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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

#211
post #169
post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, they're not thin compared to a laptop lid. Especially with the taper near the edges that Macbooks and many other high-end laptops have. There are some exotic optical solutions out there that allow for thinner lenses but I doubt we'll see those in laptops anytime soon.

Cameras are also a really big deal in the context of smartphones. I assume a lot of silicon is devoted to making them work well with a small sensor in a smallish footprint. Apple is probably not going to add a couple hundred dollars to a MacBook BOM (and maybe a bump for the lens) for a better webcam--at least they wouldn't have before the current situation. Who knows now? Maybe a top-notch webcam is a selling point.…

A top notch camera is not "a couple hundred dollars" on a BOM. Google Pixel 4a costs $350 for the whole device and it has a great camera, more than enough to serve as a webcam.

You need a 2.1 MP camera to get 1080p, which the vast majority of laptop webcams don't do. The last time you could get a 2.1 MP main camera in any half decent phone was probably back in 2015. Laptop makers just didn't care, it wasn't a priority for most users before Covid.

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

#212
post #123
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 kindergarten in '83. First half was in English, and the second half was in French. And no, this was not a private school. This was Cincinnati Public.

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

#213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 kinder…

> I've literally never met a 5-year-old who doesn't do things like this when they're upset. Really? I can't imagine either of my kids doing things like that - perhaps a brief outburst, sure, but it would have been immediately followed by an appropriate response from a parent. > 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 wo…

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

#214

"forced to sit in front of a screen" is the key phrase here. What if we didn't force them to sit, but allowed them to stand and move about freely, come and go when they please, have some autonomy and decision making power around what goes on in class (e.g. share preferences for what they want to learn) and give them frequent movement breaks (a good set of headphones, an ipad with a wide lens attached allows that). Wh…

I have two kids doing remote learning (one in kinder, one in 3rd grade). Since the 5yo is only on her 3rd day of remote learning ever, I'm spending more time "babysitting" her session. The class does involve some amount of physical movement (e.g "now go bring something square") and leaving the zoom meeting for 30 min periods to focus on drawing activities, but then I need to be on top of whether the kid is still engaged (or whether she wandered off to play with legos) and of what times the zoom class resumes. When you're dealing w/ a class of 20-30 small kids, there's a also good chunk of time wasted on logistics (fumbling w/ zoom password, waiting for kids to rejoin the meeting, "jimmy, you need to mute/unmute yourself", "please raise your hand if you want to talk" reminders, etc).

I feel that the class content seems sufficiently engaging (compared to my own kinder experience of strict butts-in-chair, all forward facing desks and a blackboard in a physical class), but even then, it requires dividing my attention between work and making sure the kid is on task.

The third grader has some experience with remote learning from before summer vacations, so things are relatively more smooth when the class is on, but we still need to keep tabs on when recess breaks are supposed to end. His teacher apparently has quite a bit more experience w/ remote learning from teaching classes during summer, and the class appears fairly engaging, with good usage of share screen and multimedia. But I do feel like the quality of learning seems low. Not sure if it's because of US standards. My son's curriculum hasn't really touched multiplication yet, but I distinctively remember having that mastered in 3rd grade, and also singapore math booklets that my wife bought to complement studies also apply both multiplication and division extensively at 3rd grade level)

It can also be challenging to juggle both parents AND both kids having zoom meetings simultaneously, since meetings are mutually disruptive, especially with loud multimedia activities. I feel like the parts that work the best are the ones similar to my old-school education: giving instructions on a task, then letting kids do them, recess, rinse and repeat. I'm not really sold on the high tech gimmicks (videos w/ songs etc).

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

#215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have two 7 year olds and a 9 year old. They are taught a remote curriculum, supplemented by homework in the form of online quizzes that reward correct answer with turns at a video game. They LOVE doing this homework, which is every bit as rigorous as the homework done via paper sheets, because it rewards them for getting their answers right in a way that a number at the top of a page never would. And they get their…

Just out of curiosity what is the online quiz app? Is it Prodigy (www.prodigygame.com)?

Prodigy is one of them. My 9 year old loves it because she gets to use her homework answers to get her flair for her character in the game.

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

#216

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…

Just to clarify, a "toddler" is 1-3 years old. So a 5 year old is not at all "almost a toddler".

"A 5 year old does not have these skills"

They should have learned that by age 4, which is why kids start pre-k/k at the 4/5 age range.

https://mom.com/kids/5106-what-age-do-kids-have-impulse-cont...

"Who said this article has to have a point?"

Probably because we expect more from the source - The Atlantic. If this was the author's personal blog I would not be saying anything. But this article sits next to subjects like:

- Can a Protest Movement Topple Netanyahu? - Russiagate Was Not a Hoax - Our Students Are Depending on Us, teaching through Covid-19

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

#217

"forced to sit in front of a screen" is the key phrase here. What if we didn't force them to sit, but allowed them to stand and move about freely, come and go when they please, have some autonomy and decision making power around what goes on in class (e.g. share preferences for what they want to learn) and give them frequent movement breaks (a good set of headphones, an ipad with a wide lens attached allows that). Wh…

It's a much bigger question/challenge than lack of hardware. With all respect, the model this assumes for how kids work... is just not how kids work. It's not how attention works. Think about it like a movie. Kids at different ages will sit through movies of different lengths and subjects. Those movies have production budgets- of minimum thousands of dollars per second even at the lowest end, and shooting and editing…

> if you don't have kids- don't weigh in on these issues

I agree, but would also add that even if you do have kids, they probably have personalities and circumstances unlike everyone else's kids. And that in all likelihood your sample size is too hilariously small to be able to produce useful broad generalizations from your experience.

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

#218
post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there some deeper meaning to 1 + 1 = 2 you could enlighten us on? Most teachers I’ve met seem perfectly capable at getting at least that across.

"seem perfectly capable at getting at least that across" yeah, that's part of the problem. They already know that 1+1=2, or so you'd think. But you would be hard pressed to find a teacher who can actually explain WHY 1+1=2 (which is based in how our number system was created and using proof by induction). Anyway, that is besides the point, since you won't teach children math with college approaches, but the important…

Poh-Shen Loh has a math course for middle school kids, and a weekly live interactive youtube stream specifically to answer questions kids ask teachers.

One on his channel is to explain to kids how the determinant works, why matrix multiplication is done in that specific order, etc. Check them out sometime esp his Friday 'ask math anything' live lectures.

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

#219
A good friend of mine who works in the NYC public school system had, what I thought to be, an excellent idea for how we could handle this situation.

All children of designated [minimum age / grade level] take classes remotely. The schools then re-open for children beneath that age who need the attention and dedicated professionals to help them learn, spread out in all the now-free classrooms that were taken by their upperclassmen.

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

#220

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…

Just to clarify, a "toddler" is 1-3 years old. So a 5 year old is not at all "almost a toddler". "A 5 year old does not have these skills" They should have learned that by age 4, which is why kids start pre-k/k at the 4/5 age range. https://mom.com/kids/5106-what-age-do-kids-have-impulse-cont... "Who said this article has to have a point?" Probably because we expect more from the source - The Atlantic. If this was th…

> Just to clarify, a "toddler" is 1-3 years old. So a 5 year old is not at all "almost a toddler".

Different kids develop differently.

> They should have learned that by age 4, which is why kids start pre-k/k at the 4/5 age range.

A large amount of adults don't have these skills developed.

> Probably because we expect more from the source - The Atlantic.

This point I agree with. At the same time, I believe purely emotional ranting pieces have a place on the web too.

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