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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

#401

Post by jdietrich »

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…

>All of these comments make me think HN has never interacted with a 5 year old.

Your comment makes me think that you've never interacted with an East Asian 5 year old. Kids are a lot smarter than we give them credit for; long before they take their first steps, they've started decoding the incentive structures around them. Western kids live in a weird bubble that is totally devoid of any meaningful agency, so they act like bored inmates. That behaviour isn't innate, it's a consequence of the environment we've created for children.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_du-wUJPFWQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7YrN8Q2PDU

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

#402

Post by m0zg »

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…

5 year old is not "education" though. Everything before high school is glorified childcare, and it should be treated as such. Let kids be kids. They don't have to be "2 years ahead" just so their parents could beat their own chest, unless they're staggeringly and obviously gifted.

That's not to say that the current quickly slapped together "virtual education" is not going to be an utter and complete unworkable trainwreck, because we all know that's exactly what it's going to be. Well to do folks such as myself will hire private tutors (who, BTW, work just fine through Skype, by virtue of having done it for years). Less well to do folks will suffer the incompetence of our ultra-expensive $13K/pupil-year education system where less than 1/3rd of the expense goes towards teaching.

If people in power didn't want it to be a trainwreck, they'd reach out to folks who have been in this business for over a decade and learned at least how not to fuck it up completely. Instead they're trying to duct tape something together with MS Teams it looks like, and each school district is duct taping its own bespoke thing.

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

#403

Post by adflux »

m0zg wrote: post #402
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…

5 year old is not "education" though. Everything before high school is glorified childcare, and it should be treated as such. Let kids be kids. They don't have to be "2 years ahead" just so their parents could beat their own chest, unless they're staggeringly and obviously gifted. That's not to say that the current quickly slapped together "virtual education" is not going to be an utter and complete unworkable trainw…

Learning to read, write, basic arithmetics, communicate with others ... Glorified childcare?

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

#404

Post by m0zg »

adflux wrote: post #403
m0zg wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

5 year old is not "education" though. Everything before high school is glorified childcare, and it should be treated as such. Let kids be kids. They don't have to be "2 years ahead" just so their parents could beat their own chest, unless they're staggeringly and obviously gifted. That's not to say that the current quickly slapped together "virtual education" is not going to be an utter and complete unworkable trainw…

Learning to read, write, basic arithmetics, communicate with others ... Glorified childcare?

Kids learn all of that in kindergarten nowadays. The main function of primary ed is to keep kids occupied while their parents are at work. Primary ed will completely fail at that if it goes online.

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

#405

Post by Fezzik »

jdietrich wrote: post #401
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…

>All of these comments make me think HN has never interacted with a 5 year old. Your comment makes me think that you've never interacted with an East Asian 5 year old. Kids are a lot smarter than we give them credit for; long before they take their first steps, they've started decoding the incentive structures around them. Western kids live in a weird bubble that is totally devoid of any meaningful agency, so they ac…

Or French (https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/people/why-are-fre...). Or German, or Spanish (from first hand experience). The idea that every fit a child has is a real existential crisis is uniquely American as far as I can tell. Having lived in both Spain and Germany, in native homes with children... parents there “train” their children as mini-adults far better than parents do stateside. I wish I could pinpoint exactly why, but I can’t, even though it is obvious if you travel even a slight amount.

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

#406

Post by indigodaddy »

Virtual school/eLearning only makes sense for 2nd graders and up. Perhaps some bright 1st-graders could excel, but it really just doesn’t work for any younger than that. This is indeed an unfortunate situation that the world is in for this age group of young learners.

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

#407

Post by kleiba »

jdietrich wrote: post #401
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…

>All of these comments make me think HN has never interacted with a 5 year old. Your comment makes me think that you've never interacted with an East Asian 5 year old. Kids are a lot smarter than we give them credit for; long before they take their first steps, they've started decoding the incentive structures around them. Western kids live in a weird bubble that is totally devoid of any meaningful agency, so they ac…

Western kids live in a weird bubble that is totally devoid of any meaningful agency, so they act like bored inmates.

Seriously?

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

#408

Post by yesenadam »

Barrin92 wrote: post #51
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.…

I got similarly dismissive comments once when I pointed to the importance of PE for child development, not just physically but also social dynamics and team aspects, confidence building and so on. HN crowd is a tough audience when it comes to adolescent socialisation, not everyone benefits from sitting in front of a computer from a young age.

> confidence building

Being picked last for every team ever wasn't great for that. It was humiliating, time after time. But worse was then being bullied in the compulsory showers every time for supposedly wanting to have anal sex with everyone, I guess because I was into music and science, not sport. Although, outside school, I was in weekly soccer, basketball and sailing competitions, and did a lot of kayaking, windsurfing, table tennis, roller skating, swimming, bike riding, tennis, handball etc etc. I can hardly believe how sporty I was compared to now, yet still was considered super-unsporty!

Ah this is another dismissive comment I guess. Maybe people like me are over-represented here! (And who this "HN crowd" I read about? Everyone but you?) I reacted to your language, I think - you presented yourself as just pointing out a fact, when you got dismissive comments from a tough crowd without your level of knowledge and understanding.

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

#409

Post by watwut »

bluntfang wrote: post #250
baq wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

your points seem to be contradicting each other. hunter gatherers would naturally have institutionalized child care - when some people go gathering, some people go hunting and some people stay put and look after the tribe's children if they aren't ready to do either. this is about as far from a nuclear family as you can get though, especially if the tribal culture isn't monogamous and e.g. a child can have many fathe…

how do the children learn how to pick up roles as a hunter and/or gatherer in the system you portray?

When the kids are big enough to learn something, they take those kids and teach them.

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

#410

Post by drevil-v2 »

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.

And it is concerning how much woke ideology is packed into SS these days. It's like they are programming children with a new social operating system.
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