He’s not wrong. Our school system was an absolute disaster when it came to implementing the online classes. And when they did it was a joke! It was like 2 hours of work per subject for the week! And it was all a completion grade, didn’t matter if you put down 2+2=22 you passed!
Yeh I ended up giving mine extra assignments. I told them every day you’re gonna do 2 hours of online math academy, practice typing, practice your instruments extra, read for 2 hours, watch an educational video like “How Stuff Works” and gave them research topics to write papers on. It definitely helped.
I'm just teasing you, obviously you did. This is the best example of how home schooling can work. I know it was extra effort for you but you should be proud of what you were able to do for your kids.
Our district got caught with their pants down as well. In fairness, there was never any sort of planning for such an event. Nobody really knew what to do.
Our teachers decided to go a bit overboard with the assignments and required online meetings, etc. -- which led to adopting the completion grade system (they started out actually grading everything) because the parents and students were getting overwhelmed.
Well...at least they were overachievers...but it was a freaking mess. [We are a bit spoiled with having pretty decent schools, and relatively conservative ones as well -- rural area; a lot of our teachers/admin. are either natives or retired from city postings because they couldn't take it anymore.]
It happened so suddenly and with little to no guidance from the state as to what, exactly, was to be done (at least here) that I don't really blame my school for being at a loss (they really did try to do their best). It was truly a wtf moment for everybody.
It does point to some particular problems that do need to be addressed:
we have no true disaster protocol (we still don't, the draft plans for this year are full of horse shit) -- we need to develop one (yes, my husband and I wrote a letter)
the schools are way too dependent upon the state boards of education -- it is far too centralized; there needs to be more independence -- what works for Chicago will not work for DeKalb, will not work for Chester, for example (this is a future letter in the works); and waiting around for the state to do something is a bad idea -- improvise, adapt, overcome needs to be the rule
parents (not all, but far too many) are/have been far too dependent upon the schools to raise their kids and have only really demanded that they act like glorified day care...they had little to no knowledge about curriculum and policy (this may be changing at least in some areas -- I think the parents got a bit of a wake up call, I hope).
Chicago runs the ISBE and they made elearning optional because of their own low expectations for CPS students. Then they tried muscling for more devices and free internet-even though there is already discount internet for welfare recipients
My sister worked at an inner city school here in Ohio, and they fucked those kids over so badly. You were only allowed to do the virtual learning on a chrome book, because that’s what they use in school, but it was just “oops we’re closed now go buy a chromebook to finish the year.” So of course about 6 people did.
I don’t know if they actually tried to block people, they just said they didn’t want anyone using anything else. They also “offered” chromebooks to anyone who didn’t have one or was unable to get them, but part of my sister’s job was contacting people who placed a request to see if it was followed up on and by the end of the year she only had 5 people say “yes they got us a chromebook”
Yeah, he's wrong about on-line learning, as Khan Academy works. What doesn't work is expecting teachers to create a tool that if it works, requires a lot fewer teachers.
It would be like expecting Big Pharma to choose $10 HCQ over $1000 Remdesivir to treat Covid.
He’s not wrong. Our school system was an absolute disaster when it came to implementing the online classes. And when they did it was a joke! It was like 2 hours of work per subject for the week! And it was all a completion grade, didn’t matter if you put down 2+2=22 you passed!
It was terrible. My high school son got very little out of it. Most his teachers basically just punted. It was three months of diddly squat learning.
Yeh I ended up giving mine extra assignments. I told them every day you’re gonna do 2 hours of online math academy, practice typing, practice your instruments extra, read for 2 hours, watch an educational video like “How Stuff Works” and gave them research topics to write papers on. It definitely helped.
Good parent
It's almost as if you home schooled them!?!! :)
I'm just teasing you, obviously you did. This is the best example of how home schooling can work. I know it was extra effort for you but you should be proud of what you were able to do for your kids.
Our district got caught with their pants down as well. In fairness, there was never any sort of planning for such an event. Nobody really knew what to do.
Our teachers decided to go a bit overboard with the assignments and required online meetings, etc. -- which led to adopting the completion grade system (they started out actually grading everything) because the parents and students were getting overwhelmed. Well...at least they were overachievers...but it was a freaking mess. [We are a bit spoiled with having pretty decent schools, and relatively conservative ones as well -- rural area; a lot of our teachers/admin. are either natives or retired from city postings because they couldn't take it anymore.]
We have a really good school system too with minimal BS fortunately. I think that’s what it made it more frustrating I just expected more.
It happened so suddenly and with little to no guidance from the state as to what, exactly, was to be done (at least here) that I don't really blame my school for being at a loss (they really did try to do their best). It was truly a wtf moment for everybody.
It does point to some particular problems that do need to be addressed:
Chicago runs the ISBE and they made elearning optional because of their own low expectations for CPS students. Then they tried muscling for more devices and free internet-even though there is already discount internet for welfare recipients
My sister worked at an inner city school here in Ohio, and they fucked those kids over so badly. You were only allowed to do the virtual learning on a chrome book, because that’s what they use in school, but it was just “oops we’re closed now go buy a chromebook to finish the year.” So of course about 6 people did.
I don’t know if they actually tried to block people, they just said they didn’t want anyone using anything else. They also “offered” chromebooks to anyone who didn’t have one or was unable to get them, but part of my sister’s job was contacting people who placed a request to see if it was followed up on and by the end of the year she only had 5 people say “yes they got us a chromebook”
Yeah, he's wrong about on-line learning, as Khan Academy works. What doesn't work is expecting teachers to create a tool that if it works, requires a lot fewer teachers.
It would be like expecting Big Pharma to choose $10 HCQ over $1000 Remdesivir to treat Covid.