No homeschooling would be you made the deck yourself; you source the curriculum yourself; you figure out which way is best for your child to learn (maybe it 5 pm outside; maybe it 6 am on the couch); figuring out which items needs to be wrote memorization vs. deeper learning; making literally everything you do a learning experience; ensuring your child gets proper socialization with camps and church groups; figuring out where your child's real reading level and having them go higher; teaching them chemistry because they need it but you know they aren't going to be a chem major and they need a well rounded education; figuring out if something they are doing is developmentally appropriate vs. them being lazy or having a delay. Homeschooling is not watching another person teach your kid regardless of how good or bad you think it is. BTW teachers get to fail and have bad days and weeks in their careers just like all of us. They get to phone it in too. Do you think that they aren't phoning it in here and there in the classroom. Right now you get ot see it, maybe its better they do a half ass job now when things are just so jacked up vs. regular times. |
It is not our teacher's fault. She makes those slide decks herself. It's the model our school has dictated for the teachers to use. It has been not a week or a month but an entire year now. |
DP. My kids' teachers are not phoning it in. They are working very hard, they are energetic and engaging, they have great DL lessons. My kids, however, are not learning. They're not holding up their side of the student-teacher equation. My kids are DL failures, they lack resilience. They need grace. And they need school. |
Working parent here and yes, this. My kid is 6. He tried so hard in the fall but at this point he screws around during synchronous AND asynchronous times. I am doing my best to keep him as attentive as i can, but I am also on my own work Zoom calls for most of the school day and cannot leave them every 5 minutes to stand over him saying "put that down, look at the screen, do what your teacher is saying" for 3 hours. Even when i do, some days it isn't that successful. The only way i could "parent" him full time on the SCHOOL'S preferred schedule is to quit my job. If the minimum level of parenting you think is necessary involves one SAHP per household, you really, really have to rethink your expectations. That is absolutely unreasonable. I said in another thread that this is basically an argument for private school. |
This is a pandemic. Private schools are also shutting down for 14 days every time some one gets COVID, which is far more disruptive. It is a crapshoot and it is horrible. My kids have great teachers for DL, but I have no leisure time anymore because I have to be very involved in the education of the students. Still, I believe that some families will actually utilize this time and give an academic leg-up to their children. We will see some students get exponentially ahead in academics. This will really widen the achievement gap. |
You are vastly overestimating how often private schools actually have to shut down. COVID cases are simply not that common in schools. Do they happen occasionally? Yes. Are they happening constantly? Not at all. |
Where? The point is to keep students cohorted and distanced so that schools do not need to shut down. If entire schools are shutting down for 14 days, their protocols are deeply flawed. |
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Be careful what you wish for PPs. I was so unhappy with DL that I did pull my kid out and start homeschooling. I decreased my hours and now homeschool 2 hours a day plus created a weekly schedule for activities like nature walks, gardening, cooking and crafts, and art.
I would never have expected it to go this well. My kid lives it and is so much happier. We are seriously considering continuing. In some ways it will be easier when Covid is over. The social aspect is the hardest part but, obviously, I’d be managing that right now regardless. Once there are more in-person after school classes and programs, this could be great for us. It’s mostly a question of whether I can work a shortened schedule indefinitely (I already know I can WFH post Covid). So when I see people saying DL is going poorly because parents aren’t putting the effort in, I know it’s BS. Many parents are putting the effort in, it’s just that DL doesn’t work for young elementary kids. Best case scenario is that they are “independent” meaning they can log into their classes and will do the time without complaint. And sure, kids might gain some knowledge this way. But it’s nowhere close to what they need and the amount of time spent dealing with tech and fulfilling admin requirements actively gets in the way of educating your child. If DL was designed to facilitate parents teaching at home, parents might feel like partners in this process. But it’s not. So some of us will go our own way. Half of the reason I am thinking about continuing to homeschool is just to stop feeling like educating my kid is a battle I must wage. I want us all on the same page. But increasingly, I am not sure our school or our teachers are. They seem to hate and resent me. Why would I want to stick around for that? Or subject my kid to it? |
Well I think that's the problem. parenting the same way shouldn't necessarily yeild the same results, especially with your kids being home all day long and dealing with virtual learning on their own. |
| Well, I can't really tell if you're bad parents but I can tell that there's quite a few people in this thread that are shi**y humans. |
You need some new tools. Parenting is hard and we need to learn and grow to handle challenging situations. |
| Stop bashing parents, stop bashing teachers. It's really sad how rude people can be on DCUM. It's a pandemic, this is something different for everyone, including kids. |
Well you should not be parenting them just like "normal times" ... these are not normal times. You are exactly the person that people are complaining about, you don't want to be bothered to "parent your kids". If they are falling back in school, help them. If they need more socialization, set up outdoor gatherings so they can carry on friendships. If they need a sport, sign them up for a sport. If they need their arts, get together with other parents and continue with their arts. The government is not there to solve all your problems. Do your job as a parent. |
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This is such a bizarre thread, along with the other million on this topic. So many schools around the country, including in blue states, are open in a hybrid model. I saw FCPS mentioned in a news article about outlier remote only districts.
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Thank you. My child is falling in school - I help him after DL in a non DL way when I can and when I remember and when I have the energy (so not that often). When I need a break and don't want him just watching TV I put on educational videos on youtube (his teachers have provided them) and some other tv shows his therapist recommends. He's gotten better at DL and not bothering me on a call but if he does so be it. It is not a secret I have a kid, I hear dogs bark in the background and ambulances go by - this isn't the 1970s where people need to pretend they don't have home lives. And its a pandemic. Demand better work accommodations - that is where the government can help you. Demand your husbands help you. And stop making them parent to your standards. I try during the hours of 5 to 8 pm and on the weekends to focus just on him (i.e. no phone or TV to distract me) and its hard so I fail and I forgive myself and I try again the next day. My son also doesn't turn in assignments or do the school work after school hours - teachers can't get him to do it then I'm not going to fight him. Teachers know this and they understand. I read to him, have him read to me like I would pre-pandemic and that's enough for now. |