Some overwhelmed parents are abandoning at-home schooling

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-growing-cohort-of-overwhelmed-parents-unengaged-children-drop/

by finphil • 6 years ago

318 521 6 years ago

fortran772• 6 years ago

Many parents are discovering that the problem with "why johnny can't learn" wasn't the teachers or the schools.

aidos2• 6 years ago

Most parents are trying to juggle a full schedule of teaching and jobs at the moment. I don’t think it’s fair to compare that against an environment dedicated to learning (ish).

rrmm• 6 years ago

I feel like the comment was more directed on the kids' parents having to walk a mile in the Teacher's shoes. And the ease with which it is someone else's problem to make sure your kid learns.

irrational2• 6 years ago

We have 5 kids in school. Every single kid has a different schedule of zoom meetings, different websites they are supposed to be doing, etc. It is a nightmare to try to organize. Hopefully this will be a wakeup call for the school district to figure out an organized way of doing this for the next time. Ideally there would be a single place we could go that would show everything for all of our kids on one page with what they should be doing that day and the links. Instead we are getting text messages from this teacher, emails from another, we've even received snail mail letters!

binarymax2• 6 years ago

Noting from the other side, my sister is a teacher with 175 students. She’s required to assign work, grade, and give personal feedback to all of her students. She was able to do this in a straightforward manner when school was on-site. Now it’s a lot of overhead to chase things down when all the students and parents have their own schedules and communication preferences.

duderific2• 6 years ago

Between your comment and the GP, it's easy to see that any "distance learning" is only a stopgap that we've been forced into, and is not scalable or desirable for any length of time.

betterattrib• 6 years ago

I hope they do this even without a "next time". I have 2 kids in school and keeping up with the communication channels is an absolute nightmare even in good times. The district has a website for their school, the school has its own independent website, some teachers have their own Wix website, the PTA has a website, there are at least 2 or 3 "information portals" provided by the district, different email platforms, etc, etc. And when a kid moves on to the next grade or next school, much of this resets. Unless you have a stay at home parent managing the information, you're lucky if you find out about just the major issues...forget all the daily/weekly things you need to keep up with.

karatestomp4• 6 years ago

I've noticed the same thing but haven't been able to come up with a solution that isn't just saying "stop being such absolute jackasses when it comes to communication, schools" (and then having them actually do that) or yet another communication channel that may or may not take off enough to make me some money but, however well-functioning and well-intended, won't actually solve the problem, instead adding to it by creating one more way for schools to disjointedly spam parents.

dumbfounder• 6 years ago

3 kids here, pre-k, 1st and 2nd grade, so no self-directed learning of any kind going on. 2 working parents, one of us working much harder than normal during this time. We are doing our best to have school directed by our au pair, but her English isn't great so learning new material is not really possible. We just focus on the basics, have them read, write, do math, art, throw in a bit of science, and line up as many zooms with their teach/classmates as we can handle. I was pushing too hard for a while, and the kids were getting upset, which stressed me out, which stressed them out. Came to a head when my 1st grader was screaming at me that he didn't want to do a book report and then literally ran away down the street with me chasing after him. I made a decision to stop stressing that day. I eased up on the deliverables, shortened the school day, and made sure we prioritize de-stressing. Now my wife likes me again.

Without an au pair it would be bedlam and they would learn absolutely nothing, and I recognize that we are far ahead of a lot of people in terms of resources, so I think barely anyone is going to actually have a good experience with at-home schooling unless the kids are older, can actually manage the schooling themselves, and are actually motivated to do so. Or you have one heckuva stay-at-home parent.

dbcurtis• 6 years ago

You have my sympathy. Two things are working against you: 1. You are being asked to do something you did not sign up for, and 2. You were blind-sided and did not have time to prepare.

We home schooled our child from the time we noticed pre-school was not exactly going great, until the day they left for college. (They were given a choice at middle school and high school to stop homeschooling, but they chose to stick with it.) We chose, we had time to prepare, and yet it was work.

Some things that make homeschooling easier: 1. Adjusting parent work/career to make time. Unfortunately, not so much an option for you. 2. Coops groups. Not an option for anybody during lock-down. 3. Curriculum themes. The way home-school parents handle multiple kids in different grades without going crazy is to pick a theme and assign appropriate work to each kid, example: The next 6 weeks everybody's world history is going to be South America, so 2nd grader does 2nd grade work product, middle schooler does middle school work product, high schooler does high school work product. But as a parent, at least the search space for resources is cut by 2/3's over having everyone do something different. I suspect your school isn't thinking that one through for you, either.

Frankly, if your school district lets you get away with it, it might be a good chance to try "unschooling" for a while. Unschooling is: Study what you want, but you must work on something. It will be an opportunity for the kids to learn how to be more self directed. ("unschooling" should not be confused with "raised by wolves" -- I've seen that, too, call unschooling, but the result isn't quite the same.)

First grade is a little young for that to work well, though, I must admit, unless they have already developed a reading habit. But heck, maybe even that is OK -- "read what you want, but you must read for X minutes." Kindling a love of reading at that age goes a long way later on.

Anyway, hang in. De-stressing is an important goal. I remember when mine was little and just starting violin -- at some point when the stress-meter was climbing, I decided it was more import that practice be fun every day than to accomplish everything that the teacher assigned every week. That was the right call, trust me.

karatestomp4• 6 years ago

Ideally there would be a single place we could go that would show everything for all of our kids on one page with what they should be doing that day and the links.

Fucking exactly this. Even before this, schools had a communication problem. There'd be frequent emails, most of them without relevant or useful content, texts to tell me there was an email I should go read (WTF, just put the part that matters in the text!) and then an app with notifications which may or may not also generate an email directing me to the app, and most of which were also not helpful.

They communicate way, way too much, and the wrong things, and in the wrong ways. I've gained a lot of sympathy for parents in my partner's classes who say they missed an email or whatever—the schools spam parents with irrelevant crap. Bring back fliers in backpacks, a message notebook that always comes home, and calls when things are really important. Ditching the tech entirely would be an improvement. Even with the Covid thing I'm not sure the tech's all that helpful. Bus-delivered weekly physical materials (they're out delivering meals anyway) and regular ol' books would be easier to manage.

ghaff6• 6 years ago

A more broadly pessimistic story from The Economist with some numbers around things like Internet access: https://www.economist.com/international/2020/04/27/closing-s...

ilamont• 6 years ago

Remote K-12 education has given me a newfound respect for parents who effectively conduct home-schooling full time.

It also makes me realize how much kids are missing by not being in a classroom with their peers and a professional teacher.

vzidex• 6 years ago

I've always wondered what the learning outcomes were like for homeschooled kids vs. those that attended school (public or private). My assumption has been that homeschooling is less successful than sending the kids to school.

ghaff6• 6 years ago

Generally speaking, what research I've seen mostly says that homeschooled children are more successful on various outcomes than average. However, homeschooling is hardly random and presumably means more parental involvement than average, among other differences that are probably fairly difficult to tease apart.

zdragnar• 6 years ago

As with all things in life, you get out of it what you put into it. Dedicated homeschoolers will often partner with other like-minded families for social experience and group work. Some do it to give their kids a heavily religious focused education, but not always.

One major benefit to homeschooling is the (potential for) constant focus- kids arent going to get lost in a room of 30 other kids with no personal attention or assistance; they aren't going to be sneaking out behind the shop to hang out with the rough crowd for a quick smoke, or bring vodka mixed with orange juice in a juice bottle in their backpack.

That isnt to say that they cant find ways to get into trouble, but with less pressure to fit in, they may find less reason to act out.

Of course, homeschooling is goung to have a hard time replicating the large groups with social pressures that schools have, so transitioning to, say, a large university or even the final years of high school may be difficult without preparation.

I have seen varying degrees of success along all of these spectrums, and would be reluctant to make any sort of blanket statement about "better" or "worse" without having a lot of insight into what local public schools are like to compare against.

Edit: for example, the public school where i grew up was great. Some public schools near where I live now are fundamentally rotten; black highschool students have a 30-something percent proficiency in either reading or maths, while white students fared marginally better in the low 60's or upper 50's... And these numbers are going down, not up, since earlier in the decade, in spite of it being a very left-leaning city with lots of talk over the years about improving education.

dpoochieni2• 6 years ago

Depends a lot on the parents, can be very good or not. Let's say homeschooling is high variance outcomes, public education seeks homogenized outcomes.

jki2753• 6 years ago

That's a generally inaccurate assumption.

I was home schooled (never attended any standard school of any kind until I started college at age 14), have completed a very successful 20+ year military career, have a BSCS (MCL), MS (w/Honors) and another MS in progress, currently working as a senior engineer at a DOD contractor.

I know many others who have done the same or even far more. The school systems are not designed to reward or stimulate excellence.

davidaa• 6 years ago

Weighing in with a personal account for added authenticity with the acknowledgement of bias. I was homeschooled K-12, and my experience falls in line with what I've heard as the standard perspective: generally pretty average outcomes, possibly weighted toward greater academic success. High standardized test scores are normal. I'm surprised you've just assumed homeschooling is straight up less successful.

beckingz• 6 years ago

Learning outcomes or life outcomes?

For learning outcomes, I was behind for several years on the things I thought were boring (math), and spent lots of time reading about things that I was interested in (science, history, etc). In university once we got to the point where mastery involved understanding connected subjects, I was ahead.

I've been taught less about math than many of my peers, but recall a lot more of what I do know because I know why it matters. Which is why I work with data these days.

potta_coffee2• 6 years ago

Homeschooled children consistently outperform publicly schooled children. There's plenty of verified sources out there from which to make your own conclusions, if you look.

bubagrump• 6 years ago

Was homeschooled, which was mostly a mixture of taking university classes from 12 onward in math/science + lots of motivated self study that was evaluated solely through dinner conversation with my dad. Ended up at Stanford for grad work in applied math. My dad was a PhD in philosophy though, and I was a very self driven kid. I think it's very family dependent, and the selection bias, as others stated, of who chooses to pursue it is the biggest factor.

shaggerty• 6 years ago

Were you homeschooled before the age of 12?

asdff12• 6 years ago

Lots of kids in LA seem to be spending all day skateboarding 20 people deep on the less crowded streets, playing full court basketball and soccer matches with hundreds of spectators at the supposedly closed public parks. Summer break began when LAUSD went online for a lot of kids.

And its no wonder. 15% of students have yet to be in contact with their teachers during this survey period (1). In south central, 16% of students lack basic internet access. It's hard to imagine this perspective for a lot of the HN demographic, where we imagine internet has been ubiquitous in the U.S. for decades, but this is still not the case for low income areas in one of the largest cities in north america.

1. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-04-22/getting-...

kitotik2• 6 years ago

Are the parks actually closed? I only saw them closed for Easter weekend.

asdff12• 6 years ago

Yup! All parks are closed, but you can't even tell if you drove by say MacArthur park right now.

https://www.laparks.org/covid-19

_bxg12• 6 years ago

Is this due to people being unable to afford it, or telecoms being unwilling to build infrastructure?

davidw2• 6 years ago

It's in the middle of a huge city. If nothing else, they could use mobile data hotspots. The school district has been handing those out to kids with no stable internet at home where I live in Oregon, or trying to, at least.

danans2• 6 years ago

The most valuable and scarce resource for many parents right now is time. Even parents who theoretically have "time" due to a recent layoff or furlough are under stress of trying to apply for various benefits while paying the bills somehow, so the task of organizing their kids' home academic schedule is just daunting, leaving aside the issues of lack of internet access or computers.

It was challenging for me and my spouse, despite both having jobs that switch to WFH and flexible schedules, plenty of computers, and internet access.

cbhl• 6 years ago

My impression is that it's a mix -- telecoms only want to upgrade wireline infrastructure where it's profitable (so, more affluent areas), and in my experience, in SF, there is some degree of NIMBYism about internet infrastructure at the street level ("green boxes" and the like) so even if the telecom is willing it can be hard to get consensus from the neighbors.

mobilefriendly2• 6 years ago

The US has an obsolete, anti-competitive regulatory regime. In many states, the system allows local governments to grant effective monopolies each to a cable video and telephone provider. So many communities have, at best, two internet providers, and cable video service is far from universal. So a lot of places only have DSL over copper phone lines and that's rarely at broadband speeds. In my community the monopoly phone provider is bankrupt and has not repaired lines, meaning not even DSL is available to some homes.

throw4839• 6 years ago

Internet in US is not "ubiquitous", but joke. Monopoly everywhere, data caps...

asdff12• 6 years ago

Yup. I can only get Spectrum in my apartment, the fastest plan available is claimed to be 100mbps and doesn't hit anywhere close to that in reality, throttles aggressively. 4G coverage is pretty shit here in LA too. Crappy coverage, slow, and drops the connection all the time.

My options are deal with this, move, or have no internet. Internet provider choices will weigh heavily when I'm apartment hunting after this lease.

mobilefriendly2• 6 years ago

I don't have land-line internet available at my home in greater DC metro. We survive on LTE hotspots. Praying for the success of StarLink!

bjourne2• 6 years ago

Wasn't it obvious from the start that that would be the result? The idea that children should study at home during the school closure is ludicrous. I'm almost 40, have a Master's degree and have self-studied my whole life but I often have trouble being efficient when I'm home. So no way children seven to fifteen years old can do it.

Maybe children with academic parents will get some home-schooling, but children from poor backgrounds won't. Those are the ones who will be paying the price of the lock down. Two, three months without schooling will significantly hamper their development.

Loughla2• 6 years ago

When my state decided to go to 'e-learning' for the rest of the year, those of us who are located in rural, or low-income districts were terrified. The high-income districts couldn't be more excited; they're biggest headache was making sure each of their students' school issued laptops were appropriately tagged before being handed out.

This will further bake in the inequities already present in our garbage education system. Those that have, will have more, better experiences due to involved parents (because they have flexible or even just able-to-be-completed remotely jobs). This will be an enrichment period for those students. If I had a high achieving middle schooler at a high income district, this would be amazing for their development. For those that don't have, they're losing 3-6 months of education, at a minimum. For my child, even with two highly educated parents, due to a lack of resources and access to technology, this will be a loss.

Source: My career in rural, urban, and suburban education, both k-12 and higher education.

nostrademons• 6 years ago

This is why officials in many states, even ones that were gung-ho social distancing like California and Washington, were reluctant to close the schools. It was predicted that a large number of kids would instead just be congregating together on streets, defeating much of the point of closing the schools. But they were caught between a rock and a hard place. If they didn't close the schools, the kids become an infection vector that undoes much of the sacrifice of having people wfh, avoid social gatherings, and cancel large events.

gedy2• 6 years ago

"The idea that children should study at home during the school closure is ludicrous"

This sounds like a cultural failing, not some law of nature.

asdfasdf1212• 6 years ago

I think you're using poor as a proxy for uninvolved parents.

I'd actually be interested in the data if anyone has it. If you have no dad and mom is working then you're at a huge disadvantage no matter what.

These same kids ruin school for everyone else. Dead beat parents treat school like a day-care and ruins the learning experience for everyone else.

Also poor kids go to poor schools. 35 kids to a class, teacher who has mentally checked out 3 decades ago, gang activity in the halls, books are literally falling apart.

Going to a poor school sucks more than learning from home. Bullies and gang activities are rampant. School administration doesn't care because those stats make the school look bad. Yuck

agensaequivocum3• 6 years ago

My entire childhood of homeschooling disagrees. No my parents are not academic.

musicale3• 6 years ago

Two, three months without schooling will significantly hamper their development

Are you sure about that? Having gone through lots of school, I'm fairly certain that missing three months of it would have no negative effect on anyone's development.

ColanR• 6 years ago

So no way children seven to fifteen years old can do it.

You shouldn't generalize from your own experience like that.

makomk2• 6 years ago

To some, probably. I'm pretty sure the British government realized this from the start, but despite their efforts to resist school closures they were strong-armed into doing it anyway by the teachers and the press.

searchableguy5• 6 years ago

It's more about designated environment. If you think you can study in the same place where you play video games, it's not going to work unless you have extreme self confidence and control.

But if you build a discipline slowly and steadily, change what you associate your current environment with then you can effectively focus on things that should matter.

downerending• 6 years ago

I'm almost 40, have a Master's degree and have self-studied my whole life but I often have trouble being efficient when I'm home. So no way children seven to fifteen years old can do it.

I do have problems now that I'm older (than you even). Things were very different when I was K-12 age. We sure weren't rich, but I was naturally curious and had reasonable access to books. All I really needed from the school system was for them to stay out of the way.

That said, I was baked in my parents' near-reverence for education. There are a lot of parents who probably regard academics the way my parents regarded sports (i.e., as useless), and those kids largely aren't going to do well.

Aeolun2• 6 years ago

Two, three months without schooling will significantly hamper their development.

Only within the rigid schedule set for them in the default school curriculum. I doubt they’re ultimately going to notice a difference of 3 months.

gedy2• 6 years ago

While Internet makes life a bit more convenient, there are books and telephones. We can do something vs just "no education is possible!"

gmfawcett• 6 years ago

For example, see "school of the air", an Australian rural education program that used to run over radio.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_of_the_Air

Australia has long been a world leader in distance education, likely because they had such a large problem, and a head start on solving it.

stefan_• 6 years ago

The kids will just retreat to their study? At a lot of homes, there are much bigger challenges than just internet access.

richjdsmith• 6 years ago

Yep. Post service is still working. People have been homeschooling their children long before the internet became ubiquitous.

dorchadas4• 6 years ago

Our school barely has enough books to cover three classes, let alone the entire grade. Likewise, I've tried calling students on the numbers their parents listed both on the syllabus and on the official enrollment forms have still have sometimes had it unanswered.

dorchadas4• 6 years ago

I'm a teacher in a low-income rural area in the South and, try as I might, there's still some students I haven't been able to get ahold of. They don't have phones, or just didn't join Remind for whatever reason, and their parents didn't give me an email address. Hell, I've tried calling some on the numbers the school has on file, or that they gave me, to no success. It's quite frustrating from the teacher's perspective too, as I really just wanna make sure they're doing OK and that they get their stuff turned in... Though our administration did pretty much assume to expect nothing once we went to packets/online work, despite how much they threatened to place any students who didn't do it in in-school suspension or even fail them.

musicale3• 6 years ago

Summer break began when LAUSD went online for a lot of kids

Summer vacation is highly beneficial and better than typical schools in so many ways: getting to choose more of what you want to do and pursue your own interests, under your own motivation, without stressful testing and evaluation, at your own pace. You also get more exercise and the chance to play less structured games that aren't organized or controlled by adults.

But even if kids sit at home and play video games all day, I'm pretty sure their math, language, and problem solving skills will improve more than they would if they spent the same amount of time in a typical LA classroom.

UweSchmidt• 6 years ago

I vividly remember 35 years my kindergarden having a leaking roof, and the ensuing 'chaos', with all groups together and all toys spread around, led to a sense of freedom and interaction and play I hadn't had otherwise. Similarly I fondly remember many stretches of extended free time during my school years but also times of pressure, boredom and a sense failure at school.

I believe that this sort of exceptional free time does wonder for the psyches of those kids. The sense of "occupying" the public parks that are usually dominiated by grown ups is something kids these days don't often have. Back in the days we still wandered around in groups and had a chance to explore a forest or whatever.

notacoward• 6 years ago

If education is a basic right/requirement, then so is internet access.

decasteve• 6 years ago

I’m in a similar boat though the school system where I am put mental health as top priority right from the start and very little emphasis on distance learning. The teachers do send resources in a do-what-you-want and let us know how we can help.

My kids do a bit of math with pencil and paper, some reading, journaling, art, and whatever creative or constructive activity they want to do. After supper they play video games, watch movies/shows/documentaries, play D&D, and FaceTime with their friends.

They do a lot more cooking and cleaning around the house than they would normally do. They’re becoming a lot more self-sufficient around the house.

serpix• 6 years ago

One week in I noticed some serious pre-burnout symptoms due to the stress of working full time, being the cook, cleaner, safe parent and teacher of the house. So on my week off from my kid (I co-parent every other week) I first of all wept due to the stress and how much of an asshole I was due to all the pressure and then decided fuck it I'll lower my expectations on what a work day is and what a school day is. We stop the schooling at 2pm latest, doesn't matter if something is unfinished it won't matter. We don't do all the assignments and I don't try to be the best possible employee as it is god damn impossible under these conditions.

marktangotango2• 6 years ago

Here here, we experienced the same thing. Somethings got to give and I'm not going to ruin my relationship with my kids forever, for a job or one semesters grades.

zitterbewegung• 6 years ago

Is the issue that the parents can't help the students with homework? In Grade school I generally did all of my homework. Sometimes my parents would help but it stopped after going to high school. They did get me in an ACT prep course and I also took the SAT early since I was in a gifted program.

asdff12• 6 years ago

Part of it is that. Part of it is being in a good learning environment (imagine self isolating with an alcoholic abusive parent and learning at the same time, at 6 years old). Theres also issues with differential access to technology and internet. A lot of low income students have fallen of the face of the earth when LAUSD went online.

bobthepanda2• 6 years ago

TFA says that the general problem is that

1. Parents are now the primary enforcement mechanism for doing schoolwork, which is not a role they have necessarily been trained to do

2. Teachers do not coordinate the amount of schoolwork, so parents are in the unenviable position of essentially executing multiple lesson plans in place of the multiple teachers, each which is probably complex in its own right.

2 was a problem when I went to public school normally and 8 teachers each giving 45mins-1 hr of homework easily added up and ate into free time. Now parents are actually exposed to the problem.

whatshisface4• 6 years ago

1. Parents are now the primary enforcement mechanism for doing schoolwork, which is not a role they have necessarily been trained to do

Parents were always the primary enforcement mechanism for doing homework, what would the school do if a kid was getting all Fs because they didn't care? The most a school can do is force kids to be quiet, and even then if the kids refuse to be quiet the school can't punish them - a child that does not voluntarily submit to punishments like sitting and not talking can only be sent home.

commandlinefan• 6 years ago

We keep running into issues where our kids didn't know (or claim not to know) that a particular assignment was due, or required, or sometimes even assigned. This seems to happen a lot more than it happened when they were on-site, so I do tend to believe that there's a huge coordination/communication problem going on.

mmoche• 6 years ago

There are many issues. Perhaps the most obvious is that parents cannot teach their children and work simultaneously, while children accustomed to the classroom setting are unable to focus on a task independently at home. Either the attempts at schooling or the attempts at working are dropped - dropping the schooling seems like the better choice for families that need a paycheck.

jonathankoren4• 6 years ago

As the parent two elementary school children, it’s a struggle to get them to pay attention during the zoom class instead of chat with their friends. Getting them to do the assignments is always struggle, and now it’s even harder. They’ll just stop and start playing Minecraft, but you can’t take the computer or Minecraft away because that’s where the assignments are, and so you have pretty much watch them constantly.

And then there’s the regular meltdowns.

But the real kicker? The school district sends a letter saying to do the assignments, but they’re not assessing anyone, and instead it’s pass-fail based on the last report card. So none of this actually matters!

ghaff6• 6 years ago

it’s a struggle to get them to pay attention during the zoom class

Given the attention a lot of adults pay during boring Zoom calls or virtual events that don't grab their attention, I would say the elementary school children are in good company.

musicale3• 6 years ago

They’ll just stop and start playing Minecraft, but you can’t take the computer or Minecraft away because that’s where the assignments are, and so you have pretty much watch them constantly

The zoom classes don't sound very valuable.

In contrast, playing Minecraft and chatting with friends are both valuable forms of self-directed education that should probably be encouraged.

So none of this actually matters!

More Minecraft, less Zoom. :D

robbrown451• 6 years ago

The issue for me is that my kindergartner feels far more comfortable simply telling me "I don't want to do that now" than she does for her teacher. Her teacher never has to yell/scold/punish, but she is motivated to do it for her teacher and not for me. And I refuse to yell at her (I'll admit, I have, it did get her attention and made her cry, but I felt awful and I don't think it was a positive even if it resulted in a temporary attitude change).

She's a smart kid and self aware enough to be able to discuss it with me, and say that it is simply different getting instructions from a teacher than from someone she is so close to. She knows I'll love her whether or not she does her work. And there is also the peer pressure aspect, being in a class full of students is motivating compared to being at home.

I haven't given up, but I have given up on attempting to do everything the teacher assigns. It is not worth the stress, for both me and my daughter.

cbsks2• 6 years ago

My daughter is in preschool but she still has 10 zoom meetings a week plus extra activities to do. Both my wife and I are working full time which means she will occasionally miss a zoom meeting, and she rarely does the extra activities.

Luckily it doesn’t matter much since she’s in preschool. The only thing she really gets out of it is that she gets to see her teachers and friends.

I don’t know how people who work full time and have multiple kids in school manage to do it. I’m exhausted and we have it relatively easy. My heart goes out to all the single parents out there!!

interestica• 6 years ago

Zoom meetings for preschool?!

I had no idea.

cbsks2• 6 years ago

Oh yeah. It’s as much of a disaster as you think it is. Half the kids aren’t paying attention or wander off. The rest are all talking at once. It took a few days for the teachers to realize they should mute everyone at the beginning of the call and only unmute one at a time when it’s time to participate.

My daughter enjoys seeing her friends and teachers so we call in as much as we can, and as long as she is dressed and interested in it. It’s a lot of work for my wife and I though. If our work schedules weren’t flexible we’d skip them entirely.

usaar333• 6 years ago

I'm impressed you can both work full time with a preschooler at home. On my end, I've found the class zoom meetings not very useful - the kids in the class (including mine) just get disengaged with no parent helping them out.

scop2• 6 years ago

The problem is that homeschooling and schooling in a classroom environment are two fundamentally different things. Tasking parents with mimicking a school environment and school schedule at home is a recipe for failure that teaches parents that they can’t teach their kids.

We have been homeschooling our eldest son for a year now and can never imagine going back to full time school. It has brought an immense amount of freedom and bonding to our family, not to mention an incredible amount of life experience for him with various activities (grocery shopping, museums, parks, hikes, etc). However, it was miserable to start primarily because we tried to mimic the exact school environment and schedule at home; a complete disaster! Schools are designed to teach a large amount of children; parents and homes are designed to teach individual children.

Would you use an entire cafeteria kitchen to cook lunch for your kids?

OJFord2• 6 years ago

Interesting (to me anyway) that (it seems?) you decided you wanted to home-school separately and before you decided how?

I suppose I just imagine most people have an idealised view of their child's education, and then decide they need to home-school to realise it. But perhaps that just wrong, I've no experience, first-hand or otherwise.

jcims• 6 years ago

>However, it was miserable to start primarily because we tried to mimic the exact school environment and schedule at home; a complete disaster

They had decided how, it just turned out they found a better way after giving it a try.

I suppose I just imagine most people have an idealised view of their child's education, and then decide they need to home-school to realise it. But perhaps that just wrong, I've no experience, first-hand or otherwise.

They do, and they also have idealized views of their children. If you go into home education with a rigid plan of execution, you (and your children) are likely going to have a bad time.

Teaching is hard. Striking out on your own vector of pedagogy is a large risk that, if done well, can yield very large rewards...it can also be a disaster.

txsoftwaredev• 6 years ago

Precisely. We have homeschooled our three kids from the beginning and learned a lot. It only takes a few hours to go through the curriculum for three kids of different ages. It might take a bit longer if they are being difficult or going thru a new concept but rarely. After that we have various activities around the house / neighborhood they will participate in on their own. We would also have activities outside the house, piano lessons, P.E. classes with other homeschooled kids etc. They are kept fairly busy but not with the busy work you would typically find in public schools.

bcrosby95• 6 years ago

How did you manage 3 at once from the beginning?

We're debating what to do come August. We have a 5 year old entering Kindergarten. We live in a good school district, but we don't want to be part of an experiment as they figure out how to do online learning. Online learning for 5 year olds sounds disastrous too. So we've thought of trying home schooling.

The thing is, that 5 year old comes with twin 2 year olds. And the 5 year old has a huge attitude when dealing with us, but not teachers. She is way more productive when it comes to learning stuff in pre-school than with us because she flat out ignores us at least half the time. Can't imagine how my wife would manage that along with twin toddlers running around destroying everything.

Days are already frustrating as hell for her. A majority of the day is spent with at least one of them crying over something. Trying to stack learning on top of it sounds like a recipe for bad times.

Edit: especially with social distancing. Any other time we could lean on grandparents or local families in similar situations. Right now we can't. Not everyone can use extended family in normal times, much less the current problems we're facing.

ryeights2• 6 years ago

Do you have any concerns about your son’s social development? If so, how do you address these? Personally, I would be worried about accidentally isolating my kids and causing them to miss out on certain soft skills.

centimeter4• 6 years ago

All of my friends who were homeschooled did boy scouts, church programs, etc. and almost all of them have better-than-average social skills. I wasn't homeschooled but, based on the outcomes I've seen, I'll be homeschooling my children at least until high school.

agensaequivocum3• 6 years ago

Virtually all homeschooling families are extremely active in at least one social group.

gliese13379• 6 years ago

Do you have any concerns about the social development of kids who go to traditional schools, where they interact solely with other kids close to their own age or teachers who are much older than them and whose interactions are rigid and artificial?

Sorry to sound snarky, but the idea that homeschool kids are somehow socially stunted is a myth that needs to die. If anything, it's the other way around. Homeschool kids are exposed to a much wider variety of social situations which develops a broad base of social skills and preparation for adult responsibility much more effectively than the stifling and artificial environment of public schools does.

scop2• 6 years ago

- martial arts class gives (non-parent) teacher-student setting w/ same-age peers

- play groups gives play time w/ mixed-age kids

- piano lesson gives (non-parent) teacher-student setting

- living every day life has child interact with adults for various things (e.g. ask the cashier if they have X for you to buy)

- tight knit parish community gives very diverse age range (babies, toddlers, teens, seniors, etc) for both play, service, hikes, etc

- siblings close in age

Full disclosure, I was very skeptical of homeschooling to start and am myself a product of one of the best Bay Area private schools. I only chose to give homeschooling a try as I had a flexible remote-work situation and thus a year of not being tied to a school schedule seemed worth a shot. It has been a success beyond my imagination and my son is not only ahead of where I expected scholastically, but also socially.

ryanmarsh• 6 years ago

This is the most common question we homeschoolers receive.

1. Students and teachers are not always good role models and schools are not always a good environment for learning soft skills. Some schools are quite toxic. I'm sure many here can relate.

2. Who better to teach you social cues than your parents who love you and will be patient with you?

3. It depends on the child and the parents. Our oldest daughter is extremely introverted and was homeschooled yet has better social graces than her mother and I combined. Our middle daughter (extrovert) has a strong network of online/offline friends through various programs and activities. She will be starting a private school in the fall.

4. Homeschooled children get used to interacting with adults who are not in a school environment and tend to communicate in an adult like manner (IMHE).

5. The successful homeschoolers tend not to advertise it, yet they are everywhere. Unsuccessful home schoolers often become the subject click bait articles or books (ala Tara Westover's experience).

School for me was a horrible experience socially for me. I wish I'd been home schooled.

mumblemumble• 6 years ago

For what it's worth, among me and my siblings, the one with the best social skills, the widest circle of friends, and who is still most in contact with childhood friends is the one who was homeschooled.

No, that wasn't me. I certainly spent a lot more time interacting with other kids my age during weekdays, but quantity isn't quality.

I'd be curious to know if there's been any long-term research on this subject, but I'm not aware of anything.

sharadov5• 6 years ago

There is no chance that a homeschooled kid is going to learn all the social, leadership skills that a kid who goes to a public/private school does. The diversity of people that you get to meet in a school, is pretty much impossible in a home school setting. What about the freedom to be away from your parents and run wild? I imagine a homeschooled kid always tagging along with his parents.

zxexz• 6 years ago

People are very opinionated about this topic, and I’m sure that’s because there’s not really an answer to “does homeschooling have negative impacts on social development?”, beyond “It depends.”

I’m saying this as an unschooler, who was entirely without a mandated curriculum from 2nd grade until adulthood.

A lot of it depends on the reasons for home schooling. My mum was just hippie-crunchy enough that when 6 year old me said I didn’t want to go to school, she just let me leave at the end of the year.

I’ve met incredibly awkward homeschoolers who were not in school due to religious parents. I’ve met families who just travel so much, it was easier on everybody to just homeschool their kids - these kids tend to be more socially developed than average IMO - May be because that lifestyle rewards kids for being outgoing. I’ve noticed many more trends, but there is ALWAYS an exception to the rule.

I should note that “successful” homeschooling does seem correlated with economic and social privilege; for me this was the case - I had the privilege of being raised in the greater Boston area, near enough public transport I could go into the city whenever I want. Personally, I can’t imagine raising kids in a rural environment where they can’t take bus anywhere, and don’t have easy access to other kids their own raise. But, of course, I know several people who were raised like that and are way more mature adults than most. I think this point is obvious, but traditional homeschooling also requires the privilege of having a parent who is not working, or the money to hire tutors (unschooling and co-op based homeschooling obviously has less of a dependency here).

aklemm2• 6 years ago

School could easily be considered a negative social experience. Unnaturally spending 6+ hours/day with kids of the same age under loose social guidance. A home-schooler has his neighborhood and extra-curricular time which are more than sufficient, but also one huge advantage: the potential to spend time in the real world with authentic relationships with people of all ages.

Spooky23• 6 years ago

I disagree based on my school at home experience with 2nd and 4th graders.

IMO the two big issues are teachers who have difficulty with the online model and more importantly parents or caregivers who cannot control their kids.

We’re lucky in that our teachers get it and are doing a college like schedule with weekly assignments and three days with 2 one hour live sessions with two days of office hours and recorded sessions.

charlieflowers2• 6 years ago

You have to remember, the main purpose of school is to provide babysitting so all of the adults can work and keep the economy humming.

If you take a hard look at the time spent during school, you will see tons of filler. If you were _only_ going for schooling, you wouldn't need homeroom, lunch, PE (get your activity at home), and several subjects.

Not to mention, at home you can tailor the lessons to your kids, and you don't keep getting interrupted because some kids out of 30 in your classroom are being disruptive.

chasedehan• 6 years ago

you don't keep getting interrupted because some kids out of 30 in your classroom are being disruptive.

That depends on if you have multiple children and one starts flipping out.

Overall your point is pretty valid though

toomanybeersies2• 6 years ago

the main purpose of school is to provide babysitting so all of the adults can work and keep the economy humming

This point has been especially proven by the fact that a lot of countries right now have reopened schools, but only for children whose parents can't supervise them at home because they have jobs that require them onsite still.

apatters2• 6 years ago

Is this a bad thing? Birth rates in developed countries are low as is. Take away the free day care and they will likely drop further.

snowwrestler• 6 years ago

You have to remember, the main purpose of school is to provide babysitting so all of the adults can work and keep the economy humming.

I know this is a popular opinion but it’s ahistorical. Compulsory education was introduced in the late 1800s when about half of Americans still worked in agriculture, by far the largest sector of the economy at the time. Most families did not need childcare outside their home.

Today, school ends well before the professional workday does—pretty poor childcare.

The fact is that the main purpose of school is to educate kids, which is necessary to prepare them to live in a complex society. But, to teach kids you also have to care for them, hence the “fillers” like lunch and exercise.

Sadly, it’s true that for some kids, school is a major source of food and care in their lives. This is a failing of society, not of schools specifically.

at home you can tailor the lessons to your kids, and you don't keep getting interrupted because some kids out of 30 in your classroom are being disruptive.

Which is why it’s legal to home school your kids if you want to, even when there is not a global pandemic. :-)

chinesempire3• 6 years ago

and you don't keep getting interrupted because some kids out of 30 in your classroom are being disruptive.

and you will grow up unprepared to real life facts, such as people interrupting.

newshorts2• 6 years ago

Just curious, how do you deal with socializing the kids?

jvvw2• 6 years ago

It is a weird position at the moment too where you are home schooling but you know your kids will be returning to school and the schools are still setting work, so you are forced a bit into the 'school at home' thing. We're trying to get a balance - doing an hour or so of the set work each day and doing other more stealth educational stuff at other times. Unfortunately a lot of the staples of homeschooling such as museum trips (other than virtually) are obviously out at the moment!

hirundo• 6 years ago

This pain point may be a disguised blessing. The sudden demand for remote education might break the lock by local educators, exposing most subjects to global competition. Instead of getting the best teacher within walking or busing distance, parents are starting to level up to picking them from anywhere on the interweb. In many places it's the difference between no choice and some choice.

It's like the difference between being limited to books only by local authors, and being unlimited. It's worth a good deal of pain to get from here to there.

It is a massively less demanding task to curate and monitor your kid's education than to personally conduct it. And even the curating and much of the monitoring can be outsourced.

whatshisface4• 6 years ago

There is enough resistance to the idea of letting people choose between schools within walking distance that I can't ever imagine it being permissible to choose schools within an unlimited distance.

asdff12• 6 years ago

Public magnet schools exist in many districts.

analog313• 6 years ago

I'm trying to imagine the amount of added car traffic if you add 10 - 20 miles to the average commute.

JediWing• 6 years ago

Perhaps to some extent, but I think the larger demand is for remote-education platforms, rather than educational content.

The shortcomings of platforms such as Google Classroom, SeeSaw, etc. are being laid bare both from the side of the educators and the side of the students.

I think we may see a huge opportunity for a new remote learning ed-tech platform to really run away with things in the near future.

wadefletch• 6 years ago

Canvas is absolutely fantastic for my university, I think the player to watch is Instructure (Canvas’ creator) for either more Canvas features targeting secondary and primary students or a new product in the space.

Joof• 6 years ago

For a lot of people, schools are closer to a daycare -- that's still going to be an issue.

analog313• 6 years ago

It seems to me a more likely scenario is that remote education will encourage a consolidation, to the point where there may be exactly one viable option for any particular subject or grade level.

mjh2539• 6 years ago

The irony is that for kids that are actually homeschooled, they spend maybe 2 to 3 hours per day doing schoolwork. That kids spend so long in public school is not to their benefit, but to the benefit of those that need to keep their parents away from them for 9+ hours a day.

I can barely attend several hours worth of digital meetings, and I'm an adult. Imagine a 7-year old trying to do the same thing. Ridiculous.

john_moscow• 6 years ago

The school isn't just about the academic part. It also teaches you invaluable soft skills. How to handle conflicts, how to present in front of the audience, how to make friendships, how to respond to bullying, how to find like minded people. All those skills are extremely important in your average team environment, and learning them as a kid is much easier than guessing why you've been laid off, while your useless, but very empathic colleague got promoted instead.

nickff• 6 years ago

Those goals make sense to me, as I think they're all valuable, and I think some people do learn those skills while in school, but I'm not sure they learn them because of school. As the old saying goes: "what gets measured gets done", and schools only really measure test scores and years attended. I am not sure that schools really help people learn many social skills.

Have you seen evidence that schools contribute more to social skills than their alternatives might? I'd like to agree with you, but I am a little skeptical.

spaginal4• 6 years ago

School doesn’t teach those skills from my personal experience.

I was a product of public schooling, the my way or highway attitudes of some teachers, the social isolation, cliches, bullying, teasing, all severely stunted my social development until I was a teenager and began competing in sports team environments, working jobs, and interacting with the public outside of school.

After a couple years I was far more developed socially than anything the school environment provided in the decade prior to that.

When I hear this reason often used, I fear it’s from people who enjoyed their social life in school due to reasons not actually involving the school, and place too much value in those social dynamics, ignoring the really ugly parts of it that hamper growth for a lot of students, including themselves.

My own experiences show they lack any real application to life outside of school. I’ve never had a decent job that worked socially like any school environment I’ve been in, and the one or two I did have were quickly left.

centimeter4• 6 years ago

I didn't learn a single one of those skills from attending public school. Every public school I attended (and I attended several, since my parents were chasing the accelerated learning program every time it moved) was not only a huge waste of time, but actively psychologically harmful.

Based on the data I've seen, what I describe is a typical or even better-than-average public school experience.

Private school was infinitely better once I started going, and my homeschooled friends (who I met at university) are, on the whole, vastly better adjusted than the people I attended public school with.

Let's be honest - public schools' primary functions are to act as a daycare center and subsidized food distribution site. If you child is at all intelligent, you're probably better off leaving them at home with some books than sending them off to PS17851. I know I would have been better off that way!

greggman3• 6 years ago

I know my anecdata is just that but my experience to date is the all the homeschooled people I've met are far more social on average than the average non-homeschooled people.

No idea why that would be but of the 12 or so I've meet they've stood out as above average.

MichaelDickens• 6 years ago

If that's one of the primary purposes of school, then schools should have four hours of recess per day, because recess is where you learn all of those skills (except presenting in front of an audience). Most of the rest of the time, you're sitting still in a classroom listening to a teacher, not interacting with your peers.

hutzlibu• 6 years ago

School can indeed teach those other skills. But mostly only by mistake and much more it does the opposite.

Because in fact I learned bullying in (high) school. How to be bullied and how to bully others. (I actually remember being given a informal class about how to to it properly, by other pupils) There were allways at least on person in class who was the bottom of the social order, who would get everything. But everybody got its share, who showed any weakness or lack of "coolness" which could mean anything at that time, like not smoking.

And I know many people who never sing anymore, because they have been traumatized in the school singing presentation. Likewise with other presentations. I could always sing without problem, as I learned singing from my mother, but others whose parents did not sing with them, were always scared of the singing and embarrasing themself in front of everyone, but accepted that as a 2 times a year ritual and just reinforced their trauma every time.

But in compensation I got a trauma with presentation. I don't know exactly how it started, but probably with a teacher who liked to destroy childrens self confidence, if they were not perfectly prepared for the boring assignment and a class who was either sleeping or annoying. Got me a stuttering habit, too.

Today I can give presentations, but I had a really hard time learning it later in life.

So I am not sure what I will do, once my baby gets old enough, as I am located in germany and germany does not like homeschooling and I also would want other homeschoolers to be around, because I also think, that learning in small groups mostly beats learning alone or one on one.

aklemm2• 6 years ago

This is simple dogma, so I would encourage you to research and listen to the experiences of those on different paths.

spaginal4• 6 years ago

Much of modern public government education is part baby sitter, part indoctrinator, part time waster, and part money waster. The topics public schools waste time on are not something you would catch private elite academies getting caught dead teaching their pupils.

I feel like public schools are more interested in just ensuring an equitable lowest common denominator result at the maximum budget possible to satisfy economic, social, and political grievances.

Parents of kids in public schools have dropped the ball on education. They rubber stamp yes votes on budget increases yearly, and never ask themselves why it continues to fail and get worse year by year.

grecy3• 6 years ago

Don't forget schools are also designed to keep kids off the labor market until they're ~18.

Imagine what giving all those 13 year olds $2/hour jobs would do to the labor market.

asdff12• 6 years ago

In California, the answer to that last question is proposition 13 cutting the legs off of school district funding in the face of a rising population. That's why there are always education bills, because schools have been short on money for 50 years.

There are some benefits to public education that I think many on HN gloss over due to their privileged perspective when they make sweeping generalities.

Fitness and access to a nurse is a benefit. For some kids, gym class is the only time they are physically active, and a checkup in the nurses office is their only source of medical care. Access to role models is another function. Sometimes a teacher or coach is the only positive role model a kid has in their life. Another benefit of schools are that they are a safe space for kids from abusive households.

Families in poverty also rely on meals from their school district. In the face of this crisis, LAUSD is still making meals for students and their families, at times giving away 500,000 meals in a single day (1).

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-04-19/lausd-fe...

daxfohl2• 6 years ago

I'm having much more success designing our own curriculum for our 7 and 4 year olds, than dealing with random emails and updates and changes and new things to try and blah blah blah from their schools. It takes a couple hours max to cover the bases and progress is like 2x the rate they were learning in school.

Our schools have been great at trying to stay engaged, but I feel it's more stressful than helpful at this point. Schools are still trying to accommodate a huge range of kids, and trying to keep up with everything they're putting out is a huge time and energy sink. I appreciate the schools wanting to keep involved but the way things are now it's a distraction.

chasd00• 6 years ago

The only work my kids (10 and 7) are getting from school is maybe one question per subject per day.

My wife and I have designed our own curriculum to fill the gaps. The kids are done with their "day at school" after about 3 hours. They work with me in the morning, I've been able to keep up with their questions and guide them through their day while doing my own work and meetings. It's a lot like being a team lead again haha

EDIT: my kids are in DISD ( Dallas ) so the bar isn't exactly high. Even during regular school they were in various tutoring and clubs to fill the gaps

pjdemers• 6 years ago

My local high school district went to online classes. The district said 10% of the students "disappeared". They haven't shown up for a single class or turned in any work, nor even answered a single email.

joezydeco• 6 years ago

That’s nothing. One teacher in our high school has seen a 39% drop rate in her classes. And this is an honors teacher.

marktangotango2• 6 years ago

They probably don't have internet access at home. I read here 15% of families don't have internet at home.

twomoretime2• 6 years ago

I feel the proportion of students taking school seriously has been gradually decreasing over the last decade or so.

And now we treat college kids like children. It's hard to believe today's 18 year olds are old enough to vote.

These aren't just rose tinted glasses occluding my view. I don't think it's a stretch to suggest that people in general were expected to grow up a decade sooner than today. That's the price of increased living standards - delayed adulthood and reduced fertility. Then its the generation after that suffers from immature parenting.

JungleGymSam• 6 years ago

Parenting is hard. Giving up is the wrong thing to do for the child.

brianpan2• 6 years ago

Teachers and school district are not prepared to provide a curriculum for distance learning. It's takes months and years to develop a curriculum and no one had time to do that. Teachers may be doing their best but there's nothing wrong with stepping back and choosing to provide a different experience for your kid. Preparation for adulthood happens in different ways and parents should recognize that.

Also, parenting is hard and involves trade-offs every day. There are always going to be things you give up on to win the battles you can win.

nonbirithm• 6 years ago

Teachers may be doing their best but there's nothing wrong with stepping back and choosing to provide a different experience for your kid. Preparation for adulthood happens in different ways and parents should recognize that.

Would this statement sound as reasonable in non-pandemic times?

It feels like public schools would still be a better option if the choice were still available. It isn't, but as a result I feel like people who would have been able to go to school are missing out on something beneficial. Especially given how important expensive pieces of college-minted paper are for more and more careers, and how competitive it is to get a chance at earning one in public schools alone.

If I had children, which I do not, I would rather choose the teachers with the time available to prepare the in-depth curriculum specifically designed to earn the chance at the expensive piece of paper with some proven degree of success over what I could provide by myself, alongside what time it takes out of work and all that implies. That is assuming they have no difficulties in learning however. In that case the schools would likely be unprepared.

But of course nobody has that option now, so I would probably have much the same experience as the parents in the article. I'm not sure what else we can do in the short term.

shostack• 6 years ago

For parents struggling to juggle this with jobs so they can remain employed as they increasingly get viewed as delivering less value than people without kids, do you see "giving up" on things like this as a higher or lower priority than maintaining job security?

DiffEq8• 6 years ago

Just want to take exception to what you have said here. The issue is a matter of culture, not of access to teachers or the Internet. I home school my children and they have NO access to the Internet, have had no other teachers except for myself and my wife and yet you would not find them shirking their educational opportunities like this. We taught them discipline, to learn, to value education, and a love for knowledge; after that we could not keep them away from education. They were teaching themselves and pulling ahead of their peers years ago. They used pencils, paper and books...libraries and the books in them. That is not to say they don't love the outdoors; they also love to hunt, camp, hike and play baseball but they keep it in it's proper place. My children are the way they are because of our family culture. If those children had such a culture then this would not be a problem. But the truth is that the parents hand their children over to the schools and then that is it. They are not involved in any other way...it is no wonder the children are the way they are.

Talanes3• 6 years ago

And I doubt you would have been able to achieve the same results if your wife was dead and you were working an essential job for minimum wage. "Culture" seems to be a byword for money here.

kansface2• 6 years ago

Negative, plenty of poor immigrants (and natives for that matter) instill a strong regard for education and personal responsibility including my own family.

empath75• 6 years ago

How do you homeschool your kids with a full time job?

kleer0016• 6 years ago

Give 'em something to do in the morning.

Make sure they've done it by the evening.

DiffEq8• 6 years ago

Early on, from maybe 5 to 9, it was more demanding but at this point (one is 16 and the other is 12) they "own" their education. They know what they have to do and they do it.

avianlyric3• 6 years ago

This reads very closely to just blaming parents for not being good enough, and not raising good enough children.

While I’m sure family culture is incredibly important, we shouldn’t forget that growing up in such a culture is an incredible privilege. One enabled by having moderately wealthy parents.

Being moderately wealthy doesn’t mean having large saving or a fancy house. It means being able to provide 3 meals a day and clothes for your children. It means having enough time after work to pick up your kids, and read them a bedtime story.

There are many people living in the western world who aren’t that wealthy. Who have children and work 3 jobs just to keep them fed. You may even be tempted to say that the parents are irresponsible for raising children without proper financial stability, but that doesn’t help the children they have. It just provides an excuse to ignore a real social problem.

kleer0016• 6 years ago

Some parents aren't good enough and aren't raising good children. Trouble is they're not to blame for the skills they don't have. What is to blame? Entropy. Plain old time degrading memory and skills and effort. It's almost as if a larger pattern of skill and memory retention would be useful. Something old and robust, yet flexible and humane.

nugget• 6 years ago

Watch Captain Fantastic - one of my favorite movies.

What most kids really need: time, attention, and role models who instill the values mentioned above (intellectual curiosity, love of reading/learning, creativity, achievement.) Kids are pretty minimalist when it comes to money.

iateanapple5• 6 years ago

One enabled by having moderately wealthy parents.

It is a cultural problem and not a wealth problem.

My state spends >$10k per student per year on education.

Excluding my mortgage my expenses for each of my kids (food, transport, clothing, etc) is well under $10k/year.

If we redirected the money from schools to parents the vast majority of two parent households could afford to homeschool their kids.

And that’s not including all the additional spending we do on disadvantaged families.

DiffEq8• 6 years ago

Family culture that values education, responsibility, etc is not at all based on wealth. I grew up poor, both my parents worked two jobs - mainly we didn't have money because there were lots of kids and certain incidents that kind of took the financial wind out of us. I walked a long way to school and I can't not remember ever having a bed time story read to me or my brothers. I was always on the school lunch program. But education, discipline and responsibility was valued; the same for my wife's family. Discipline and Responsibility is free and in this country so is education, schooling may cost money, but education doesn't. Now as to their culture -- there is a problem in that the parents of these children are the children of parents that also did not value education...it is a perpetuating cycle. How to break it? This is our conundrum and thus far we have failed as it seems that all of our various efforts are doing nothing to reduce the decay.

duncan-donuts• 6 years ago

The lack of basic internet access is problematic in this scenario. I don't know a single person who isn't receiving their assignments from their public school in any other way than through some web app.

Our libraries are closed -- we can't just go there and ask them for the public school curriculum (not that they would have it any way). It's possible that the districts may have mailed out course work to people, but I don't know if that has happened or not. The city of Minneapolis has given free public access to WiFi so it seems unlikely that something would have been mailed out.

I'm happy for you and your success with your children. It sounds like you've built a strong culture within your family. Not everyone is as fortunate to be in this position. Is that their fault? Maybe. Maybe not.

kleer0016• 6 years ago

We taught them discipline, to learn, to value education, and a love for knowledge; after that we could not keep them away from education.

I'm curious as to your heuristics. Please point me towards your models.

kleer0016• 6 years ago

Not as a "pics or it didn't happen way", but in a "I'm genuinely interested, don't want to waste your time, and because I'm wanting to be a parent myself and it seems like an insurmountable task without some kind of time worn received wisdom even if the actual words seem cliche."

sbarker• 6 years ago

Do you worry about your children having large blind spots in pop-culture making it difficult to relate to peers later in life when discussing things and relating the childhood? I've wondered how music taste was going to continue with out FM, but just today my daughter had a google meet with her class where they have to have teams and discuss songs. Between tiktok, youtube, and dance class she did quite well. I imagine 13 year old boys will talk about fortnite how we talk about mario or zelda...

searchableguy5• 6 years ago

I don't think that's a huge problem. I almost had no interest in anything my classmates talked about but in the morning before going to school, I would open few trending pages and check up news for about 10-15 minutes and drop small hints to start conversation and let them continue since I lacked depth. Discussions are pretty cyclical and repetitive in nature. It's easy to pretend that you care about something superficial because deep down, people are also aware of it.

seneca• 6 years ago

Do you worry about your children having large blind spots in pop-culture

I home school my children, and it's intentional that they wouldn't relate to people in a discussion of pop-culture. That's what we're very much trying to avoid. The difference is that you seem to think that's a bad thing, and my family intentionally sacrifices quite a lot to achieve it. My son has never even heard of tiktok, but he talks about the Illiad with his friends.

I get how strange that sounds to someone who doesn't value the same things. We do worry that he may regret the decisions we've made later in life, but that's part of being a parent. Luckily the home-school community is larger than it used to be, and more secular, so he's not as isolated as home school families were in the past. There are plenty of like-minded families around that he'll be able to relate to.

DiffEq8• 6 years ago

What seneca said below is about what I think/experience too. Pop culture is just that = Pop Culture. It comes like a bubble and pops and is no more...I focus my children on the things that are lasting. By the way, I never played Mario or whatever other game that was. I know my peers did but we didn't have the money for such games.

jinushaun3• 6 years ago

Survivorship bias.

Being able to home school and choosing to home school is NOT the same as having it forced on you without any preparation. My guess is that you're a single income household. Others aren't so privileged.

analog313• 6 years ago

I come from the same culture.

I know several homeschool families, thanks to my kids being involved in an activity that's also popular with the homeschool folks -- classical music lessons. What I've noticed is that highly focused and self disciplined parents raise highly focused and self disciplined children, whether homeschooled or school-schooled. I admire them. Meanwhile, there's the rest of us.

andrepd5• 6 years ago

And I take exception to your extremely ignorant comment.

The issue is a matter of culture, not of access to teachers or the Internet. I home school my children and they have NO access to the Internet

Leaving aside the part of "absolutely NO access to the Internet", which already puts a cult-like vibe on your whole comment, how can you say that? How can you say "access to teachers and resources doesn't matter"?? Your kids definitely have incredible access to resources (if not teachers, in the traditional sense), so I struggle to think how you can produce such an egregious affirmation!

Some of these children from low income areas are subject to deprivations that you wouldn't even believe. Some of them have no mother or father, or no home, let alone a "positive family culture". They study in underfunded schools in a neglected and neglectful system. If you had even the slightest idea of what it was to be in their shoes... To go hungry to school. To hear your parents fighting as you try to concentrate for an important test. To be shivering with cold at night. To live surrounded with pervasive violence. To have your shit stolen all the time, having to be on your guard. To be bullied. To be engulfed in an inescapable, all-encompassing feeling of pure hopelessness. Maybe you do and you don't care? I'm not sure.

They were teaching themselves and pulling ahead of their peers years ago.
they also love to hunt, camp, hike and play baseball but they keep it in it's proper place.
My children are the way they are because of our family culture.

Yes, I'm sure they're perfect little geniuses. Everybody in a cult is also perfect, according to the cult.

loteck• 6 years ago

You have a bunch of interesting points in here all spoiled by your insistence that grandparent is running a cult.

DiffEq8• 6 years ago

Lets just say some of these things you claim I can't imagine - I have experienced myself as a child. So you are the ignorant one.

centimeter4• 6 years ago

Intelligence, time preference, curiosity, and other characteristics that underly the behaviors you describe are strongly (genetically) heritable. It's probably not very dependent on (intentional) behaviors on the part of the parents. Blaming this on "culture" is an (optimistic) misunderstanding of the actual causal factors at play here - the reality is more depressing.

jotakami6• 6 years ago

Couldn’t agree more. Parents who score high on conscientiousness and are able to set up that kind of home environment are going to have kids with many of the same traits (on average).

A4ET8a8uTh0• 6 years ago

You may be an exception that tests the rule. I do not have children, but I simply cannot imagine having to go through this stuff right now ( especially seeing what my co-workers are going through ). I do not have the patience to explain things that seem obvious to me. In short, I would not make a good teacher. There is a reason as a society we came up with school as a means to optimize the process somewhat.

I feel you may be a little too harsh though. You may say it is culture, but I would say it is the current situation people find themselves in. Not everyone has the knowledge, skills, time, opportunity and willpower to do what you do.

wbronitsky• 6 years ago

This is a racist dog whistle.

DiffEq8• 6 years ago

Is Thomas Sowell a racist?

dang2• 6 years ago

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23010472.

Press2forEN• 6 years ago

You're getting criticized here but I agree. My family is not wealthy but we believe that education is the responsibility of the parents, and if they choose to contract it out, fine. And even though I have still had to go into work during this lockdown I've dedicated my time at home during the week to the education of my kids.

MH152• 6 years ago

Please do not take this as an attack on you or your character, but rather as a disagreement with your actions based on my experiences- What you are doing is wrong. While you may believe you hell your children by raising them in a way that suites your ideal of how they best should be formed, they will not be in this bubble forever. Expecting your children to be able to healthily transition to adult life is folly at best and negligent at worst. Homeschooling in many countries needs an increased level of regulation to ensure children are afforded a similar life and childhood as their peers.

DiffEq8• 6 years ago

They are not being raised in a bubble just because they have no access to the internet ( that time will come when it is useful to them) and besides that they are active in several sports including wrestling, baseball and piano/orchestra. They have plenty of peer time. And my oldest has a job at a meat processing plant....if you want to talk about right and wrong I think your focus needs to be on the horrendous public school system which amounts to not much more than an overpriced baby sitting service.

hindsightbias2• 6 years ago

Those of you here with kids should already have an underemployed tutor/helper working with your kids, and looking for an au pair for Fall. This is an investment opportunity for those with means while the other 90% falls behind.

It takes a village, but it’s unlikely your village will be highly functional before 2021.

iandanforth4• 6 years ago

Are you suggesting remote or in-person?

hindsightbias2• 6 years ago

Yes

iandanforth4• 6 years ago

I'd like to hear from parents who are managing well.

I have a hypothesis that in households where children's behavior is better regulated (through example, discipline, or disposition) things are going better than they would otherwise. (I have evidence from my own childhood that this would be the case), but I'd like to know, if this situation is manageable or even an improvement for your child's education, what are you doing to make it so?

bitcharmer• 6 years ago

My kids are well-behaved. No tantrums, calm, very cooperative and with great attitudes towards learning. Still, I have to spend at least an hour with the 9 yo and 2-2.5 hours with the 7 yo. There's so much work assigned by the school that even with them it's overwhelming. Add to that having to prepare breakfasts and lunches and it's 4.5 hours taken off my day (at least).

Now, I also work from home which means I actually finish around 10-11 pm. I don't even have time or energy for other chores. Barely coping.

I don't envy parents with problematic kids.

lemmox• 6 years ago

This is my experience. One part luck, one part upbringing, one part privilege. Both my kids are thoughtful, even tempered, curious, and tenacious. Often they are called "mature" for their ages (8/11). Such is not a description that fits most of the children in their peer group at school. FWIW most would probably call me a strict parent. Not in a punitive sense, but we do keep our standards high and do not normalise behaviours that we don't like.

Honestly the school board's efforts have been phenomenally bad. We're in BC, Canada, which appears to have said "hey teachers, here's your Zoom license! Get on that e-learning thing - kthxbye!" In aggregate it's a bum deal for the teachers, students, and parents. Hopefully it works for some but it doesn't for anybody that I know.

However... I took control of the curriculum. I'm not a teacher so I didn't presume I knew best: I based it on the Khan School Closure Schedule [1]. We sprinkle in a few arts & crafts projects with their mom, some nature walks in the afternoon, some Khan math and language arts in the morning, and an hour or so of coding after lunch. They have a few extra chores around the house - nothing too onerous. We've increased their music practice sessions.

I've been working from home for several years so I did not have much adjustment to my working situation. It took a bit to find our education groove but, by and large, I'm happy with it now that we've deprioritised the haphazard din coming from the teachers.

My wife's impression is that both kids are performing at a higher level than they were in meatspace school. The kids and I agree.

I could probably sustain this indefinitely as my kids are kind of self-directing their way through the assignments. I'm keen for the new normal to kick in but, from my POV, this has unexpectedly turned into one of those "golden years" moments for me. We're making some memories and the kids are fine. Lemons and lemonade, I guess.

[1] https://keeplearning.khanacademy.org/daily-schedule

iandanforth4• 6 years ago

Hadn't actually read these schedules, they seem great, especially the Maths first and done with "school" by 2pm bits.

davidwitt415• 6 years ago

My wife grew up in the French school system and is a mostly full time mommy, and she has been very active with both our boys (6 and 12) well before the lockdown. When the lockdown started, she immediately put a schedule together for them, while I went to the library and checked out a ton of books. When the online learning started, she has been combing over everything the school has sent out, spending most of her day on schoolwork and at night is busy keeping ahead of their schedule.

Bottom line, it is just barely manageable, with the considerable amount of time she puts in, and we both wonder how others that can't (or won't) do so will be able to keep up. I don't think it's an improvement, but at least I hope this sets a foundation for doing it better in the future, as I foresee this being a long-term trend.

axguscbklp• 6 years ago

I think this might be a great thing for those kids. They'll actually get to experience reality outside of the rat race for a bit longer than they otherwise would have.

Based on what I've seen, I'd say the following... Kids who love book learning do it voluntarily, for fun, whether or not they're formally in school. On the other hand, kids who don't love book learning don't get much from it one way or another no matter how hard the parents try, unless the parents resort to measures so overbearing that the kids become psychologically deformed as a result - and even then, those overbearing measures only work on some kids.

daxfohl2• 6 years ago

Anybody else with the opposite problem? I find the at-home schooling quite fun. At-home work just sucks though -- new product dev right now seems so disconnected with reality. That said, obviously fortunate still to have a job at all.

hinkley• 6 years ago

I feel like we should be collecting a list of things to tackle given this huge social experiment.

The first one is air quality, but it sounds like the next might be, “yeah, teaching isn’t so easy is it? Maybe that skill deserves some compensation, hmm?”

geomark• 6 years ago

I think most people are realizing it isn't so much the teaching aspect as it is the daycare function that schools serve. So the discussion might be about compensation, but it is very much about how much what I would call "structured daycare" is worth.

dabbledash• 6 years ago

It isn’t really shocking to discover that people don’t have the bandwidth to take on an additional full time job.

jinushaun3• 6 years ago

I'm currently in this situation. Home schooling would be easy if we were a single income household where one parent remains working and the other dedicates their whole time to home schooling and preparing meals. But we're not. So are a lot of other parents.

grecy3• 6 years ago

I absolutely don't want to criticize, so I hope this doesn't come off that way. I'm wondering if this situation is making you (and people in your situation) re-think some of your life choices.

Do you think in the future you will make changes so you can live happily off a single income to give you more freedom and ability to adjust when something like this happens? i.e. smaller house, less cars, less consumption?

jinushaun3• 6 years ago

You're assuming everyone else has that option. Smaller house? Less cars? What?! I grew up with two parents making minimum wage. I have that choice, but others don't.

hackermailman• 6 years ago

Since this is only temporary one thing to try is what Erik Demaine did as a home schooled kid, his father told to look up whatever he was interested in and pursue it directly in the library which for him was programming games and origami. They're just going to hard reset the school year anyway

Simulacra• 6 years ago

I remember a friend of mine in high school was pulled out to do homeschool. The parents had a family friend who was supposed to come over and teach them, but after a while, Family friend just come over and sit on American online all day… It was a couple of years before anyone realized the kids were not being taught anything. My friend “graduated“ but he didn’t know how to do multiplication.

LockAndLol• 6 years ago

Maybe this will help show parents just how valuable school and teachers are. Maybe they'll actually vote or even show some initiative when it comes to school budget and teacher salaries.

Maultasche• 6 years ago

We've also been overwhelmed juggling a full time job (while working at home), but I've learned to compensate by picking and choosing what they do. My childrens' school is throwing more work at them than they could possibly handle (elementary school kids cannot handle huge amounts of self study), so there's no way they can do it all.

So I just pick a variety of lessons, intersperse them with periods of free time throughout the day, and if everything doesn't work out, oh well. I'd rather have them do less than having them be stressed out and me feeling stressed out from having to do so much.

I've been emphasizing reading practice with some math exercises, where they can be self-directed and letting the other stuff (which means lots of time for me) only be occasional. I've found they've made some significant improvements in reading, so I'm content with that.

deskamess• 6 years ago

Ontario, Canada reporting.

This is the general note at the top of the weekly schedule we get (paraphrased):

"Students in Grade 4-6 are to be doing 5 hours a week of at home learning - total Math, Language (French and English), Science, and Social Studies"

That's 1 hour a day. The schedule that a teacher has provided luckily takes close to 2+ hours a day if you do it diligently. There are still issues that come up in terms of clarity of question, or how much depth an answer should have. Word problems are especially hard - I am not sure how to teach the analysis and solution of word problems. This is going to have a detrimental effect on my kid in spite of my ability to help them. I supplement with Khanh Academy but she is so focused on achieving Mastery she spends a long time there. Sometimes I see her guess her way through some problems.

amiga_500• 6 years ago

Parents who both have to work because mortgage/rent now requires two salaries are going to find this next to impossible.

Yet they are living in a house that most likely stood during their parents' time and then it required just one income.

What changed? Lending against household income instead of primary income.

codekilla• 6 years ago

I have six kids, eldest 10, so 3 in school, other 3 pre K and younger. I think I essentially gave up today on online learning. I decided to grab some math circle books and a whiteboard. I’m also going to get the Mathematica for schools setup and teach them myself. I essentially have to make a choice between doing my job full time at home, or letting them essentially whither into gaming/YouTube addicts. Not sure what will happen, but school for them has been a joke so far.

swayvil• 6 years ago

Good! There are infinitely better ways to spend your childhood than in "schooling".

Sitting at a desk and filling your head with "important information" is relatively crappy.

KopitarFan• 6 years ago

My daughter is in special needs pre-school. They do a 15 minute kinda "wakeup" session at 9am and then a craft session at 9:15. Honestly, it's useless. The kids can barely pay attention and it's just an all around mess. We're honestly thinking of stopping because it just stresses my daughter out and she's really not getting anything out of it.

obiefernandez• 6 years ago

If anyone is curious about how "unschooling" or "relaxed homeschooling" works, I've been writing a blog about my ongoing experience with it and our 12-year old.

https://medium.com/exploring-wisdom-unschooling-and-world-sc...

glenvdb• 6 years ago

Good. A home is not a school.

That's not to say you can't do lots of learning at home, but the way that learning takes place will (and should) be completely different from how it is done at school.

jeffrallen• 6 years ago

As a parent in a crisis situation, your job is to provide emotional stability for your kids. So you need to ensure your own physical and emotional health first (see also: "put your oxygen mask on before helping others"). So if "home school" has to take a backseat to showing the kids that "this is different, but this can be healthy/interesting/stimulating too", then so be it. And some days are good homeschool days, some are less. Take each day as it comes.

However, juggling work and home school is just impossible. In a two salary family, someone needs to go on disability or take unpaid leave or whatever. Your kids need you right now more than your boss does.

dang2• 6 years ago

There's a related thread at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23011419.

Normally we'd merge threads that are that similar, but I couldn't figure out a good way to do it, so maybe they're different enough in some subtle way.

arkanciscan2• 6 years ago

Maybe if people had to actually raise them, people would stop having so many kids.

arkanciscan2• 6 years ago

It's funny how this got flagged. Breeders are so sensitive about their god-given right to breed.

unfocused2• 6 years ago

At-home schooling, when you weren't prepared and cannot provide the time, is not at-home schooling.

The educators were caught off-guard. The parents were caught off-guard.

Let's not make decisions about what method works and doesn't work. These are unprecedented times. Just make sure your child reads about topics they enjoy, and do activities they enjoy.

Reading and Writing are the most important skills. This is for a short period of time anyways. Relax, you only need an hour or 2 a day. Ensure your child is happy and healthy. Those are the most important measurements.

All the best.

tenaciousDaniel5• 6 years ago

I fear that we'll come out of this with a warped, unreasonably negative perspective of several things that are actually very good and beneficial. Remote work is one thing that might take a hit, because people will think that this is what remote work is like. I've been remote for 2.5 years now and this experience is not representative.

I fear the same will happen to the notion of home schooling.

unfocused2• 6 years ago

Agreed. Both are not representative of what they actually are because of the context!

keithnz• 6 years ago

I think now, a lot more companies will be open to it, and will be prepared for it. I know many companies who have maintained they REALLY need onsite, but now realizing that wasn't actually a hard requirement. I'm sure some are having negative experiences. Also I think it is actually easier with everyone remote rather than some in office and some remote.

markkanof• 6 years ago

Or some people will realize that remote work isn’t for them and others that hadn’t previously considered it will realize that it does work for them. I’ve been remote for 8 or so years now and in terms of work this pandemic period doesn’t feel different. So that leads me to believe that there will be other people who were previously working from an office but also have a space in their home that is conducive to remote work will decide that they want to continue working this way.

xwdv• 6 years ago

Really? Because it seems to me like the only thing people are going to realize is having kids to take care of 24/7 is a real pain in the ass, and maybe we shouldn’t be having so many.

I’d say the majority of people who are still employed and have no kids are having a fairly pleasant time at home.

evandijk70• 6 years ago

Just curious, what exactly is not representative?

For me personally, I can do my work just fine, I just miss being around other my coworkers and having a clear separation between my work environment and my home environment. I look forward to returning to my office when it's possible.

sealthedeal• 6 years ago

Tbh I’ve never liked homeschooling so that would be ok. But agree with you on remote work.

rjbwork• 6 years ago

I've done some WFH days each week in the past and been quite productive. I've been doing quarantine work for 7 weeks now and I feel like it's fucking with my head and I can barely get any work done. This sucks. I'm considering asking for a week or 2 of unpaid vacation.

virgilp3• 6 years ago

I honestly don't understand how home schooling is supposed to work. I mean, primary school maybe (though even there I seriously doubt the capacity of most parents, but whatever, we could handle that). But secondary school & beyond? Like, we're lucky that we can explain path, physics, chemistry, grammar to our kids & help them, but we struggle on some of the subjects (& gave up on others - e.g. chemistry - at highschool level). But it's one thing to help them on some subjects - and a whole different things to be able to actively teach everything: not only those, but history, geography, foreign languages, arts, music etc - that's far more than one full-time job! The only reason why teachers are able to do it is that they teach a single subject (to an entire classroom). Yeah, in primary school you (mostly) have a single teacher for the class, so home-schooling is plausible. But beyond that, I just don't understand it.

deanCommie• 6 years ago

Before COVID, the only people I saw home schooling were doing so out of ideologic incentives.

(Other than extreme edge cases).

I see no issue with home schooling receiving a negative rep.

Unless you're a trained educator, I see no benefit to home schooling children and depriving them of standard curriculums and socializing.

(I'm biased having only experienced positive public school environments in Russia and Canada. Perhaps there is some dystopia with the American Public School system, but the root problem is America, not public schools)

dataduck4• 6 years ago

I'm more optimistic. I think there will be quite a lot of people who try home schooling for the first time and are pleasantly surprised. Doubly so for remote work.

Of course some people will hate it, but horses for courses.

PeterisP2• 6 years ago

It's worth distinguishing between homeschooling and the current situation of "at-home schooling" or remote schooling, which is quite a different beast.

My kids are being schooled by their teachers remotely, not by me - this process has little in common with "traditional homeschooling" other than the room it happens in, everything else is different.

screye3• 6 years ago

people will think that this is what remote work is like

Oh man, this is the truest thing I've heard since the quarantine started.

I loved that my team had a flexible WFH policy year round. On days with chores, I could stay at home and get some work done. I could travel while working. If I work up late or on the wrong side of the bed, I could avoid the trouble of dressing up and just login while brewing myself a coffee.

But now, I hate it. I've realized, I love remote work precisely because I can work from the office the rest of the time. The loss of productivity, communication and socialization doesn't feel like much if it is 1 day a week.

But, all the time. God No!

locao• 6 years ago

I've been wfh for the last 12 months and now people are telling me "you said it aint that bad, but it's terrible", and yeah it's been terrible to be wfh AND isolated. This should not count as a real experience for anyone.

new_realist• 6 years ago

School is designed to force kids to grow in areas they do not naturally enjoy.

mirimir2• 6 years ago

True. But it also teaches kids to work on schedule, follow rules, and do what they're told.

concordDance3• 6 years ago

Forces them to "learn" things they dislike and will never use in adulthood.

mrbonner• 6 years ago

“Reading and writing are the most important skills” Interesting I think the same but my 8 yo girl says she enjoys doing math more: story problem, xtramath and IXL seem to occupy her more than reading and writing, except reading comics I would say.

Moru• 6 years ago

Reading comics is still reading. Any reading is good at that age. Your brain needs the time to build up the pattern recognition engine :-)

ashtonkem• 6 years ago

Plus, even the adults are struggling to maintain productivity. Stressful times are not conducive to consistent performance.

cybert00th2• 6 years ago

Amen - just focus on being your child's parent, the rest is details.

Children are a lot more resilient than we give them credit for, they will bounce back education-wise.

otabdeveloper42• 6 years ago

Ensure your child is happy and healthy. Those are the most important measurements.

A cat, a goldfish or even a houseplant are 'healthy and happy'.

I'm hoping we as human beings strive to move beyond a simple vegetable existence.

withthewind• 6 years ago

Being unhappy causes a variety of issues that effect your cognitive ability. Humans simply perform better when they are happy.

chinesempire3• 6 years ago

Can you really prove that a houseplant is happy or that "we" can make them happy?

That would be interesting.

mattmichielsen• 6 years ago

In early January, I broke my ankle and worked from home for something like 5 weeks. My job is software development and support for a manufacturing company, so I normally spend a fair amount of time on the production floor dealing with issues. That month, without kids at home during the day, things were way different than the last month. January was super productive, but I was also couch-bound for the most part.

Lately I've been working a couple hours in the morning, then a lot more after the kids go to bed a few nights per week.

We started the first week of the stay-at-home order here with a 6 hour/day schedule for the kids (including reading time, neighborhood walk, etc), but that fell apart after about 4 days.

At this point, we try to have them do something fairly educational in the morning for an hour or two, and then just let them play. We've only barely touched the surface of what the teachers are sending us. Obviously this isn't going to put them behind, being 5 and 7 years old. The Zoom meetings with their teachers are mostly just to stay connected to their friends, and I think that is completely fine.

This morning, my 7 year old learned about calculating area by figuring out how many pieces of yarn she'd need for a "latch kit" rug thing. She didn't even know she was learning math!

sunsetSamurai• 6 years ago

Hopefully, this will drive some parents to appreciate a bit more the job that teachers do, I've heard so many parents trash-talking teachers' work. It's not easy dealing with a bunch of kids.

valuearb• 6 years ago

I understand how they feel. I’m being asked to serve as part time IT specialist, Nath Tutor and Booboo Nurse while trying to bill hours on my clients project.

I’ve also given up on tracking their assignments, I just give them a printout of the days of week each Monday and ask them to fill it out with due dates to organize themselves. Fortunately my kids are early teens and actually care about getting good grades.

olliej• 6 years ago

I mean it’s fair - you need support systems to support it at the best of times.

In NZ there is the NZ correspondence school for children that can’t get to a physical school.

It provides the curriculum, materials, textbooks, grading, etc.

But the US treats homeschooling as a system to allow parents to indoctrinate kids rather than actually teach them so provides no such support (even though their are people who are homeschooled due to actual need and whose parents want their kids to be educated).

Couple that lack of support, with the lack of choice or real warning, and that many parents still do have to work and you’ve got a quagmire that is understandably overwhelming.

colecut• 6 years ago

The overwhelming number of websites utilized for an elementary school education drastically overcomplicates attempting to complete my son's school work..

Just for math alone, often times to complete a single day's activitiy, four different websites are involved, usually all requiring different login/password information.

Get assignments from Google Calendar Watch instruction on youtube. Do lesson on Zearn.org. Watch video on Khan Academy. Complete quiz on iReady. Take picture of your scratch work so you can upload to google calendar.

I am a technology junkie and always have been, but I definitely miss the days from my own schooling where everything I needed to both learn and do in Math for the day was in a single textbook... It's sad how much we have complicated things with technology.

Now they have completely changed how math should be done, require many extra "steps" that seem to be unnecessary that parents were never taught, and do not provide a book at all for reference of what these new methods are. It almost seems like they are trying to make learning as frustrating as possible.

Craighead• 6 years ago

The simple textbook is impossible because of companies like pearson looking to monetize every character of every page through licensing of online textbooks.

They could implement this tomorrow but choose not to.

karatestomp4• 6 years ago

Oh god, so much this. If they'd just use books and worksheets and the occasional Youtube video maybe, it'd be so much better. We had prepped worksheet packets for the first couple weeks and it's been hell since those ran out.

I'd also love just a simple (please, just the plainest of HTML, it does not need to be another fucking app or "webapp") checklist of what's due for the current week, per day, with a check for "submitted", a check for "received/acknowledged", and a check for "graded" (so don't bother submitted or updating if you didn't already). Maybe make the name of each thing linkable when relevant.

[EDIT] Oh and

Now they have completely changed how math should be done, require many extra "steps" that seem to be unnecessary that parents were never taught, and do not provide a book at all for reference of what these new methods are. It almost seems like they are trying to make learning as frustrating as possible.

Yes. Ugh. "Word sentence". No. It's a fucking equation. I swear I can't figure out what they even want half the time because they're using weird terms. And this is first grade math.

karatestomp4• 6 years ago

Edit option’s gone but I meant “number sentence”, of course. Heh. And yes that’s really what they call them. Half the kids can’t even kind-of tell you what a sentence is in English and they’re using them as a metaphor in math. Clearly a good and useful idea.

cmsefton• 6 years ago

I also have real concerns about the use of gamification in these online learning apps. It seems to really encourage an unhealthy obsession with points, collecting awards etc. to the point where learning is secondary. To be clear, I'm not suggesting that e.g. a child doesn't learn maths or a language etc. using these apps, but I think there are other things that are being learnt as well. If tasks are not game-based, they're now boring, and are to be avoided. If they require serious focus and thinking with no immediate rewards beyond just learning, they're avoided. What's become more important is immediate gratification and the dopamine hit. I really worry that the over reliance on gamification is encouraging very negative behaviours in young children.

perpetualpatzer• 6 years ago

I share your concern that too much gamification in school helps normalize Skinner-boxy manipulation in other venues (Fortnite, slot machines, etc.).

I do think gamification can have positive externalities as well, though. Comparing high scores in Number Munchers was the first time in my early 90s grade school that it was socially cool to stand out academically. That can be socially liberating for smart students afraid to be uncool (or academically liberating for cool students afraid to be seen as caring about school). I don't think you get the same effect if the status signal comes in the form of praise/grades from the "uncool" teacher.

apatters2• 6 years ago

Even when I use the web link I get stuck at the paywall and can't read this. I thought pages that require login were banned from HN?

AndrewKemendo• 6 years ago

I'm almost there...it's impossible to have two full time working parents also homeschooling + meals.

Technology isn't anywhere good enough yet that you can just give a kid a computer, no matter what the curriculum or the other side is doing (zoom, altitude etc...) and let them go.

I'm really of the mind that this is a unique period and that I'm not going to stress all to death that they didn't get their SOLs in for a few months.

jasonv• 6 years ago

Been homeschooling my teenager for a few years. First year or two were huge learning experiences for all of us. It took a lot of work and prep and, among the adults, a bit of negotiation to cover the topics.

It would be tough to suddenly have to take on, or cover, someone else’s curriculum. Just understanding the requirements, time intervals, and external expectations can be a real challenge.

dgentile• 6 years ago

HS student here. Our district made the decision to keep grades, or you can apply to drop distance learning if you meet certain circumstances. This is incredibly frustrating for me since 1) I can't slack off and work on my C++ projects ;) and 2) It's a ridiculous amount of work, and some teachers are not exactly being fair. Our school has the IB program, and I am in the "Precalculus" class before HL Math 1. The teacher is a bad teacher anyway in school, and yet out of school they are worse. We are given instruction in these obscure note packets that are basically a list of formulas. Every single time I need to solve the online problems we are given, I end up on Wikipedia, or Khan Academy... so why am I taking this class?

In other classes, the teachers don't seem to grok that we have other classes, and instead will give us one "trivial 1 hour" assignment a day.

I'm starting to feel burnt out, unlike during actual school which was manageable for me. I would rather we were given an assignment or two a week in each class, or shorter assignments each day. (Thankfully two of my teachers get this)

Also, google classroom can be frustrating if the teacher doesn't use it well. Let's say they post a couple announcements a day, along with assignments, and there was a project assigned on Monday. I have to go hunting to see if there was something. It gets buried in a big stack, and sometimes it will just up and surprise me on Friday when it pops up as "Due today". This I blame more on google than the teachers, since I think there should be a way to visually represent the assignments that isn't a twitter feed.

ImaCake• 6 years ago

I find math courses (as an adult doing a masters in biostatistics) can be very poorly taught sometimes. I think this comes from a desire to "keep things simple" and elegant. But the lack of practical examples and no alternative explanations can make it really difficult for some people to learn concepts. Sometimes you get a good maths course, but many are terrible.

As a suggestion, you could look to torrent a good textbook if you can find one.

newshorts2• 6 years ago

My 1.5 year old is not in school, but I’d like to wonder aloud how damaging this might be to our 1 year olds.

Our daughter was in daycare at 2 months (both wife and I work full time). She adapted and quickly developed a very strong and social personality.

She was totally the type of kid that would greet new people, very confident. Even finding the occasional random grandma to pick her up.

Now when she sees people on our walks and doesn’t wave or give any indication that she wants to interact, she definitely more frightened of things than she used to be.

I fear this whole thing is messing with her personality.

heeen2• 6 years ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stranger_anxiety

It is a natural development process in most children.

cachestash• 6 years ago

"“A part of me does feel guilty,” said Ms. Belyea, who lives in Toronto. “I am the parent, and sometimes kids have to do what they don’t want to do. But it’s just too much. I can’t fight with him every day like this.”

Having an Asian mother, this all just sounds so alien to me.

jvvw2• 6 years ago

We have primary school aged kids and after the first few weeks, have decided to just do a token hour a day on the work set by school, although we try and do other 'educational' things in some of the other time, but not following any curriculum. I only work 3.5 hours a week (already remotely before all this) but can't imagine what this is like for anybody working full-time.

I think the school is trying really hard to provide guidance but has fallen into an awkward half-way house where they have provided resources but not quite enough to make them work without some prep by the parent and extremely cooperative kids!

I feel like we should play to the strengths of being at home and do stuff where one-on-one (or one-on-two!) works better, following their interests, helping them with the stuff they are actually stuck on it (or in the zone of proximal development in pedagogical speak), reading and just enjoying spending precious time together. My husband is taking off half a day's leave a week (what else are we going to use it on this year?) to look after the kids for an hour a day too, which has been a lifesaver and give him some time with them.

Also, I think most people trying to do this home education thing at the moment are way too busy to write about it!

hoseja• 6 years ago

This just shows how many people don't have healthy respectful relationships with their children.

jiux• 6 years ago

I’m a single, full-time dad to two girls - a six year old kindergartener and two year old toddler.

I’ll share some of my observations and thoughts so far (in no particular order):

- It’s nice to be around them more. Seriously. I personally invest a lot into their development and seeing them positively grow is a great feeling. Being around them more during the day seems to amplify this. “Time” is finite.

- I put my daughter into private school and the expensive monthly tuition bill still came at full price. Was it fair? I don’t know. I knew I could get by financially so never brought it up with hopes it might just help a teacher keep a paycheck. The teachers are passionate and are really trying with distant learning too. If anything, they deserve more.

- No longer paying for a babysitter nor after school care returned a lot back into the wallet. This actually turned into a new and positive financial investment adventure. I’ve saved more money in the last two months than I have in a year. ”Wow” is the feeling.

- The heightened risk around handled food has mentally “forced” me into eating exclusively at home from grocery store goods. We three were a 99% eat-out/takeout everyday family beforehand. Surprisingly, the adaptation has been a lot easier than expected. Eating out was almost never for self-pleasure, just convenient usually. This also has helped save lots of $$$.

- The commute to work has lightened up a little. I think maybe 10ft (+/- a foot or two for you anal type). The car has been with a full tank for over a month. ~5 miles in this timeframe, all of which for grocery store (wow more money saved).

- Morning commute consisted of driving girls to school and babysitter, then to work. That short distance in the car alone cost me ~1 hour each way, so ~2 hours of time returned daily. I normally lay outfits out the night before, the toddler is usually chill about what outfit to wear, and the school requires uniforms, so morning prep was fast and smooth, usually. Maybe 30 minutes returned here.

- Standard of cleaning dipped lower than desired once we became the three musketeers. New found time went as fast as it came here. Having our apartment a little more clean feels good though.

- My official title at the 9-5 is “software engineer”, so the concept of working from home is realistic. Doing so with children as a single parent is where reality hits the fan too. Just one child around is not too bad, doesn’t matter which one. Having both means girls argue, fight over stuff like who gets the last corndog, if Barbie should or shouldn’t go stand in the corner in timeout for doing something bad, so on. My concentration skills with work have been tested here FOR SURE. It’s easy and then it’s not. Productivity is overall on average higher when they take an afternoon nap and lower when awake and about.

- This whole online learning concept sounds nice on paper and might be the best alternative next to in-person schooling, but man it really is difficult to pull off during the week for me. An hour or two a day? I’m already writing this at 3am if that tells you anything. That might be realistic to some, but it’s not for me, and I’m not even dismissing any opportunity to save time. For example, I have it figured out when I wake up: first use the restroom, wash hands, then proceed to brush teeth after washing hands, but before drying. This saves from wetting hands and drying with towel twice. When time is at a premium, it makes you think about weird stuff like that. I try for weekends to catch up on daughters schooling. We are a week and a half behind. I also emailed the teacher on my own behalf to simply let her know I’m having a hard time keeping up and to ask if she had any tips or suggestions to offer.

Overall, social distancing hasn’t phased us since we keep to ourselves in our private time for the most part already. No real negatives experienced on a personal level and our health is good. I suspect this concept of online learning might be easy for some, if not most, but it sure as hell hasn’t been for me with time already at a premium.

My girls and I will get through it, just like the rest of you reading this will.

supernova87a• 6 years ago

I'm not a parent, but I remember as a kid in the 80s watching PBS specials during the day on science that were packed with interesting content. I stayed out of my parents hair during the summer watching these things. Yes, admittedly I was probably not the typical child.

But are there not public service lecture series on Youtube by teachers (funded by foundations, etc) that have produced videos for all kinds of grade levels and subjects? It feels like we have the world of knowledge at our fingers, but can't find anything productive to watch? Is it not possible to at least occupy a couple hours of kids' time with Khan Academy videos?

Why do parents have to make up curricula to teach?

imhoguy• 6 years ago

The problem is that open medium like YT also contains ton of distracting and low quality content. It is too easy to let kid click on some "5 minute tricks" garbage or celebrities bait.

gridlockd• 6 years ago

Schools are daycare centers, the curriculum only expands to serve that purpose.

So why not use this opportunity to cut the bullshit and focus on reading, writing and math?

All of the other stuff is eventually forgotten anyway, to no detriment.

tragomaskhalos• 6 years ago

I am homeschooling my autistic son; his (mainstream) school have stipulated 3 hours of lessons a day, and we are hitting that. With the proviso that, obviously, I am nowhere near as good as a proper teacher, I'd argue that he is actually benefitting by getting more of the 1-1 attention that he needs than he would be getting at school. The downside is that in order to provide that, I need to be pretty much full time with him for those 3 hours, which is tiring and time-consuming (kudos to the professionals - teaching is hard work!), and interferes severely with my actual job (although the company are v supportive).

The key I have found is:

- Focus on the core subjects, viz English, Maths and Science, but do mix in other subjects as well;

- Just bin some other subjects entirely (specifically, those he's not going to be doing for GCSE);

- Know at the end of each day what the lessons and topics are going to be for the following day, as this reduces stress all round;

- Stick to some sort of timetable, albeit needing to be flexible because of work; we always do one hour lesson first thing, and a second mid- to late-morning, leaving just one after lunch.

SethMurphy• 6 years ago

I and mostly the students Grandmother now are home schooling a first grader in the NYC public system and would like to provide a description of what our situation looks like to better facilitate this discussion for those that are not living though this.

1. Everyday there is a video conference call.

This communication is mostly about trying to keep a relationship with the teacher and sharing stories they are writing only if a student desires.

2. There is no teaching, just lesson plans.

The responsibility of the actual schooling has been left completely up to the caregivers at home.

3. Schoolwork is expected to be uploaded daily.

There was no set way to do this. We are simply taking photos of the work done on paper (and at times screen shots if a login is shared for an activity) and pasting them in a google doc for each day in the students NYC google drive account.

4. There has been zero specific feedback on any of the work submitted.

The only accountability has been an online sticker chart where parents award award stars and teacher do also. We have given 1 star a day for completing assigned work, and 2 for a day when it is done with less struggle to maintain attention. Each parent has their own view of what a star means.

5. Writing has been the main focus over the past month.

My child already struggles with “writers block” even in school. We are fortunate to have a retired teachers assistant in our household who is able to do one-on-one teaching. While not trained or experienced in first grade education with the attention my child receives I have seen more improvement in the past month than the previous three months by a long shot.

6. The schooldays often goes later than when in school, and rarely earlier.

This is skewed by a new 9:00 start time, so the actual time may be less, but I would say it feels like more. It took at least 3 weeks to get into a rhythm where the days did drag out from morning to night.

7. There is no homework anymore.

Well, more correctly homework was initially part of the daily lesson plan, but we always did it during the day.

8. Reading, social studies and science have been done almost exclusively online.

This is the easiest for us as it is mostly self directed at this point. Additionally no work needs to be uploaded. IT started with Social Studies and Science each day, but they are now alternating days.

9. Friday’s have just become catch up days.

This is great, but in our situation was not necessary. We are hoping this means a 4 day school week.

10. We left NYC to a place where we have space to have school in a separate room behind a closed door.

I don’t think it would have been possible in our NYC apartment to limit distractions. There is also a younger sibling that requires attention and provides distraction to the student. In addition we now have ample outdoor space to allow the children to play with zero pandemic anxiety involved.

11. We still get assignments for the enrichment classes (music, art, physical education, and foreign language) separate from the primary teacher.

The first three are generally videos posted of the teacher providing interactive instruction. Foreign language is done with an online lesson and mimics social studies and science comments above.

The morning conference call does not address these at all.

In summary, my child has probably been doing better or as well as most in their class, and I don’t think they are falling behind. However, this is due to the time we have to teach them ourselves and not the attention given by the teacher. The teacher has been good at creating lesson plans and lowering our expectations, but other than that has been diminished to a technical support role in our case. There has been little to no remote teaching. We do have the ability to call hotlines and request more help from the teacher, but I can’t comment on those methods.

Some overwhelmed parents are abandoning at-home schooling

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