Re:Some school districts plan to end the year early, call re...
by eitally on Wednesday April 29, 2020 @01:17AM
(#23015633)
This is my experience, too, and I don't have an fully engaged adult able to help. The kids can obviously move 2-5x faster than they do during normal school, but doing so absolutely requires an engaged adult. There are just too many things an elementary aged kid doesn't have experience with yet for them to be able to solve their own problems (or stay focused).
My 5th grader got reprimanded today for spending 30min on fonts & colors on an essay that itself only took 30min... as a simple example. Another example: I regularly have to prevent both kids from accessing Youtube during school time.
Re:Some school districts plan to end the year early, call re...
by abetterday on Thursday April 30, 2020 @07:43PM
(#23037578)
Totally. We were making massive amounts of progress on our own and virtual school curriculum mostly gets in the way. We've largely stopped going to the video sessions and are just doing some of the school work on top of our own. Thankfully the teacher has been accommodating / letting it go so far and the school work itself has been minor.
That said, all of this still requires a fully engaged adult in the room to monitor interactions and help things stay on track and answer questions. My wife plans a full curriculum for all our kids together each day with breakout sessions for grade-appropriate subjects. This has been basically interrupted by the current official video curriculum of our school system - and our system is doing better than most on this subject. I have the luxury of an adult available to teach most of the day. Many do not. But I still want to yank my kids out of official "school" and get homeschooling certified until this ends. It burns you out. I'd welcome the schools closing officially now, and offering optional assignments to pass the time for parents that want to use them but that's not really equitable, it just works best for me.
A video conference is great but it can't help keep a virtual classroom engaged and flow with the kids' questions as well as an in-person room. There just isn't enough bandwidth.
Experience: currently three gradeschool and younger in my house.