I am contrarian. You need to know this about me. I hope that I am NOT stubborn anymore. I’d like to think Covid long hauling cured me of this. I will challenge conventional thinking, but I will respect your opinion if it is logical and against me. I detest PIE. Here is my opinion about PIE after 2020:
We need to talk about teachers at public schools, and about the students too. I cannot speak for private tutors/pods, charter schools, Montessori schools, private schools, and other flavors of schools. But I feel qualified to lament about the plight of public education this year. I’ve decided to make a SEVEN part series. This is a large enough soapbox that you could help change the dialogue. This grows with more that I find out. Today, I took my first diary, gauged the response, and made the second one better (I hope).
Part 1 is HERE. I don’t want to repeat the introduction fully. There were discussions, anecdotes, and challenges I will reference. I highly recommend reading it (including the comments!) before this one. Here is a part that is the most relevant, especially for teachers who may not like this one as much:
Do know that every teacher is trying to make lemonade out of chicken shit this year, to mix metaphors. If you are frustrated with the educational experience this year, do know that you are seeing each teacher at their WORST. You get to watch the educational sausage being made fresh over virtual education Zoom if you are at home frequently, and you are appalled. You are frustrated by a lack of mask mandate/forced mask mandate at the school board/local/state level for in person school. You are enraged by the open school to closure to virtual to open school hamster wheel and want to get off that damn ride. You see your child falling behind, stressed out, or getting disinterested. You think the hybrid model (hey, we get to CHOOSE!) is the way out.
Today, the Sophie’s Choice focuses on Door #2: a fully virtual educational setting. Let’s see why that is crushing the souls of many a school choosing that option. Let’s hold up the mirror to it.
A fully virtual educational setting is by FAR the safest one for everyone, at least until the science is fully understood. It allows them to bubble and still do their jobs. It allows students to bubble, and keep them safe. It prevents the need for expensive solutions of fully open classrooms which are a challenge to implement and require time to do so. The three new strains (UK, South Africa, Nigeria) loom in the background, and are TERRIFYING for schools. More on that in another post. The science is too new for me to be sure to reveal this yet to everyone. Dark times lie ahead.
Yes, the transmission in schools is low. Low does not mean NO. Teachers see this as yet another thing they need to implement, when their candle is already burned from both ends to the wick AND they feel like a beat rented mule politically.
Are you willing to possibly sacrifice teachers? That should be up to them! Some say yes, others no. FMLA is always an escape for teachers… and now burnout is as bad as nurses. The nurses arguably signed up for self-sacrifice during a pandemic. TEACHERS DID NOT. WE FEEL LIKE YOUR UNDERPAID BABYSITTER. WE STAY BECAUSE WE LOVE YOUR KIDS TO DEATH. We TAKE BULLETS AND NOW DISEASE FOR THEM! *rant over, goes to sob in the corner*
Here’s where public school virtual education fails right now:
1) There was NO successful script for implementation of it for public schools before this pandemic. The only model was virtual charter schools: the worst performer on state standardized tests, attendance, and financial or other grift in most states.
2) Even with those models, it was never meant to teach everyone the same thing at the same time. Those prior virtual charter models are excellent for the motivated child with highly engaged parents. They SUCK for working class parents or children with no internal motivation. Zoom (the software) was fringe until Covid 19. THERE WAS NO PRIOR GAME PLAN WITH ZOOM.
You watched an experiment with little preparation live on your computer screen, and were horrified. I cannot imagine being a zoom teacher. How do you lecture? Small groups? Do science experiments? Manage the classroom? Switch subjects? Plan your schedule? ALL teachers along that road were first well outside the comfort zone. You watched the educational sausage being made fresh. You saw teachers at their WORST. It is getting better over time, as this post by keerawa shows:
I’ve been experimenting with different free technologies to try to help students engage, and as a math teacher, SEE what they are thinking and trying. It’s been incredibly difficult, but they are learning. Interestingly enough, many of my students feel like they are getting pretty good at this distance learning. They like being able to schedule their own time, and know that they can take care of the baby or make lunch for their siblings while still participating in class. We got a grant to purchase some noise-canceling headphones for students with loud home environments, and it made all the difference in the world for them being able to participate equitably.
3) Virtual education forces a parent or guardian or someone to stay home to watch the kid. This privileges wealthy parents who can afford the hit to income to stay home — or hire a nanny or tutor. This is another can of worms. How do you prevent cheating? How do you engage the person nearby, to properly help (they might have to learn alongside the child)? How do you distribute supplies? What are the boundaries between active and helicopter?
4) jjdoc says the following about virtual students with special needs:
- - My 9 yo granddaughter is severely autistic. What you wrote about kids needing structure and routine goes x100 for her. When the schools closed down in March, she started sliding downhill in about 3 weeks. Thankfully, the school started back with extended school year in late June, so she was only out of schedule for 3 months instead of the 5 that all the other grandkids were out.
For some, Zoom is PERFECT. It made them better students with special needs if the IEP was actually enforced. For others, it was an unmitigated disaster, like above.
5) jjdoc says this about internet access:
- Then there is the reality of rural lack of internet. We have satellite internet, capped. We have cell hot spot internet, 6 devices, and yet even those get capped before the rollover date each month. Speaking for just my little community, about 20 other households are in the same situation.<Here is that debate.>
There is the lack of access by those with low socioeconomic status. This spans from rural areas to urban areas and everywhere poverty rears its ugly head.
This is where the missing children went more likely than not. They are still there, just not online.
6) jjdoc says this about younger students:
- - My youngest grandchild is in kindergarten. Really, enough said. He can’t learn about schooling at home
This is my biggest problem. PreK-2 is all about learning how to cooperate with one another and learn how to go to school. Zoom education is so radically different that it means time will be wasted later on teaching kids how to be at a physical classroom. Here is a starting point.
7) The students I weep for are ones from broken homes. School is the escape from abuse, neglect, poverty, and personal hell. Now, school is at home. There is no escape, and they fall into the cracks.
8) Part 4 will be about the HUGE mental health challenges this year. Virtual education is the BEST for some (that were bullied at school) and the WORST for others (that were abused/neglected at home). I will come back to this, I am not neglecting it!
8) MANY teachers aren’t tech savvy. They stick to what they know works for them. Now, they have to figure out zoom, on top of everything else being new to them. Many have burnt the candle at both ends this year to switch over. They worry about evaluations on something they don’t know how to fully use. It is the wild wild west for them.
9) Zoom education is 100% no boundaries for a teacher. They have ALL of the battery drain, without any of the positive interactions (those little moments we never tell you about) in face to face. We wither when everyone is watching! Many teachers need that door to close, and just teach. Our classroom is our house is our sanctuary, and that is being violated this year. BIG TIME.
10) What do you do with gym? Music? Art? What about the support staff? What about an IEP meeting? How do these things most people don’t know about work now? (Click each word for each struggle).
11) So much is missed when school is not in session at an upper grade level. Many clubs CANNOT function in a virtual setting. Even sports technically needs to be stopped! All those high school memories? Taken away. This has consequences.
12) With technology and AI coming increasingly closer to replacing us, why would teachers vote to automate their jobs? If brick and mortar becomes redundant, teachers may become so too. Don’t let this happen without thinking it through! Read this scary take from Unitary Moonbat. Read what virtual corporate charters think. This is playing with fire!
13) Zoom bombing classrooms. No, just no. Hopefully that problem will die just like all other racist and shock outrage harassments. It is BAD.
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It’s not all bad! bkamr posted this positive gem:
I’m a middle school teacher, and I’m grateful for the approach our administration has taken. We have been implementing SEL (Social Emotional Learning) in our school for years, so we start each day with SEL regardless if we are completely Virtual or Hybrid. This has given a routine for starting our school day that seems to be serving us well. As a result of having SEL for 1st period, we have about a 95% attendance in our LIVE Virtual classes. If a student requests doing on-line on their own, that’s an option; however, we also have “Virtual Coordinators” for each grade level who basically watch for the GAPs and leap in to investigate and provide help, support, one-on-one tutoring on an as needed basis. They are charged with watching for the cracks in the system and making sure none of our kids falls through one. Our test scores were down a bit in reading, so we’ve added a Homeroom Book Circle period with the kids getting to choose from a list of Classics. I’m really excited about this initiative since it adds some Student Choice and Voice to our 2nd Semester. We should be able to read and analyze 4 novels before the end of the year, and we’re going to celebrate finishing each with a movie-based-on-the-book watch party for each. We are also piloting Virtual Clubs when we get back to add some Social Time for our kids. We’re going to have Virtual Traditional Art, Gaming, Music, and Photography Clubs to start with. We’ve also been offering Virtual Lunch Togethers to give the kids time to just hang out at mid-day. One thing I love is how my team of kids have made their pets a real part of our days. One student has a bird who uses the top of his headphones as a perch. Listening to so many others, I know that we’re privileged to have gotten the technology we needed to make a lot of what we’re doing possible, and we are all frankly exhausted with all the extra digital course development and hassles with grading on-line. However, I’m also pretty amazed at what so many have worked so hard to pull off in our schools across this nation. It’s not all a mess and failure.
Here’s some help I aggregated. I know that this is yet another thing. Take some ideas when you feel ready to. First, survive, and then adapt. If this Brave New World is not for you, no shame in folding like I did.
25 engagement strategies
Zoom activities
Funny Zoom Ideas — bring the joy back! Use these as a break. DEAD serious!
Don’t forget Secondary!
Fight Zoom Fatigue and Fight It For Your Kids as Well
Fight Racism with Zoom
Little Literacy Center (NBC Nightly News last night — you want the story at the END)
This will be made better. This will continue to change education, even if brick and mortar returns. Some teachers may stay with zoom for the rest of their careers.
I cannot believe I am posting this classic anti-education song as a former teacher, but it applies to Zoom education fairly well this year. If you actually put the pieces together, you will begin to understand where I come from on the Year from HELL. You understand why I have a love/hate relationship with the profession right now. It needed change BEFORE Covid, and now there’s no choice. Please, we have one shot to get it right.
Teachers, please be open to change once survival mode is taken off of your shoulders. Don’t shut me down! Parents, respect that teachers have it BAD this year, and pity them. Stop treating them as a rented mule, and instead as a profession that has been under siege since Reagan and very suspicious and paranoid now. Treat them with respect, even if you disagree with them. We disagree with ourselves enough! Do it for the students, which is the #1 goal of all of us. They shine in Part 4,
This is a work space, not a PIE Space. Respect my work. I fully respect your take on it!
