Posted on 04/10/2020 9:54:12 AM PDT by Kaslin
While I’m thankful for how hard school administrators and teachers are working to continue education, I’m just not sure e-learning will benefit our youngest learners.
The Washington Post recently published an education expert’s opinion with this dramatic headline, “Homeschooling during the coronavirus will set back a generation of children.” Despite the click-bait-worthy headline, the piece was actually about how erratic and disruptive online or e-learning can be for students.
As a mom of four school-age children, I too have noticed how difficult e-learning is, ever since schools closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. While I applaud the teachers and school administrators who are working to continue our kids’ education during this unprecedented time, shoving my kids into online schooling seems counterproductive.
Perspective: Homeschooling during the coronavirus will set back a generation of children https://t.co/hNnx62PVLe
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) March 28, 2020
The announcement to close schools happened quickly, so school administrators had little time to prepare, but so far online schooling is proving tedious precisely due to the heavy reliance on the technology that makes it possible in the first place.
I have three kids in elementary school and one in middle school. One teacher uses a Facebook group, another uses email and a couple apps, while another uses the school’s online portal. All of these require separate usernames, passwords, and devices. It often takes longer to log into the correct portal with the correct password, locate just the right email, or wade through a slew of messages via apps on my phone than it does to do the lessons waiting for my elementary kids each day.
My eldest child has at least seven different teachers, and many require different portals, emails, or apps just for him to access his assignments. Uploading his completed work has proved to be an entirely different frustration and sometimes even impossible. (To his credit, my son’s school principal seems to have caught onto this quickly and is streamlining this more as time passes.)
Of all my children, online schooling seems to work best for my oldest, and I imagine most children in middle and high school might balance this way of learning alright, especially temporarily, due to their age.
Don’t get me wrong, technology does have its advantages, and I’m no anti-tech Scrooge. In a time such as this, online portals, apps, and email are a nice avenue for students and teachers to remain in touch. I’ve seen a number of tweets of school teachers facilitating Zoom meetings with their students, or helping them with problems, and this is great. Friends have sent me photos of their children taking ballet, piano, or guitar lessons via Zoom. This too is wonderful.
But it also illustrates my point: E-learning can work well when paired with something tangible, like an instrument, or with movement, like a dance class. It doesn’t seem to work as well with basics, such as math, reading, and writing — focal points of elementary school and foundational elements of good education.
While e-learning creates a path of connection from teacher to student, it doesn’t necessarily create a solid learning environment or experience for the student. Online schooling has long proved difficult for younger kids, kids with special needs, or kids who require hands-on learning.
This model also adversely affects families with multiple kids, fewer devices, no internet, or parents who simply can’t spare the time tutoring their children. Many students in my children’s classes have working parents. When officials canceled school, these parents had to put their children who were in school into local daycare centers all day. This means their only window for e-learning is late at night when everyone is tired.
You’re right. They should be in schools and a higher chance of getting a virus that they can bring home to kill mommy or grandma.
I would rather do it in person than online myself.
Homeschooling is hard work. Those of us who have done so for decades understand this. But it’s time for parents to rise to the challenge of making sure their own children are educated.
The only kids this affects in any long term way are kids learning to read. They may never read we’ll do to this. Other then those kids, all will be fine.
too many dumb parents-get a list of state objectives in math history english etc...and design your own curriculum. Read literature, biographies of historical heroes etc...
It’s spring find some seeds to plant and conduct experiments on best growing or germination experiments
Teach sewing, geometry, needlework....
The sky is the limit
I love the built-in assertion that “real learning” is happening in government schools to being with.
Me too. I hated online college classes and avoided them at all cost. So awful a way to learn.
“You’re right. They should be in schools and a higher chance of getting a virus that they can bring home to kill mommy or grandma.”
Kaslin didn’t say anything of the sort.
No reason you can’t help them. Not your job? Of course it is.
Mom needs to explore other curriculum choices.
A lot of parents are still working. Grandparents are watching them and some have difficulty finding the on button of a computer.
I can't recall having seen so much stupidity in one place very often.
Homeschooling wasn’t available when our kids went to school, and I would not have been able to teach them. I do applause anyone that is able to do it.
They should be in class but I think this is the start of a nationwide movement to cut the in classroom work week. First the classroom work week then the postal workers. The land that the schools and post offices occupy is too valuable and expensive to maintain.
“All of these require separate usernames, passwords, and devices.”
That’s crazy!
Who would have ever thought that one day we would have different passwords?
Perhaps we should demand a refund on our taxes that fund school systems.
Spot on! metmom ought to get a good laugh out of that!
Their best bet might be to just let the kids flunk this semester and be set back 6 months to a year. Does it really matter if they get their diploma at 18 instead of 19? Ultimately?
Parents can’t believe what their children are being exposed to via their new on line classes.
This may turnout to be a huge win for the students and their parents.
It could be the beginning of the end for the left wing teachers, principles and backers of K-12 as parents discover what is going on in the schools their kids are attending.
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