Posted on 04/04/2021 9:52:15 PM PDT by CheshireTheCat
....With some schools shutdown for over a year – many of Chief union toady Diane Ravitch...recently implored her readers in a vapid blog post not to believe the “learning loss hoax.”...
Additionally, a recent poll of American parents reveals that more than 40 percent say their kids have fallen behind in school during the lockdowns, and, even worse, they “lack interest in classes.”
The whole mess is best summed up in an extraordinarily moving blog post written by Darren Miller, a veteran high school math teacher in the Sacramento area, and force behind the “Right on the Left Coast” blog...
[O]ur class time was significantly less than it had been under all-online classes, 50 minutes vs 90 minutes. Therefore, it was incumbent upon them to watch my instructional videos before class and take whatever notes they thought were necessary, because with only 50 minutes of class we’d need to get right into practice problems.
Not one of them had watched the video for today’s class.
I wasn’t going to reteach the material in the video, so I would incorporate as much “instruction” as I could while we worked out problems. Not long after I started in, I stopped.
They were just staring at me.
...As I’m wont to do when teaching, I frequently stop and ask questions to check for student understanding. And so I did. I asked a student a question.
The student just stared at me.
I looked at the student for a moment and then said, “You realize I can see you, right? You’re not hiding behind a screen with your camera turned off.” I said it with a hint of humor, but the dark truth is there – these kids have no idea how to be students. They have completely forgotten....
(Excerpt) Read more at californiapolicycenter.org ...
I suggest that all kids in the 10th, 11th and 12th grades who do not intend to go to college to just drop out and get their GED (whenever they begin to administer the tests again). Their time would be better spent learning a trade, business, operations, accounting, filing - anything useful to society at large.
If 25% of the kids did this, the schools in California will lose 25% of their revenues since revenues are based on enrollment numbers. Starve the beast and give them a taste of their own medicine. Make them comply, make them take a haircut and learn how to live on 25% less revenues.
The toll on the kids is what infuriates more than anything about the handling of this.
Odds are, kids who were like me at that age would have already learned what he was trying to teach, and likely be well ahead of his lessons.
In a way, I would have liked this whole illegal lockdown LIE to have happened when I was in 2nd or 3rd grade. I would have absolutely THRIVED!
Those who WANT to learn will. Those who don’t care will not.
Those who get bored coast, and never fulfil their potential.
There are going to be a lot of lost people who have had a year and a half or more of their lives ripped from them and they were so baby soft to begin with that they will just sit in their living rooms forever unless someone physically pulls them out. The kids, soany of them denied a year and a half of their formative years, are going to be a portion of them, and they’ll be the radicalized snowflakes begging for universal basic income because they “just can’t even” when they attempt to function in society.
On the flip side though, there are hundreds of thousands of young adults who have been paying attention, they are angry that so many of the milestones they were promised were ripped from them. They may not know what happened, how it happened, who to blame, or which political party they prefer, but they are going to be looking. If you want to change the world, pay attention to these young people and don’t scare them off. Be patient and guide them to see what they may not have the maturity to see. Those kids are going to make a difference some day, the bedroom trolls who exist mostly on social media and video game chats? They won’t.
First time that I ever recall trade unions arguing that their members’ jobs were not needed.
There are a lot of us who would have benefitted from the nontraditional school arrangements that were available before the plandemic but not available to when we went to school. I am talking about a lot of the e-school type options that have come about as a result of the internet age and the home school consortiums that take advantage of this.
But I suspect that a lot of kids’ problems now with the plandemic is that they sense it is a plandemic and think, “Why should I bother to learn? The world is all going to hell anyway?” And in this regard, they are a lot smarter than their Karen moms.
This has been an awful year for K-12 and college. I pulled my teens out—one to homeschooling and one to private but neither is full time/normal. This is a good article. My heart breaks for all students. Especially those in CA (still closed). This is millions of students.
Yes, I think you are SO right, and this is SO wrong!
“Back in the real world where facts matter, an analysis of 70 million 10-year-olds worldwide shows that “11.5 million of them could be unable to read as a direct result of the impact on education of the Covid pandemic.”
Bullsh!t.
If a 10yr old can’t read it’s because they are just plain dumb. And no amount of classroom instruction will change that.
Chinese schools are open. Schools in Korea are also open. They went virtual half of last year but kids were still being taught.
I talked with a volleyball player at the Dollar General Store yesterday. I hadn’t seen her for a year. She just didn’t look herself. She told me she had two scholarships. I asked her about the masks during the matches. They are required and the coach makes them wear the mask while they do their running, practice, etc. This is in my opinion is child abuse. Other children I have seen have gained weight, lost their sparkle . . .it is heartbreaking. These evil leaders in government, etc. have managed to break the kids’ spirit. Wasn’t that the plan. Have a relative whose father-in-law died . . . was doing well for his age until the shots . . .it was downhill after that. Only Jesus can set things right! If there was ever a time to witness, it is NOW before it is too late.
If a child of any age can't read it's because they haven't learned phonics!!!!!!
Homeschool.
I understand California teachers will be teaching illegals
Will be? They already do. I don’t necessarily have a problem with that. It’s not the kids’ fault they are here. They should learn something, and become productive residents and contribute to the country or society. The real tragedy is what they learn, and what they don’t. If we’re gonna educate them, then give ‘em all vouchers to go to the schools that advance the things they are good at, and help them in the areas they are not. There is absolutely no real reason a kid should have to go to the same school every day or even for a full day. They could go do to 2 or 3 different schools a week each to focus on a different aspect of their needs, their skills, their desires etc. Especially once they reach high school age (roughly 15 years old 9th grade and up).
Jerry Pournelle’s wife used to take older kids “who couldn’t be taught to read” and got them reading in record time with an intensive phonics course.
Trying to teach kids using whole word techniques should be treated as child abuse.
My second grader has been in in person 5 days a week school since August. I have no idea what we would have done if she did not go to. private parochial school. She is thriving academically it the several months at the end of first grade that we were remote were very rough on her. Her nearest siblings is 19 years older so the is essentially an only child. The social isolation was taking a terrible toll. We got her a kitten which helped but the end of the school year last year took a big toll emotionally. It’s not just the academics that matter and that the kids are losing out on
You are correct.
I was in San Diego last week and the news was reporting about the outraged parents in the San Diego unified district. Their schools were still closed yet SDU was sending teachers down to the border to teach illegals in person.
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