What makes you believe distant learning will be better in the fall?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Some of you can just keep whining and having tantrums, insisting that it has to be in-person learning or nothing. THAT is your CHOICE.

I'm going to focus on doing what I can to make DL more effective.

And on finding other ways to use this time as a way to teach my children important life skills. And have more fun!

Nobody is insisting that.

If you just want to accept that kids won't get to go to school this year, THAT is your CHOICE. Others of us have not yet given up hope on advocating for a school option.

I hope we can open up during this school year. I just don't think it looks likely for this fall.

Having had no school in the fall, do you really think they'll say, "OK, now let's have school this spring!"? I don't.

Okay, so you are saying schools have to open even though several hundred people are still being diagnosed daily in the state.

I don't know how to tell you this, other than to say: people are not staying home anymore in Maryland. People are going to work, shopping, hanging out, eating out, having parties, going to the beach...all that is ok, but school isn't?

Different poster here. I hear you. It's frustrating. Our priorities are all wrong. If we want schools to open come fall, we need to cut out non-essentials. Like, how are restaurants open for indoor dining? Why are spas and salons open? We need to be shutting down, not opening up, to get this under control to have any chance of opening up in the fall. But the reality is that that's not happening, and therefore I'm preparing for a long period of 100% DL for everyone. It's not right; schools should be the priority. But it's the reality.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Some of you can just keep whining and having tantrums, insisting that it has to be in-person learning or nothing. THAT is your CHOICE.

I'm going to focus on doing what I can to make DL more effective.

And on finding other ways to use this time as a way to teach my children important life skills. And have more fun!

Nobody is insisting that.

If you just want to accept that kids won't get to go to school this year, THAT is your CHOICE. Others of us have not yet given up hope on advocating for a school option.

I hope we can open up during this school year. I just don't think it looks likely for this fall.

Having had no school in the fall, do you really think they'll say, "OK, now let's have school this spring!"? I don't.

Okay, so you are saying schools have to open even though several hundred people are still being diagnosed daily in the state.

I don't know how to tell you this, other than to say: people are not staying home anymore in Maryland. People are going to work, shopping, hanging out, eating out, having parties, going to the beach...all that is ok, but school isn't?

Um. I don't know how to tell you this but having parties is not okay. Trust me.. people are looking down on those attending parties.

[Anonymous]

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Um. I don't know how to tell you this but having parties is not okay. Trust me.. people are looking down on those attending parties.

Nonetheless, there people are, having parties, with people at them.

[Anonymous]

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There is NOT going to be a vaccine. That’s a pipe dream. It’s an RNA virus and it’s take forever to get this approved for kids.

What do we do for the next year? DL learning only?

This is our new reality and we have to work around it. Waiting for an elusive vaccine is not productive.

So? There are lots of vaccines for RNA viruses.

The problem won't be developing a vaccine. The problem will be getting the vaccine to the people who need it. There's no reason to assume our vaccine strategy in the US will be any more effective than any of our other covid strategies.

This is basic public health.

Yes, it is. And how are we doing on public health these days?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I’m a teacher and I just wanted to hop on to say I’m not convinced in person is really going to be that much better from DL. The social distancing factor alone takes a lot of classroom “best practices” out of play — like collaborative learning opportunities and group work, small group station work, etc. It’s kind of an eerie scene to think about, tbh. I’m not quite sure I can wrap my mind around what my own classroom would look like in person! (Lecture, notes, individual assessments, ick!)

Thanks for sharing your perspective--I can completely see how it could eerie.

I'll say, though, that my young elementary kids have adapted well to the modifications their camps have put in place. I absolutely know it's not the same, but they've come up with creative ways to still engage with their peers even with masks, at a distance, etc. And the improvement in their moods from when we were doing DL this Spring is staggering. I appreciate your sharing around the lack of best practices for academics and learning, and agree on that, but from a social interaction perspective, in person with modifications, for many if not most kids, is likely to be far better than DL. And for the elementary kids in particular, I think that matters hugely.

Also for the middle school kids and high school kids. Everyone needs social interaction.

Of course they do, but that's not the point. This is a pandemic. We need to figure out priorities right now, and social interaction isn't first on the list. Ease up on screen time. Let your kids socialize online.

Kids need in-person social interaction. Elementary school kids, middle school kids, high school kids. And I don't know what your opinion is, but my opinion is that kids' needs are always a priority, including right now.

I would argue that our children's health is the number one priority.

Exactly, and our children require in-personal social interaction for their health.

I agree in person social interaction once it can be done safely like when there's a vaccine but until then herding kids into overcrowded schools with poor ventilation seems like a bad idea.

Says the person who doesn't understand that mental health is also health.

And just exactly what kind of social interaction do you think the kids will be doing when they are in the building? I understand the concern for mental health but do you really think kids will feel so much better mentally when they are in school under these current circumstances? It's not like we're going back to the way it was before. That's what the kids miss. They miss their lives before covid. We all do. I know for a fact that my 9 year old will be stressed AF and worried to death going into a poorly ventilated school building with masks on and barely any opportunity to "socially interact" with her friends. She and I think many kids will be more stressed knowing that they are being put in a situation where they could potentially catch Covid.

Nervous parents = nervous kids.

Just thinking th same thing, most kids won’t feel that way because they don’t have a super anxious parent working them up.

I don't know what false sense of confidence you are giving your kids but my kid is smart enough to understand that Covid 19 is real and we need to take it seriously. She's smart enough to know if given the choice between having to take the risk of catching it by going to a school building twice a week for 7 hours each day, vs zero risk doing DL, then she would take DL every time. We are not a super anxious family by the way and have not imprisoned ourselves at home. We've gone to the pool, gone shopping, and have 2 other families we feel safe hanging out with.