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Will this help us to see the massive expenditures we make to move people to a classroom when they could easily see it via computer screen? Especially if we then

Will this help us to see the massive expenditures we make to move people to a classroom when they could easily see it via computer screen? Especially if we then ask students to just look at the chromebooks they are given by the school, seems wildly inefficient to continue the butt in seat model, especially with older students.

ChicagoBoy11 7y ago
I think this will confirm the exact opposite.
thehoff 7y ago
How do the kids learn to socialize? Facebook or Facetime only? Don't say the parents have to organize this (see below for my current experience). And for those of us with really young kids, this work from home may be great an all, but its really hard to work and tend to a very young one's education/attention.
- bitlax 7y ago
  Public schools are generally pretty terrible at socialization. The students interact mostly only with kids of their same exact age. Bullying and violence are ubiquitous. Sure, you learn how to conduct yourself in that particular environment, but it's unlike any other environment you'll see in your adult life outside of a prison.
  - thehoff 7y ago
    If a third grader hangs around third graders all day in school then I would expect those would be his friends. Until he starts participating in activities where kids participate in where the grades get mixed (ie. school basketball team). This seems entirely appropriate to me. And you're comparing public schools to prison? Remote learning for all of them would fix this?
    - bitlax 7y ago
      The point is that of all of the places where a kid could be socialized the public schools are at best sub-par and at worst counterproductive. It seems appropriate to you likely because it's a societal norm and it's what you've experienced, but it's not the best environment that you can give your child. And I don't know why you're clutching your pearls about the prison comparison. It's a common topic of discussion, how the public schools are similar to prisons, employ similar methodologies, how the stakeholders have similar motivations, and even how the two systems are symbiotic with one another. I'm not saying remote work will necessarily solve everyone's problems, but that if you're concerned about your child's socialization you should be concerned about what's happening to him in the public schools.
  - danans 7y ago
    The social environment of any school, public or private, is a function of the prevailing norms and behaviors of the community it serves. Bullying and violence are nothing specific to public schools. Many private schools have similar issues, and many public schools have few of those issues. It isn't as simple as you would like to portray it.
- visarga 7y ago
  > How do the kids learn to socialize? Facebook or Facetime only? A combination of online activities and irl could work.
thephyber 7y ago
Or, conversely, we may observe the same problem that MOOCs have — it’s _very_ hard to motivate the average person to sit at a computer and learn some topic which is boring to them. Engagement is low. Computers are great for reinforcing the rote part of learning. They are currently terrible for getting students motivated or over mental blocks. Those issues can be addressed by well designed programs, but US teachers were largely unprepared for this abrupt change in format.
- mattkrause 7y ago
  Not sure it's fair to compare compulsory (or even well-motviated) education with most MOOCs. I have a PhD and a research job, so I think it's fair to say that I can learn independently and like doing so. And yet, my Coursera account is full of half-completed classes that weren't quite what I wanted: too easy, too hard, topic isn't what I wanted, presentation isn't my style, etc. It looks, in short, just like my Netflix queue and that isn't surprising because they're both things I do in my pajamas. The situation would be very different if there were actual consequences for finishing these MOOCs (or Lost).
makerofspoons 7y ago
My mother is a first grade teacher. While many things like math, reading, spelling, etc. can be delivered remotely (and I've been really impressed at the speed at which she has digitized it all) there is a lot of crucial tactile and social learning that occurs at that age that we have no real substitute for yet.
- markvdb 7y ago
  I teach the classical guitar, in small groups of up to four students. I have them send me recordings, and I ask them for permission to share with the other students in their group. In that way, they're playing not only for themselves, but for the others they know. Keeps at least a little bit of the social motivation intact..
xeromal 7y ago
Do we really need to isolate society even further?
Digory 7y ago
We won't know until we see standardized testing for this cohort. Which won't be until next year. I suspect kids of wealthy, educated parents will actually excel. Those parents will learn that they could can actually do better than schools on the pure academics. Unfortunately, I suspect kids of poorer parents will really slow down. But, yes, I think we're about to unbundle a lot of education.
- ghaff 7y ago
  I don't know about unbundling. But it wouldn't be a surprise if at least relatively motivated students being individually homeschooled for a while--even given remote work challenges--by wealthy, educated parents did pretty well. (Whether or not on standardized tests is perhaps less certain.) Whereas kids in less good home environments aren't likely to.
  - Digory 7y ago
    Schools are providing bundles of tools: computers, textbooks, teaching, videos, testing, classrooms, group work, childcare, 'nutrition services,' libraries, etc. The crisis takes away the classrooms and exposes the tools to parents. And for some people the classroom made little difference, or held them back. By fall, I think you'll have people asking whether school boards shouldn't just offer the tools. Let people pick and choose their own arrangement of teaching, video, testing and groupwork. (This would let wealthier parents recover some of the amount spent on unproductive childcare, and put it into learning and socialization.)
- karatestomp 7y ago
  They’re canceling standardized testing here. There’s not much point if you know it’s gonna be bad compared to other years, and there’s little you can learn from the details of the failure to apply to the next years. They already know “have a better quarantine plan” is he answer for this time (though arguably uncommon enough that the right amount of time and money to spend fixing it is zero). No need to test, and anyway they may not be back in classrooms to do it. [edit] though yeah, future years’ testing may tell us something. However, since it’s happening to all grades, and given how often other factors change that make results incommensurate, it’ll be tough to pull anything useful out of the numbers.
usaar333 7y ago
Well for kids under 12 or so, we move them to a classroom in part because it offers babysitting. It also works better. My almost 4 year old isn't learning much with remote learning and it's also just taking out parent productivity. Additionally, I still don't see VC offering the same level of social interaction and ideas transfer that in person does - one big gap I've seen is the difficulty "forking" larger conversations into smaller ones (it just doesn't come naturally like it does in person). I would not have wanted my education to be remote for that very reason.

ChicagoBoy11 7y ago

I think this will confirm the exact opposite.

thehoff 7y ago

How do the kids learn to socialize? Facebook or Facetime only? Don't say the parents have to organize this (see below for my current experience). And for those of us with really young kids, this work from home may be great an all, but its really hard to work and tend to a very young one's education/attention.

bitlax 7y ago
Public schools are generally pretty terrible at socialization. The students interact mostly only with kids of their same exact age. Bullying and violence are ubiquitous. Sure, you learn how to conduct yourself in that particular environment, but it's unlike any other environment you'll see in your adult life outside of a prison.
- thehoff 7y ago
  If a third grader hangs around third graders all day in school then I would expect those would be his friends. Until he starts participating in activities where kids participate in where the grades get mixed (ie. school basketball team). This seems entirely appropriate to me. And you're comparing public schools to prison? Remote learning for all of them would fix this?
  - bitlax 7y ago
    The point is that of all of the places where a kid could be socialized the public schools are at best sub-par and at worst counterproductive. It seems appropriate to you likely because it's a societal norm and it's what you've experienced, but it's not the best environment that you can give your child. And I don't know why you're clutching your pearls about the prison comparison. It's a common topic of discussion, how the public schools are similar to prisons, employ similar methodologies, how the stakeholders have similar motivations, and even how the two systems are symbiotic with one another. I'm not saying remote work will necessarily solve everyone's problems, but that if you're concerned about your child's socialization you should be concerned about what's happening to him in the public schools.
- danans 7y ago
  The social environment of any school, public or private, is a function of the prevailing norms and behaviors of the community it serves. Bullying and violence are nothing specific to public schools. Many private schools have similar issues, and many public schools have few of those issues. It isn't as simple as you would like to portray it.
visarga 7y ago
> How do the kids learn to socialize? Facebook or Facetime only? A combination of online activities and irl could work.

thephyber 7y ago

Or, conversely, we may observe the same problem that MOOCs have — it’s _very_ hard to motivate the average person to sit at a computer and learn some topic which is boring to them. Engagement is low. Computers are great for reinforcing the rote part of learning. They are currently terrible for getting students motivated or over mental blocks. Those issues can be addressed by well designed programs, but US teachers were largely unprepared for this abrupt change in format.

mattkrause 7y ago
Not sure it's fair to compare compulsory (or even well-motviated) education with most MOOCs. I have a PhD and a research job, so I think it's fair to say that I can learn independently and like doing so. And yet, my Coursera account is full of half-completed classes that weren't quite what I wanted: too easy, too hard, topic isn't what I wanted, presentation isn't my style, etc. It looks, in short, just like my Netflix queue and that isn't surprising because they're both things I do in my pajamas. The situation would be very different if there were actual consequences for finishing these MOOCs (or Lost).

makerofspoons 7y ago

My mother is a first grade teacher. While many things like math, reading, spelling, etc. can be delivered remotely (and I've been really impressed at the speed at which she has digitized it all) there is a lot of crucial tactile and social learning that occurs at that age that we have no real substitute for yet.

markvdb 7y ago
I teach the classical guitar, in small groups of up to four students. I have them send me recordings, and I ask them for permission to share with the other students in their group. In that way, they're playing not only for themselves, but for the others they know. Keeps at least a little bit of the social motivation intact..

xeromal 7y ago

Do we really need to isolate society even further?

Digory 7y ago

We won't know until we see standardized testing for this cohort. Which won't be until next year. I suspect kids of wealthy, educated parents will actually excel. Those parents will learn that they could can actually do better than schools on the pure academics. Unfortunately, I suspect kids of poorer parents will really slow down. But, yes, I think we're about to unbundle a lot of education.

ghaff 7y ago
I don't know about unbundling. But it wouldn't be a surprise if at least relatively motivated students being individually homeschooled for a while--even given remote work challenges--by wealthy, educated parents did pretty well. (Whether or not on standardized tests is perhaps less certain.) Whereas kids in less good home environments aren't likely to.
- Digory 7y ago
  Schools are providing bundles of tools: computers, textbooks, teaching, videos, testing, classrooms, group work, childcare, 'nutrition services,' libraries, etc. The crisis takes away the classrooms and exposes the tools to parents. And for some people the classroom made little difference, or held them back. By fall, I think you'll have people asking whether school boards shouldn't just offer the tools. Let people pick and choose their own arrangement of teaching, video, testing and groupwork. (This would let wealthier parents recover some of the amount spent on unproductive childcare, and put it into learning and socialization.)
karatestomp 7y ago
They’re canceling standardized testing here. There’s not much point if you know it’s gonna be bad compared to other years, and there’s little you can learn from the details of the failure to apply to the next years. They already know “have a better quarantine plan” is he answer for this time (though arguably uncommon enough that the right amount of time and money to spend fixing it is zero). No need to test, and anyway they may not be back in classrooms to do it. [edit] though yeah, future years’ testing may tell us something. However, since it’s happening to all grades, and given how often other factors change that make results incommensurate, it’ll be tough to pull anything useful out of the numbers.

usaar333 7y ago

Well for kids under 12 or so, we move them to a classroom in part because it offers babysitting. It also works better. My almost 4 year old isn't learning much with remote learning and it's also just taking out parent productivity. Additionally, I still don't see VC offering the same level of social interaction and ideas transfer that in person does - one big gap I've seen is the difficulty "forking" larger conversations into smaller ones (it just doesn't come naturally like it does in person). I would not have wanted my education to be remote for that very reason.