one day I got the idea 5 years ago for a tech startup that could help kids. I was forced to learn about technology to make it work and benefited from a lot of great mentors along the way.

Even 5 years later, I have a sharp learning curve, but a lot of the parents in my group are engineers and have helped me come up with good activity ideas and technology ideas and been really patient with me as I learned to apply them.

I bet a lot of people in this group could help their child's teacher. If you reach out, I bet your teacher would be really grateful and eager to learn too.

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

#197

Post by actfrench » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 9:31 PM UTC

zelphirkalt wrote: post #176

actfrench wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is how my class is structured and the activities we do. https://www.modulo.app/manishamodule Feel free to share with other teachers if it could benefit them. I"d also be happy to talk to your teacher or anyone else's teacher if they need support on making zoom more engaging. Also, if other teachers have ideas of activities that worked well for them, I'd love to hear! I'll just add that one thing that's been help…

Zoom does not belong in any classroom, regardless of virtual or physical. It is proprietary software, which has a back track record on privacy and security. It is not free software respecting children's and teachers' rights and freedom. I find the this reliance on proprietary shitty software annoying and absurd. Often teachers barely know manage to cobble together virtual classrooms. They lack information about alter…

I tried a lot of different web conferencing apps and zoom was the only one that had good enough audio and visual to make it remotely possible to teach effectively. Google meet was a total disaster with a group of more than 5 kids. But, I was lucky to have parent in my group who were informed about options and could give me advice in getting going. I think it's great if teachers can take advantage of emerging and established technology if it helps them teach well.

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

#198

Post by garmaine » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 9:32 PM UTC

grahamburger wrote: post #182

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…

It would be weird to expect young children to sit in long Zoom meetings. Are people actually doing that? I have 3 kids, the oldest two are elementary-school age. So far virtually none of their online learning has been video conference based. The younger one would sometimes do Zoom calls with his pre-k class at the end of last year, but it was just a few minutes to see his friends and sing some songs, not really about…

Our elementary school is 5 hours of Webex meetings daily. There are breaks scattered in between, but it is grueling. My 4th grader can barely manage it, but my 1st grader can’t sit still that long.

Edit: Why is something like this downvoted? I didn’t state anything other than my relevant direct experience.

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

#199

Post by vonmoltke » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 9:33 PM UTC

floren wrote: post #123

learc83 wrote: post #97

Kids can't learn all day long in a classroom. I don't know why we expect them to be able to do it remotely. School has always been 1/3 learning 2/3 baby sitting. When my parents were kids, they only went to kindergarten for half a day.

> When my parents were kids, they only went to kindergarten for half a day. Wait, hang on, is kindergarten all-day now? I was in kindergarten in... 1992, and it was half a day.

I had "all-day" (0800 - 1400, same as the elementary grades) kindergarten in Florida in 1985.

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

#200

Post by mmm_grayons » Wed, Aug 19, 2020, 9:34 PM UTC

I'd agree it would be extremely rare to find a child who does well with virtual school. The obvious question is, "What is the better option?" The clinical, disconnected nature of any return to a physical classroom will result in many of the same disadvantages as virtual school from home. All it does is basically transfer the burden of child care. This is a difficulty every parent currently faces, and this article would be a lot more valuable if it proposed a better option.