Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

theatlantic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

321–330 of 467 posts

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

#321

Post by Shared404 »

Aeolun wrote: post #308
actfrench wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

I don’t see how that could possibly work, unless your goal is to create brain dead monkeys.

I'm pretty sure it is.

I went to a K to 12 school for my last 4ish years of HS, and the kindergartners (the kids, not just teachers) were already almost mind-dead cult like in "Prep for the test!" and "Go $TEAM!".

There were a couple really good teachers across all levels of the school, but not enough.

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

#322

Post by dorchadas »

Waterluvian wrote: post #28
klipt wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In the elementary schools in my district, kids are lucky if they get 30 minutes of recess a day (more often it's like 15-20), even at kindergarten. It's a huge mess, and we're expecting 5 years olds to behave like 15 year olds. No nap-time anymore either.

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

#323

Post by kubanczyk »

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?

Finally a comment that makes some sense. This should be near the top, really.

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

#324

Post by zanny »

bdamm wrote: post #153
WalterBright wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how do you expect an almost toddler to react when forced to sit in front of a screen? Toddlers love sitting in front of a screen when Sesame Street is on. I guess we'll find out how educational SS actually is.

Modern Sesame Street is a train wreck compared to the Sesame Street of the '80s and '90s. It's actually a statement about how far down contemporary culture has gone. Seems to be mostly unhinged screaming these days.

All that old material isn't gone. PBS might not be streaming all ~4k episodes of the show but the Internet has made any media accessible if you know where to look.

I'm surprised there isn't more data on what educational media is actually good or not. Because then we could just use that, because there are already millions of hours of this stuff made. Largely its because the profit is in making more of it, not making available all that which came before.

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

#325

Post by monkeywork »

dang wrote: post #36
double0jimb0 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"I honestly couldn't get past the" is an internet trope. "The author has issues" is true of everybody. "Neurotic" is calling names in this context [1]. It seems like a shallow dismissal to me. There's another guideline which applies here too: " Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith. " Posts about parenting may be t…

Are you a moderator here Dang? If not how about you simply report and move on ... looking at your posting history a very large percentage of it is you trying to tell others how to use the site.

The rules are fine however let those who are charged with enforcing them do so rather than trying to control others.

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

#326

Post by vtbassmatt »

redshirtrob wrote: post #293
ardit33 wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a curious question, can you speak/do you know French now?

Sadly no. But that's because we moved from the school district the following summer. It's a bit of a sore point for me. I have no doubt if I'd stayed there (K-6), I would have been close to fluent. After lunch was a full immersion in French. My teacher was a native speaker from Belgium. I remember having mastered counting in French, which is quite interesting considering most kindergarteners probably have not mastere…

Small nitpick: Kindergarteners are expected to count to 100. At least, that's the case in my county (Wake) in a state not known for K-12 excellence (North Carolina).

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

#328

Post by redshirtrob »

vtbassmatt wrote: post #326
redshirtrob wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly no. But that's because we moved from the school district the following summer. It's a bit of a sore point for me. I have no doubt if I'd stayed there (K-6), I would have been close to fluent. After lunch was a full immersion in French. My teacher was a native speaker from Belgium. I remember having mastered counting in French, which is quite interesting considering most kindergarteners probably have not mastere…

Small nitpick: Kindergarteners are expected to count to 100. At least, that's the case in my county (Wake) in a state not known for K-12 excellence (North Carolina).

Ok, I edited my comment to clarify. I did not mean count to 100 as mastering counting. I meant count _almost_ arbitrarily high.

And small world. My wife hails from Forsyth county.

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

#329

Post by xigency »

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…

Kudos to you. My son’s Kindergarten is starting in one week and I hope he gets an experience like this.

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

#330

Post by k_sze »

redshirtrob wrote: post #212
floren wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

French is actually a significant language in Cincinnati?

I've never been there and it isn't exactly close to the Ontario or Quebec provinces of Canada.

Post reply on HN