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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

#221

Post by xnyan »

dpcan wrote: post #50
coderholic wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Me too! We're jugging 3 kids and working from home, and I thought the article was on point. My guess is that most of the dismissive comments are from people without kids!

I have 4 kids. I work from home. My wife works 11 hours a day away from the house. I feel like this world is full of "can't" people who aren't willing to do the extra work. We seem to have enough time to comment on Hacker News. To argue about masks on Facebook. To watch every TikTok, and spend hours on Twitter. But put in the necessary work to make learning at home productive. Nope, can't do that. We have put in the…

I’m very curious about your daily schedule. I was homeschooled for 12 years, 1 of 5 kids so I’m familiar with home education and having a hard time imagining how a single adult can both work and teach and take care 4 kids.

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

#222

Post by Shared404 »

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.

All day in Texas.

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

#223

Post by dpcan »

lovich wrote: post #81
dpcan wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have 4 kids. I work from home. My wife works 11 hours a day away from the house. I feel like this world is full of "can't" people who aren't willing to do the extra work. We seem to have enough time to comment on Hacker News. To argue about masks on Facebook. To watch every TikTok, and spend hours on Twitter. But put in the necessary work to make learning at home productive. Nope, can't do that. We have put in the…

What exactly is your daily routine then. Raising 4 kids while working full time with your spouse working 11 hours outside of the house is a pretty large claim.

I run my own business. Been a web consultant / developer for over 17 years. I have a pretty steady clientele right now. I work 6 to 9am, then 10-11pm, and I usually get a hour or two in during the day. Plus I work 6am to 10am weekends, maybe more if my wife isn't tired and hangs out with the kids on Saturday and Sunday afternoons.

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

#224

Post by Shared404 »

grugagag wrote: post #207
bonoboTP wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 leavin…

Of course it is harmful. And that together with standardized tests, textbooks stuffed with information that neither the editors fully read is a recipe for a bad outcome. And it doesn't end there, professors are bombarded with so much bureaucratic crap that many of them who would otherwise put up with really bad pay just to be able to teach kids simply give up, but that's just a tangent here. When kids play they learn…

Well clearly you are incorrect because all of the smart people said we have to test to make sure that the kids are learning and we can only make sure that the kids learn by sitting them down and making sure they know the trivia for the test to make sure their learning, because the smart people said the test will make them learn, by making sure their learning.

/s

On the bright side, for every one of the above administrators there is a teacher who actually wants to help kids grow.

Edit: Teacher -> Administrator. I haven't met teachers who actually like standardized testing.

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

#225

Post by mumblemumble »

bonoboTP wrote: post #193
nradov wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 leavin…

I don't want to say Americans don't love and cherish their children. But the uncomfortable truth is that our culture has become so materialist that, on a mass scale, when we look at our children, we don't really see the people they are now. We see the economic participants they will be in 15 years.

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

#226

Post by latortuga »

jeffbee wrote: post #27
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.

You are likely to get loads of people who are unhappy to be paying property tax for something that isn't happening.

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

#227

Post by dpcan »

xnyan wrote: post #221
dpcan wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have 4 kids. I work from home. My wife works 11 hours a day away from the house. I feel like this world is full of "can't" people who aren't willing to do the extra work. We seem to have enough time to comment on Hacker News. To argue about masks on Facebook. To watch every TikTok, and spend hours on Twitter. But put in the necessary work to make learning at home productive. Nope, can't do that. We have put in the…

I’m very curious about your daily schedule. I was homeschooled for 12 years, 1 of 5 kids so I’m familiar with home education and having a hard time imagining how a single adult can both work and teach and take care 4 kids.

I've run my own business for over 17 years. I get up early, work, stay up kind-of late, work, and get a lot of time in early on the weekends. It's not really that terrible. It's difficult, but doable, and I can still focus a lot of my energy on raising my kids.

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

#228

Post by Shared404 »

actfrench wrote: post #208
mrighele wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how do you expect an almost toddler to react when forced to sit in front of a screen? I'm sure any parent will say that it is impossible, and the issue is not the screen, but sitting still. I am in fact surprised that the teachers even asked to make video calls at that age. I don't know about USA preschools but here 5 years olds don't study sitting on a desk all day long, so I don't know how they can expect a kid t…

A lot of US kids are forced to sit still whether they're in front of a screen or in a physical classroom. Typically it's better in preschool, but many kindergarteners only get 20 minutes a day to play if that. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/05/learning/do-kids-need-rec...

At an elementary school near me they would only get to do recess on Fridays, and that's assuming they behaved.

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

#229

Post by throwaways885 »

codefreakxff wrote: post #210
throwaways885 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe have have some empathy for the parents who are working from home, before you start insulting their parenting? Of course the 7 year old is acting out, but it's probably more to do with being stuck in a box/house all day with no interaction with their friends. And no, Zoom calls don't class as interaction for kids. This child desperately needs to play outside, not stuck behind a blurry screen learning maths.

I do work from home, and my 10 year old is doing remote learning. There are many benefits to remote learning, and I know it will come as a shock to people who buy into the 'kids need to socialize' group-think, but the 'socializing' they do in school tends to be very limited in time (a couple of 10-15 minute breaks on the playground, talking at lunch, disrupting classes and not listening to the teacher), and then ther…

Schools do suck, but those 15+60 minutes free time and all class time (which is inherently social) are SO incredibly valuable.

> This article decries remote learning and offers nothing to move the conversation forward on what WOULD work. The author makes no point at all other than complaining about how her child can't sit still. And I'm saying I bet her child can't sit still in a physical school either, so its not about remote learning.

Agreed, though I'd put that down to schools being un-engaging and useless and that gets _worse_ with remote. I'd be in favour of making 30-40% of the school day free time, like it is in high school. For knowledge work like learning, more hours doesn't necessarily mean more output, and it's really destructive to put that onto students.

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

#230

Post by [deleted] »

mmm_grayons wrote: post #204
lucb1e wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I do fear for the skills of reading a physical book though... Do you need skills for that which are different from reading a computer screen? I only see limitations like no ctrl+f or hyperlinks, so fewer skills needed rather than more.

While there are certainly advantages to digital reading, there's also something to be said for a traditional book. Patience and sustained attention are developed skills, and we have yet to learn what effects a failure to practice them at a young age may have on a developing brain.

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