I’m not sure if this story has been written but I wanted to share my perspective of what it’s like to do remote learning with 2 kids (4th/kindergarten).
This is our second go around with remote learning. We started Shelter in Place in March of 2020. Distant learning in Spring of 2020 was a joke. Our district pretty much left students to fend for themselves much to the anger of the parents. I sat through many angry school board meetings with them telling us dumb things like “It’s a bummer but...” Luckily a few of these members are retiring before the next election because a trash can would have won instead of them.
This semester my school really step it up. They bombarded us with emails and instructions. Day 1 of the school year, they were up and running on zoom/google classroom. They had additional meetings with parents but one on one and also as a group of what to expect this year. My 4th graders teacher is KILLING IT! I wish I could public name her as she is doing such a great job. My kindergarten teacher’s are also amazing but honestly getting 20 5 years old’s to pay attention to Zoom meeting is like herding cats.
So let’s talk about the actual logistics of what this looks like in my house. Both my kids have a 9 am Zoom meeting. This means a divide and conquer status in our house.
One person gets our 4th grader up and dressed and ready. He is pretty self reliant and it’s more reminding him that his camera is ON and everyone can see him being weird. The rest of the day is trying to figure out what his small group sessions are...did you do you homework, GO DO YOUR HOMEWORK, omg you are late to x special class and NO, I don’t know your password and why am I running around trying to figure it out 3 minutes before the class starts. For the record, there is a separate zoom link, software (Kahn, clever, seesaw, flipgrid...etc) for every different thing. The rest of the day is usually as long as you stay out of sight and out of mind, your parents probably will forget about you.
For our kindergartner, it’s straight out WAR. She has zero interest of attending these things and frankly a camera is just an invitation to an audience to throw a tantrum because it’s inappropriate to beat your child on camera (JOKE, people). Someone needs to sit there with her because again zero interest in learning. She also has “homework” which turns into “parentwork” because a 5 year old can’t type or read (congrats on if your kid can) and you need to sit there and basically force them to do it. There are other small sessions but luckily our school understands that working parents don’t have time for all that. Basically any distant learning for kids under 7 is a joke and we are pretty much writing off the year.
We have explored the pods and were invited to a few. My frank opinion is pods are more work than it’s worth. Coordination of between families and dropping them off and pick them up was a bigger hassle than it was worth. Also I have been privy to some super CRAZY pod emails from parents who have decided that pods should actually be a fully run mini school. I think most parents have switched from pods to make sure your kid has a few play dates so they can get some socialization in. And there will be HUGE learning gap between those who were able to provide their kids with private tutors/pods and those that either can’t afford it or in my case WAY to LAZY to try to navigate.
From a working perspective, my job didn’t slow down or change. Both my SO and I work long hours and we are the lucky ones who can continue from home. While kids interrupting Zoom class was funny in Spring, most people have moved on to a new professional norm of “figure it out to be professional” attitude. Understand that each Zoom meeting is basically an hour that one of us can’t work. We need to find a space for zoom meetings that isn’t disturbing the other spouse and other student. Don’t even get me started about technology, wireless, spotty coverage, wireless going down for no reason, going over data usage and every other thing that no one thinks about until they are stuck in it.
Working parents are STRESSED OUT and we have zero relief in sight. Most of us have accepted that even with a slowing of cases in the country we will probably be homeschooling our kids until Fall of 2021. I know I would like to have rational conversations about safely opening up schools without someone accusing me of trying to kill a teacher or grandma. No I don’t think school is daycare but for a very LARGE segment of the population, it provided our kids with a place to go while we went and earned a living.
I’m certainly not in the Trump, open up schools now crowd but I will be listening very carefully to Biden/Harris plan for reopening schools in a safe and thoughtful way. For now, I feel you fellow parents.