If your kid is thriving with DL....
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Anonymous
This is absolutely insane. How old is your daughter? |
Anonymous
| Personally, I don't trust many parents' assessments of how their children are "thriving" in DL. |
Anonymous
Why not? Doe the first time have a front row seat and can see everything they are doing and how they’re reacting to it. |
Anonymous
Because I don't think a lot of parents are very good at impartially assessing the academic progress of their kids, and we already know a lot of parents don't assess the emotional and mental health of their children well. |
Anonymous
But then they aren’t really doing any worse now than they would be doing in general right? |
Anonymous
No, it's very different. In non-DL, there are many more external and more impartial measurements going on, both formal and informal. There is a wider community that provides essentially continuous feedback, and that's largely not happening now. If you talk with teachers honestly (without flaming them or calling them lazy or other stupid insults), they'll often open up about how they don't have a lot of faith in formal assessments going on, and informal non-parental assessment has largely disappeared. The fact is, in DL the wide variety of inputs a thoughtful parent might get about their children is severely diminished. Have you ever read any homeschool survivor forums? I have, and the "my kid is thriving!" posters sound remarkably like the parents of those kids. The kids themselves, particularly as adults, often have wildly different and typically more accurate assessments of their own educational progress, because they have to live with the results as adults. I am sure there are some kids who are actually thriving, but I don't trust the assessment of most parents as to that point. |
Anonymous
| My DS prefers DL. He gets more sleep (he's a teenager so he excels in sleeping) and he still interacts with his friends playing games online at night and on the weekends. He said he likes school better because "all of the deadbeats" don't show up and bother everyone. He would tell me how much time was wasted on discipline in a normal school year so now those kids don't log on. There is more time to get to the point. He has a math tutor but he had one last year too (pre-Covid). He also goes to see teachers during office hours and get one-on-one tutoring a lot of the time. |
Anonymous
My kid's PSAT scores show he is doing well. He is always laughing and joking with his friends online. It might be different for boys. They tend to bond playing video games. That's easy to do. |
Anonymous
Your definition of thriving is a standardized test score and a lot of time spent on discord? I think you are proving the point that parents are not good at assessing whether their child is actually thriving. |
Anonymous
Well haven’t you seen a lot of adults who went to public school and said they weren’t thriving and their parents didn’t know it? My kids’ teachers have been in touch with me and we have discussed the areas where my kids are doing well and what they are doing poorly, and we have brainstormed ideas for improvement and now things are much better. They are getting high scores on standardized tests and since I watch them most days I can hear how well they are doing on the material. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s bad, but I know. Last year I had no idea they were doing poorly in some areas until quarantine started. In fact one of the silver linings of distance learning is that I actually know where they are struggling and how to help them. Plus I know as well as I did in years past how they are doing emotionally and socially. In fact I know that better now because I see how the kids are interacting with other kids, whereas I had no idea what was going on on the playground. I’m not feeling defensive or anything but I just don’t think your view is in line with my experience. |
Anonymous
The test scores show college readiness and being able to socialize safely prevents isolation and depression. We are in a worldwide pandemic. We need to adjust our ways of measuring. He's doing fine. Thriving is a lame world that should describe plants and flowers, not children. |
Anonymous
How would you determine if kids are thriving? My kid is a middle schooler in a local private. They pivoted immediately to a robust remote program that has continued to be rigorous and engaged. His grades remain high, he does his homework with the same level engagement as previously, and his connection to his teachers and friends remains strong. He is developmentally on track—sometimes we are cool parents, sometimes we are the worst. The only thing that has suffered is hygiene. Why wear deodorant if there is no crush to impress? I believe that will self correct, post pandemic. |
Anonymous
| More sleep for DC. Our public school is also super organized, with a good virtual board that shows what's due every day for the next 2 weeks. All the teachers make summary notes with what they thought in the class that day, so it's easy to review with the child. Every teacher stays online from 2:30 to 3:30 after school for questions, extra help, tutoring etc. My child struggles with organization IRL so he loves this setup. He wants to stay virtual. |
Anonymous
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I find it really hard to square this thread with the reported skyrocketing rates of mental illness in children from the medical and healthcare system. To be fair, that started pre-pandemic, but it's markedly worse now.
I think there is a gap between parental self-reporting and reality, although again, that predated the pandemic. |
Anonymous
What grade is this? |