Why are parents so fixated on reopening schools in-person?

[Anonymous]

Because sex is a lot of fun but unfortunately it leads to becoming parents. No one actually wants to take care of their children. So boring.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents need to learn how to parent. Maybe start living in joint families.

How dare you? I know how to parent. And if someone would pay me $100,000 a year to teach my child that would be one thing, but I am being expected to do that for free. I have a job. I cannot do it and also a second, unpaid job that I am not being paid for and that forces me to work an additional 8 hours for free. FIX DISTANCE LEARNING and take responsibility for your students.

So, I can come through zoom and wake your child up? I can give your child breakfast so that they can focus? I can take the legos, stuffed animals, and video games away from him so he can actually focus on learning? I can give him a quiet background so that he can learn? I can sit with him for 4 hours to review all that he/she refused to get during instructional time? I can do his assignments for him? I can prep him for tests since he missed a lot of assignments? I cannot do ANY of these things. I can provide instruction, encourage, mentor, and have additional zoom time within reason to help him/her but I cannot do all of the above. That is the parent's job.

It's funny, because you actually can do most of these things, in a building called a school. You just refuse to.

+1

The problem with these arguments that DL provides an adequate education *as long as parents fill in all the gaps* is that if the job of teaching, especially at an elementary level, can be done over Zoom from your home while providing childcare to your own kids, then it probably shouldn't pay very much.

I know teachers are working a lot. The problem is that 90% of what they are doing isn't educating kids. They are troubleshooting technology, they are performing administrative tasks that administration to make unrealistic claims about attendance and participation. Even the actual instruction is so poor, not necessarily because the teachers are bad (though some of them are), but because none of them were trained to teach in this way and most do not have the skill set to do it effectively.

I am happy to admit that as a parent, I am doing a subpar job of helping my kid learn via DL. I'm trying my best, but I'm not an educator, I find the technology clunky and frustrating, and I'm distracted much of the time due to my own job and the stress of having the whole family working and learning in our house for months on end. But at least I can admit that. I'm not a good teacher! I am a great parent but I don't know much about how to teach a small child how to read. I would love to have an actual professional educator do it instead. But DL has not offered that.

So yeah, we should probably open schools, unless school districts can magically figure out how to make DL effective at teaching kids things like basic literacy. It's one or the other.

Regardless of DL, many of us have spent a lot of time filling in the gaps in elementary school. The issue many parents don't notice the gaps as they leave education to the school/teacher and aren't aware of it. With DL they are more aware. We had to do all the basics from handwriting, spelling, grammar, math facts and more at home. And, this was before DL. The issue is the curriculum, not DL vs. in person.

And, as a parent your responsibility is also education. Its also child care.

We are in a pandemic in 2020. We are lucky we have the option to DL. Otherwise we'd all be homeschooling.

“All kids living in the United States have the right to a free public education. And the Constitution requires that all kids be given equal educational opportunity no matter what their race, ethnic background, religion, or sex, or whether they are rich or poor, citizen or non-citizen.” ACLU, card-carrying member here. I WANT distance-learning. I do NOT want to send my child to in-person school in a pandemic. But I am not “lucky” to have distance-learning. And my responsibility as a parent is NOT education and childcare. Every developed nation except ours recognizes this. Even ours, back in the day, used to recognize it. And yet the “personal responsibility” moralizers do not have the self-respect to claim those human rights for themselves or anyone else. What on God’s green earth is wrong with you? Why are your standards for a civilized society so low?

What??? ROFL. You are most assuredly as a parent responsible for both the education and physical care of your own children -- doubly so during a pandemic.

I'm confused. Aren't you all constantly screaming that it's "NOT ABOUT CHILDCARE?"

P.S. You're not entitled to childcare. Honestly, you're not. Not even if you're a card carrying member of the ACLU. Your kids are entitled to education according to specifications set by the state, which they are receiving.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Teachers: you are paid to do a job. If you are upset because you have to assist with blowing noses - teaching young children is not for you. Please, we know now how you truly feel in your heart about children.

Further - you have all of us inadequate (by yoUr standards) parents by the “proverbial” you know what’s - and for that matter, our kids’ education -
and you chose to walk. Duly noted.

You won. Our kids have gone 8 months without you.

Please quit. Unemployment lines are waiting.

No. They will continue to teach via distance learning during a pandemic.

Keep throwing a fit if it makes you feel better, though.

[Anonymous]

In what other profession in this country do you get paid 100% for not doing you job AND (here is the kicker) throw children under the bus to sweeten you deal? Teaching with Union protection.

None.

This is America. Teachers - you CHOSE your jobs. And you are entitled to quit.

So do it. Quit.

[Anonymous]

+1000 we hear a lot of "I will quit" but nobody is quitting. Teachers are ruling this board right now.

Anonymous wrote:In what other profession in this country do you get paid 100% for not doing you job AND (here is the kicker) throw children under the bus to sweeten you deal? Teaching with Union protection.

None.

This is America. Teachers - you CHOSE your jobs. And you are entitled to quit.

So do it. Quit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teachers: you are paid to do a job. If you are upset because you have to assist with blowing noses - teaching young children is not for you. Please, we know now how you truly feel in your heart about children.

Further - you have all of us inadequate (by yoUr standards) parents by the “proverbial” you know what’s - and for that matter, our kids’ education -
and you chose to walk. Duly noted.

You won. Our kids have gone 8 months without you.

Please quit. Unemployment lines are waiting.

This is exactly what I’m saying. I don’t want to blow Johnny’s nose (exposing myself to whatever germs making him sick) so I hate children. Got it. Enjoy blowing your own children’s noses this year, or maybe try teaching them to do it themselves. I’m so tired of being expected to mother my students and being scoffed at by parents who refuse to assist with homework, open their child’s folder, read with their child, or participate in their child’s education in any way because it’s “not their job”. I have literally had parents send in baby wipes with their fourth grader and ask me to clean their face thoroughly throughout the day. The answer is no.
Why don’t you quit your own job? It seems like if it’s really challenging for you to wrangle one child and assist them with the academic work designed and delivered by someone else, then you probably have no business trying to manage the complexities of the working world. Unemployment lines are waiting.

You do understand that it was a choice that you made, freely, to be a teacher? You provide a service for which you are paid.
You know what your job requires. No moral or ethical judgment needs to be made. You do your job - you get paid. Capitalism.

Your meritless claims regarding anybody else’s job or child rearing capability do not answer the question
- why are you still teaching?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teachers: you are paid to do a job. If you are upset because you have to assist with blowing noses - teaching young children is not for you. Please, we know now how you truly feel in your heart about children.

Further - you have all of us inadequate (by yoUr standards) parents by the “proverbial” you know what’s - and for that matter, our kids’ education -
and you chose to walk. Duly noted.

You won. Our kids have gone 8 months without you.

Please quit. Unemployment lines are waiting.

No. They will continue to teach via distance learning during a pandemic.

Keep throwing a fit if it makes you feel better, though.

The "it's a pandemic" excuse goes both ways though. Okay, it's a pandemic, so we've decided we can't do in person school. I don't 100% agree, but I'm not in charge so I'll accept it. But now it's time to figure out how to make DL actually work. It's not working for a lot of grade levels and for a lot of kids. In my house, we find ourselves having to choose between doing DL (technology problems, tons of screen time, kids don't get enough activity/exercise, we have to go over the material again later anyway because the DL sessions aren't really age appropriate and they don't absorb much info) or skipping DL and actually teaching our kids. Increasingly, we just blow off the DL sessions because it's much more effective for us to spend 30 minutes or so going over a concept with one of our kids and the taking them on a walk to the playground and talking about the concepts as we go. Then we reiterate and reinforce in the afternoon using reading time or worksheets. What we are doing is effective. It's also incredibly hard to do while also doing a full-time job (so now I do most of my job at night and on the weekends).

But schools actually could facilitate this better style of learning via DL. Fewer live group sessions, more well-organized packets and assignments, combined with small groups and one-on-ones throughout the week to check on progress. I also think all teachers should be doing periodic meetings with parents or whatever caregiver is overseeing DL to discuss how its going and troubleshoot. Instead, schools are sticking to the totally ineffective schedules and tactics that they came up with last spring, most of which are just a hamfisted way of trying to recreate in-person school inside a video screen. It doesn't work, and in many ways it serves as a distraction from actual learning. I'm not a professional teacher, but I am a parent and professional, and to me it was obvious how we need to alter what we were doing to make it work. It should be obvious to the teachers and administrators, too.

I am also doing a job from home that does not lend itself to WFH. I have had to be creative and come up with different approaches to make it work. I've had to learn new technology or spend my weekend experimenting with different methods for presenting information so that I can still be effective at my job even though it's not in person. It's been challenging but I've stretched and made it work. And if I hadn't, trust that my employer would be on me to figure it out.

So yeah, it's a pandemic. We all have to adapt. Lets see the schools and teachers actually adapt in order to get their jobs done, instead of just blaming parents for the ineffectiveness of DL.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teachers: you are paid to do a job. If you are upset because you have to assist with blowing noses - teaching young children is not for you. Please, we know now how you truly feel in your heart about children.

Further - you have all of us inadequate (by yoUr standards) parents by the “proverbial” you know what’s - and for that matter, our kids’ education -
and you chose to walk. Duly noted.

You won. Our kids have gone 8 months without you.

Please quit. Unemployment lines are waiting.

This is exactly what I’m saying. I don’t want to blow Johnny’s nose (exposing myself to whatever germs making him sick) so I hate children. Got it. Enjoy blowing your own children’s noses this year, or maybe try teaching them to do it themselves. I’m so tired of being expected to mother my students and being scoffed at by parents who refuse to assist with homework, open their child’s folder, read with their child, or participate in their child’s education in any way because it’s “not their job”. I have literally had parents send in baby wipes with their fourth grader and ask me to clean their face thoroughly throughout the day. The answer is no.
Why don’t you quit your own job? It seems like if it’s really challenging for you to wrangle one child and assist them with the academic work designed and delivered by someone else, then you probably have no business trying to manage the complexities of the working world. Unemployment lines are waiting.

You do understand that it was a choice that you made, freely, to be a teacher? You provide a service for which you are paid.
You know what your job requires. No moral or ethical judgment needs to be made. You do your job - you get paid. Capitalism.

Your meritless claims regarding anybody else’s job or child rearing capability do not answer the question
- why are you still teaching?

What “meritless claim”? You are the one who keeps telling other people to quit, while complaining about how your own life is so unmanageable because you have to supervise distance learning. We’re just trying to help you.
You also chose to have children, there was never a guarantee that there would be no large scale emergency that would dramatically alter the social landscape. You’re just going to have to deal with it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teachers: you are paid to do a job. If you are upset because you have to assist with blowing noses - teaching young children is not for you. Please, we know now how you truly feel in your heart about children.

Further - you have all of us inadequate (by yoUr standards) parents by the “proverbial” you know what’s - and for that matter, our kids’ education -
and you chose to walk. Duly noted.

You won. Our kids have gone 8 months without you.

Please quit. Unemployment lines are waiting.

This is exactly what I’m saying. I don’t want to blow Johnny’s nose (exposing myself to whatever germs making him sick) so I hate children. Got it. Enjoy blowing your own children’s noses this year, or maybe try teaching them to do it themselves. I’m so tired of being expected to mother my students and being scoffed at by parents who refuse to assist with homework, open their child’s folder, read with their child, or participate in their child’s education in any way because it’s “not their job”. I have literally had parents send in baby wipes with their fourth grader and ask me to clean their face thoroughly throughout the day. The answer is no.
Why don’t you quit your own job? It seems like if it’s really challenging for you to wrangle one child and assist them with the academic work designed and delivered by someone else, then you probably have no business trying to manage the complexities of the working world. Unemployment lines are waiting.

You do understand that it was a choice that you made, freely, to be a teacher? You provide a service for which you are paid.
You know what your job requires. No moral or ethical judgment needs to be made. You do your job - you get paid. Capitalism.

Your meritless claims regarding anybody else’s job or child rearing capability do not answer the question
- why are you still teaching?

What “meritless claim”? You are the one who keeps telling other people to quit, while complaining about how your own life is so unmanageable because you have to supervise distance learning. We’re just trying to help you.
You also chose to have children, there was never a guarantee that there would be no large scale emergency that would dramatically alter the social landscape. You’re just going to have to deal with it.

Please bold the sentence in which I complain about DL In any way, shape
or form. And then hold the sentence where I complain about my kids.

Again, you chose your profession. You get paid. Do your job. Being paid without performing is welfare. Accept that fact.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teachers: you are paid to do a job. If you are upset because you have to assist with blowing noses - teaching young children is not for you. Please, we know now how you truly feel in your heart about children.

Further - you have all of us inadequate (by yoUr standards) parents by the “proverbial” you know what’s - and for that matter, our kids’ education -
and you chose to walk. Duly noted.

You won. Our kids have gone 8 months without you.

Please quit. Unemployment lines are waiting.

No. They will continue to teach via distance learning during a pandemic.

Keep throwing a fit if it makes you feel better, though.

The "it's a pandemic" excuse goes both ways though. Okay, it's a pandemic, so we've decided we can't do in person school. I don't 100% agree, but I'm not in charge so I'll accept it. But now it's time to figure out how to make DL actually work. It's not working for a lot of grade levels and for a lot of kids. In my house, we find ourselves having to choose between doing DL (technology problems, tons of screen time, kids don't get enough activity/exercise, we have to go over the material again later anyway because the DL sessions aren't really age appropriate and they don't absorb much info) or skipping DL and actually teaching our kids. Increasingly, we just blow off the DL sessions because it's much more effective for us to spend 30 minutes or so going over a concept with one of our kids and the taking them on a walk to the playground and talking about the concepts as we go. Then we reiterate and reinforce in the afternoon using reading time or worksheets. What we are doing is effective. It's also incredibly hard to do while also doing a full-time job (so now I do most of my job at night and on the weekends).

But schools actually could facilitate this better style of learning via DL. Fewer live group sessions, more well-organized packets and assignments, combined with small groups and one-on-ones throughout the week to check on progress. I also think all teachers should be doing periodic meetings with parents or whatever caregiver is overseeing DL to discuss how its going and troubleshoot. Instead, schools are sticking to the totally ineffective schedules and tactics that they came up with last spring, most of which are just a hamfisted way of trying to recreate in-person school inside a video screen. It doesn't work, and in many ways it serves as a distraction from actual learning. I'm not a professional teacher, but I am a parent and professional, and to me it was obvious how we need to alter what we were doing to make it work. It should be obvious to the teachers and administrators, too.

I am also doing a job from home that does not lend itself to WFH. I have had to be creative and come up with different approaches to make it work. I've had to learn new technology or spend my weekend experimenting with different methods for presenting information so that I can still be effective at my job even though it's not in person. It's been challenging but I've stretched and made it work. And if I hadn't, trust that my employer would be on me to figure it out.

So yeah, it's a pandemic. We all have to adapt. Lets see the schools and teachers actually adapt in order to get their jobs done, instead of just blaming parents for the ineffectiveness of DL.

Thank you so much for this post. This is what I’ve been trying, and failing, to communicate on this thread. Fellow parent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teachers: you are paid to do a job. If you are upset because you have to assist with blowing noses - teaching young children is not for you. Please, we know now how you truly feel in your heart about children.

Further - you have all of us inadequate (by yoUr standards) parents by the “proverbial” you know what’s - and for that matter, our kids’ education -
and you chose to walk. Duly noted.

You won. Our kids have gone 8 months without you.

Please quit. Unemployment lines are waiting.

No. They will continue to teach via distance learning during a pandemic.

Keep throwing a fit if it makes you feel better, though.

The "it's a pandemic" excuse goes both ways though. Okay, it's a pandemic, so we've decided we can't do in person school. I don't 100% agree, but I'm not in charge so I'll accept it. But now it's time to figure out how to make DL actually work. It's not working for a lot of grade levels and for a lot of kids. In my house, we find ourselves having to choose between doing DL (technology problems, tons of screen time, kids don't get enough activity/exercise, we have to go over the material again later anyway because the DL sessions aren't really age appropriate and they don't absorb much info) or skipping DL and actually teaching our kids. Increasingly, we just blow off the DL sessions because it's much more effective for us to spend 30 minutes or so going over a concept with one of our kids and the taking them on a walk to the playground and talking about the concepts as we go. Then we reiterate and reinforce in the afternoon using reading time or worksheets. What we are doing is effective. It's also incredibly hard to do while also doing a full-time job (so now I do most of my job at night and on the weekends).

But schools actually could facilitate this better style of learning via DL. Fewer live group sessions, more well-organized packets and assignments, combined with small groups and one-on-ones throughout the week to check on progress. I also think all teachers should be doing periodic meetings with parents or whatever caregiver is overseeing DL to discuss how its going and troubleshoot. Instead, schools are sticking to the totally ineffective schedules and tactics that they came up with last spring, most of which are just a hamfisted way of trying to recreate in-person school inside a video screen. It doesn't work, and in many ways it serves as a distraction from actual learning. I'm not a professional teacher, but I am a parent and professional, and to me it was obvious how we need to alter what we were doing to make it work. It should be obvious to the teachers and administrators, too.

I am also doing a job from home that does not lend itself to WFH. I have had to be creative and come up with different approaches to make it work. I've had to learn new technology or spend my weekend experimenting with different methods for presenting information so that I can still be effective at my job even though it's not in person. It's been challenging but I've stretched and made it work. And if I hadn't, trust that my employer would be on me to figure it out.

So yeah, it's a pandemic. We all have to adapt. Lets see the schools and teachers actually adapt in order to get their jobs done, instead of just blaming parents for the ineffectiveness of DL.

Teachers adapted. Parents haven't.

You need child care. Pay for it. You are working and a professional.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teachers: you are paid to do a job. If you are upset because you have to assist with blowing noses - teaching young children is not for you. Please, we know now how you truly feel in your heart about children.

Further - you have all of us inadequate (by yoUr standards) parents by the “proverbial” you know what’s - and for that matter, our kids’ education -
and you chose to walk. Duly noted.

You won. Our kids have gone 8 months without you.

Please quit. Unemployment lines are waiting.

This is exactly what I’m saying. I don’t want to blow Johnny’s nose (exposing myself to whatever germs making him sick) so I hate children. Got it. Enjoy blowing your own children’s noses this year, or maybe try teaching them to do it themselves. I’m so tired of being expected to mother my students and being scoffed at by parents who refuse to assist with homework, open their child’s folder, read with their child, or participate in their child’s education in any way because it’s “not their job”. I have literally had parents send in baby wipes with their fourth grader and ask me to clean their face thoroughly throughout the day. The answer is no.
Why don’t you quit your own job? It seems like if it’s really challenging for you to wrangle one child and assist them with the academic work designed and delivered by someone else, then you probably have no business trying to manage the complexities of the working world. Unemployment lines are waiting.

You do understand that it was a choice that you made, freely, to be a teacher? You provide a service for which you are paid.
You know what your job requires. No moral or ethical judgment needs to be made. You do your job - you get paid. Capitalism.

Your meritless claims regarding anybody else’s job or child rearing capability do not answer the question
- why are you still teaching?

What “meritless claim”? You are the one who keeps telling other people to quit, while complaining about how your own life is so unmanageable because you have to supervise distance learning. We’re just trying to help you.
You also chose to have children, there was never a guarantee that there would be no large scale emergency that would dramatically alter the social landscape. You’re just going to have to deal with it.

If teachers quit and they have to homeschool, they will really be complaining then.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents need to learn how to parent. Maybe start living in joint families.

How dare you? I know how to parent. And if someone would pay me $100,000 a year to teach my child that would be one thing, but I am being expected to do that for free. I have a job. I cannot do it and also a second, unpaid job that I am not being paid for and that forces me to work an additional 8 hours for free. FIX DISTANCE LEARNING and take responsibility for your students.

So, I can come through zoom and wake your child up? I can give your child breakfast so that they can focus? I can take the legos, stuffed animals, and video games away from him so he can actually focus on learning? I can give him a quiet background so that he can learn? I can sit with him for 4 hours to review all that he/she refused to get during instructional time? I can do his assignments for him? I can prep him for tests since he missed a lot of assignments? I cannot do ANY of these things. I can provide instruction, encourage, mentor, and have additional zoom time within reason to help him/her but I cannot do all of the above. That is the parent's job.

It's funny, because you actually can do most of these things, in a building called a school. You just refuse to.

+1

The problem with these arguments that DL provides an adequate education *as long as parents fill in all the gaps* is that if the job of teaching, especially at an elementary level, can be done over Zoom from your home while providing childcare to your own kids, then it probably shouldn't pay very much.

I know teachers are working a lot. The problem is that 90% of what they are doing isn't educating kids. They are troubleshooting technology, they are performing administrative tasks that administration to make unrealistic claims about attendance and participation. Even the actual instruction is so poor, not necessarily because the teachers are bad (though some of them are), but because none of them were trained to teach in this way and most do not have the skill set to do it effectively.

I am happy to admit that as a parent, I am doing a subpar job of helping my kid learn via DL. I'm trying my best, but I'm not an educator, I find the technology clunky and frustrating, and I'm distracted much of the time due to my own job and the stress of having the whole family working and learning in our house for months on end. But at least I can admit that. I'm not a good teacher! I am a great parent but I don't know much about how to teach a small child how to read. I would love to have an actual professional educator do it instead. But DL has not offered that.

So yeah, we should probably open schools, unless school districts can magically figure out how to make DL effective at teaching kids things like basic literacy. It's one or the other.

Regardless of DL, many of us have spent a lot of time filling in the gaps in elementary school. The issue many parents don't notice the gaps as they leave education to the school/teacher and aren't aware of it. With DL they are more aware. We had to do all the basics from handwriting, spelling, grammar, math facts and more at home. And, this was before DL. The issue is the curriculum, not DL vs. in person.

And, as a parent your responsibility is also education. Its also child care.

We are in a pandemic in 2020. We are lucky we have the option to DL. Otherwise we'd all be homeschooling.

“All kids living in the United States have the right to a free public education. And the Constitution requires that all kids be given equal educational opportunity no matter what their race, ethnic background, religion, or sex, or whether they are rich or poor, citizen or non-citizen.” ACLU, card-carrying member here. I WANT distance-learning. I do NOT want to send my child to in-person school in a pandemic. But I am not “lucky” to have distance-learning. And my responsibility as a parent is NOT education and childcare. Every developed nation except ours recognizes this. Even ours, back in the day, used to recognize it. And yet the “personal responsibility” moralizers do not have the self-respect to claim those human rights for themselves or anyone else. What on God’s green earth is wrong with you? Why are your standards for a civilized society so low?

What??? ROFL. You are most assuredly as a parent responsible for both the education and physical care of your own children -- doubly so during a pandemic.

I'm confused. Aren't you all constantly screaming that it's "NOT ABOUT CHILDCARE?"

P.S. You're not entitled to childcare. Honestly, you're not. Not even if you're a card carrying member of the ACLU. Your kids are entitled to education according to specifications set by the state, which they are receiving.

This is such an absurd argument. Fine - then pay me half your salary, and the rest will go to pay offshore (more effective and intelligent) tutors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents need to learn how to parent. Maybe start living in joint families.

How dare you? I know how to parent. And if someone would pay me $100,000 a year to teach my child that would be one thing, but I am being expected to do that for free. I have a job. I cannot do it and also a second, unpaid job that I am not being paid for and that forces me to work an additional 8 hours for free. FIX DISTANCE LEARNING and take responsibility for your students.

So, I can come through zoom and wake your child up? I can give your child breakfast so that they can focus? I can take the legos, stuffed animals, and video games away from him so he can actually focus on learning? I can give him a quiet background so that he can learn? I can sit with him for 4 hours to review all that he/she refused to get during instructional time? I can do his assignments for him? I can prep him for tests since he missed a lot of assignments? I cannot do ANY of these things. I can provide instruction, encourage, mentor, and have additional zoom time within reason to help him/her but I cannot do all of the above. That is the parent's job.

It's funny, because you actually can do most of these things, in a building called a school. You just refuse to.

+1

The problem with these arguments that DL provides an adequate education *as long as parents fill in all the gaps* is that if the job of teaching, especially at an elementary level, can be done over Zoom from your home while providing childcare to your own kids, then it probably shouldn't pay very much.

I know teachers are working a lot. The problem is that 90% of what they are doing isn't educating kids. They are troubleshooting technology, they are performing administrative tasks that administration to make unrealistic claims about attendance and participation. Even the actual instruction is so poor, not necessarily because the teachers are bad (though some of them are), but because none of them were trained to teach in this way and most do not have the skill set to do it effectively.

I am happy to admit that as a parent, I am doing a subpar job of helping my kid learn via DL. I'm trying my best, but I'm not an educator, I find the technology clunky and frustrating, and I'm distracted much of the time due to my own job and the stress of having the whole family working and learning in our house for months on end. But at least I can admit that. I'm not a good teacher! I am a great parent but I don't know much about how to teach a small child how to read. I would love to have an actual professional educator do it instead. But DL has not offered that.

So yeah, we should probably open schools, unless school districts can magically figure out how to make DL effective at teaching kids things like basic literacy. It's one or the other.

Regardless of DL, many of us have spent a lot of time filling in the gaps in elementary school. The issue many parents don't notice the gaps as they leave education to the school/teacher and aren't aware of it. With DL they are more aware. We had to do all the basics from handwriting, spelling, grammar, math facts and more at home. And, this was before DL. The issue is the curriculum, not DL vs. in person.

And, as a parent your responsibility is also education. Its also child care.

We are in a pandemic in 2020. We are lucky we have the option to DL. Otherwise we'd all be homeschooling.

“All kids living in the United States have the right to a free public education. And the Constitution requires that all kids be given equal educational opportunity no matter what their race, ethnic background, religion, or sex, or whether they are rich or poor, citizen or non-citizen.” ACLU, card-carrying member here. I WANT distance-learning. I do NOT want to send my child to in-person school in a pandemic. But I am not “lucky” to have distance-learning. And my responsibility as a parent is NOT education and childcare. Every developed nation except ours recognizes this. Even ours, back in the day, used to recognize it. And yet the “personal responsibility” moralizers do not have the self-respect to claim those human rights for themselves or anyone else. What on God’s green earth is wrong with you? Why are your standards for a civilized society so low?

What??? ROFL. You are most assuredly as a parent responsible for both the education and physical care of your own children -- doubly so during a pandemic.

I'm confused. Aren't you all constantly screaming that it's "NOT ABOUT CHILDCARE?"

P.S. You're not entitled to childcare. Honestly, you're not. Not even if you're a card carrying member of the ACLU. Your kids are entitled to education according to specifications set by the state, which they are receiving.

Do you have children? Do you plan to? Are you a woman? Because if the answer to any of these questions is yes, you need to start upping your standards ASAP. You are walking around with a “kick me” sign on you by indulging in your present way of thinking. Caring for children and educating them are the cornerstones of a livable society. As the vast majority of women now have to work to stay alive, someone has to care for and educate their children while they do. And if you think being a SAHM with no one to help you is a piece of cake, you are sorely mistaken. People help each other. That’s what we do. If you refuse to help anyone else in your own life, think of me when you find yourself in need. I will be ROFL. And welcoming you to the sick, sociopathic country you so happily helped create for the rest of us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Teachers: you are paid to do a job. If you are upset because you have to assist with blowing noses - teaching young children is not for you. Please, we know now how you truly feel in your heart about children.

Further - you have all of us inadequate (by yoUr standards) parents by the “proverbial” you know what’s - and for that matter, our kids’ education -
and you chose to walk. Duly noted.

You won. Our kids have gone 8 months without you.

Please quit. Unemployment lines are waiting.

No. They will continue to teach via distance learning during a pandemic.

Keep throwing a fit if it makes you feel better, though.

The "it's a pandemic" excuse goes both ways though. Okay, it's a pandemic, so we've decided we can't do in person school. I don't 100% agree, but I'm not in charge so I'll accept it. But now it's time to figure out how to make DL actually work. It's not working for a lot of grade levels and for a lot of kids. In my house, we find ourselves having to choose between doing DL (technology problems, tons of screen time, kids don't get enough activity/exercise, we have to go over the material again later anyway because the DL sessions aren't really age appropriate and they don't absorb much info) or skipping DL and actually teaching our kids. Increasingly, we just blow off the DL sessions because it's much more effective for us to spend 30 minutes or so going over a concept with one of our kids and the taking them on a walk to the playground and talking about the concepts as we go. Then we reiterate and reinforce in the afternoon using reading time or worksheets. What we are doing is effective. It's also incredibly hard to do while also doing a full-time job (so now I do most of my job at night and on the weekends).

But schools actually could facilitate this better style of learning via DL. Fewer live group sessions, more well-organized packets and assignments, combined with small groups and one-on-ones throughout the week to check on progress. I also think all teachers should be doing periodic meetings with parents or whatever caregiver is overseeing DL to discuss how its going and troubleshoot. Instead, schools are sticking to the totally ineffective schedules and tactics that they came up with last spring, most of which are just a hamfisted way of trying to recreate in-person school inside a video screen. It doesn't work, and in many ways it serves as a distraction from actual learning. I'm not a professional teacher, but I am a parent and professional, and to me it was obvious how we need to alter what we were doing to make it work. It should be obvious to the teachers and administrators, too.

I am also doing a job from home that does not lend itself to WFH. I have had to be creative and come up with different approaches to make it work. I've had to learn new technology or spend my weekend experimenting with different methods for presenting information so that I can still be effective at my job even though it's not in person. It's been challenging but I've stretched and made it work. And if I hadn't, trust that my employer would be on me to figure it out.

So yeah, it's a pandemic. We all have to adapt. Lets see the schools and teachers actually adapt in order to get their jobs done, instead of just blaming parents for the ineffectiveness of DL.

Teachers adapted. Parents haven't.

You need child care. Pay for it. You are working and a professional.

OMG