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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

#21

Post by mjayhn »

gonehome wrote: post #16
supercanuck wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but don’t expect other people to follow suit. They will hire private teachers and remote home school to get ahead.

Get ahead of what? I’m not convinced any of this remote learning stuff matters that much as long as parents have money to feed their kids and house themselves. Canceling remote learning to spend time with the kids and giving them space to let them learn about something they’re interested in for a year probably does zero harm and might even be beneficial. I would have loved it. Obviously bad family situations, and pov…

I failed 7th grade because my parents were divorcing in the middle of it and literally everybody including my family acted like it was the end of my school career and I'd never recover and get a real job and would be SOO behind my peers.

I'm 100% on the "yeah you can take a year off, it'll be ok or better in the end" side of things. I can't imagine myself at 13 having to deal with that + quarantine/2020.

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

#22

Post by double0jimb0 »

dang wrote: post #7
irrational wrote: post #3

I honestly couldn't get past the first four paragraphs. The author has... issues. Personally I wouldn't write an article like this to let the whole world in on my neuroticism. It reminds me of the Mark Twain quote "It's better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than open it and remove all doubt." It's better to keep your mouth shut and appear neurotic than open it and remove all doubt.

" Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something. " https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

While I 100% agree with the intent of the HN guideline, there are times when calling out crazy as crazy is fully warranted. I believe this is one of those cases.

I don’t believe parent comment was a “shallow dismissal”, it was an accurate and “deep” dismissal.

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

#23

Post by threatofrain »

gonehome wrote: post #16
supercanuck wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but don’t expect other people to follow suit. They will hire private teachers and remote home school to get ahead.

Get ahead of what? I’m not convinced any of this remote learning stuff matters that much as long as parents have money to feed their kids and house themselves. Canceling remote learning to spend time with the kids and giving them space to let them learn about something they’re interested in for a year probably does zero harm and might even be beneficial. I would have loved it. Obviously bad family situations, and pov…

Get ahead on placement exams. Schools have only so many teachers for Algebra. Also not all kids are doing remote education.

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

#24

Post by Waterluvian »

causality0 wrote: post #17

hit his parents, hit his brother, broke things, and spat a cup of juice all over my laptop. Barring some kind of psychiatric problem like ODD, that's a significant failure of discipline, the responsibility for which lies squarely on the shoulders of the parent. I would not trust any kind generalized behavioral prediction from someone who can't keep a five year old from striking their siblings and intentionally destro…

I thought I was failing as a parent because my 3 year old sometimes _still_ pushes my 1 year old. I feel terrible for the child and for the parent(s) who have created a _lot_ of work for themselves, the child, and maybe even society. But I also feel a wee bit of relief of, "okay so maybe I'm being too hard on myself."

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

#25

Post by gonehome »

mjayhn wrote: post #21
gonehome wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Get ahead of what? I’m not convinced any of this remote learning stuff matters that much as long as parents have money to feed their kids and house themselves. Canceling remote learning to spend time with the kids and giving them space to let them learn about something they’re interested in for a year probably does zero harm and might even be beneficial. I would have loved it. Obviously bad family situations, and pov…

I failed 7th grade because my parents were divorcing in the middle of it and literally everybody including my family acted like it was the end of my school career and I'd never recover and get a real job and would be SOO behind my peers. I'm 100% on the "yeah you can take a year off, it'll be ok or better in the end" side of things. I can't imagine myself at 13 having to deal with that + quarantine/2020.

Yeah - I’d argue that social response and the psychological toll from it does ten times more damage than the actual “failure” of seventh grade.

People can spend decades afraid to learn because some shitty teacher made them feel dumb when they were young.

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

#26

Post by function_seven »

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.

These are fundamental qualities that require physical interaction!

You give me the most well-behaved kid, and I'll show you a hellion when I attempt to sit them in front of a boring "remote learning" session for a few hours.

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

#27

Post by jeffbee »

mc32 wrote: post #4

If remote learning is leaving a lot to be desired where kids aren’t really getting much benefit academically and it’s stressing people out, is there a possibility to pause education for a year and resume a year from now? Now, I know there is no guarantee there will be an effective vaccine, but if not we may learn enough whether heard immunity is enough by then. Graduating a year later for everyone from K- to-be-senio…

You can pause education but a child is a learning machine and they aren't going to stop learning just because you stop teaching them. They'll just learn in unstructured ways without direction.

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

#28

Post by Waterluvian »

klipt wrote: post #15
organsnyder wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the amount of brain development that happens at young ages, this is daunting to consider.

Kids spending more time playing outside and some less time on stressful academics is probably good for them. We didn't evolve to sit sedentary in a classroom.

It is just _insane_ how night and day my 3-year-old is in terms of his ability to sit and focus, after he has sufficient "go wild" time in the yard, playground, street, or basement.

I'm not sure how much school has changed, but for me, in the 90s, the ~90 minutes (split into three uneven segments) per day of physical activity was just not enough. Could have used half and half.

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

#29

Post by mumblemumble »

causality0 wrote: post #17

hit his parents, hit his brother, broke things, and spat a cup of juice all over my laptop. Barring some kind of psychiatric problem like ODD, that's a significant failure of discipline, the responsibility for which lies squarely on the shoulders of the parent. I would not trust any kind generalized behavioral prediction from someone who can't keep a five year old from striking their siblings and intentionally destro…

I've literally never met a 5-year-old who doesn't do things like this when they're upset. Judging by what was happening on other families' screens when watching my son's online kindergarten last spring, it would seem that these kinds of challenges with the Zoom learning experience certainly aren't unique to my or my friends' families, either. This despite it seeming to me like a particularly happy and cohesive kindergarten class for the first part of the school year.

My sense is that that, if you aren't currently trying to usher a preschooler through this experience, you don't actually know how your kid would have handled this situation as a preschooler. And if you are doing it and it is going well, you should count your blessings.

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

#30

Post by detaro »

klipt wrote: post #15
organsnyder wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the amount of brain development that happens at young ages, this is daunting to consider.

Kids spending more time playing outside and some less time on stressful academics is probably good for them. We didn't evolve to sit sedentary in a classroom.

I'm worried for the kids that don't get to play outside and/or socialize in such a situation though. Which sadly will exist.
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