HN Explorer

Ask HN: Parents, how is virtual education going for your kids?

18 points by softwaredoug ↗ HN
We are finding virtual kindergarten next to impossible, and borderline traumatic for our 5 year old. 4th grade for us, however, a different picture. Our 4th grader can manage his virtual meetings and schoolwork...

29 comments

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cpach
I am very grateful to be living in a country where the kindergarten/schools weren’t closed (for kids under 15 years).
ecf
Can I ask, why?

As a mid 20s male with no thoughts of having children anytime soon — all I can think about is how many people seem to be grateful about being given the chance to expose their children to a respiratory system-based illness in which even short term effects aren’t understood.

doctoring
In many countries the virus has been well-controlled, so children do not get exposed while at school.
mikestew
If you knew that OP was in Sweden, would that statement still hold? I know there has been much debate on Sweden's action or lack of, but I have no idea how that applies to risk for children attending school.
satisfaction
They are grateful that they do not have to pay for childcare and can continue to work. Many people can't afford a full-time babysitter. Their choices might be: send kid to school and continue to work OR keep kid home and not work while past due rent and bills pile up. Although I have met some mid 20s parents that are perfectly fine with an excuse to not work.
chemeng
Not GP, but as someone with a small child, there are two big reasons. Kids between the ages of 1-6 require pretty much constant attention/interaction/supervision, this makes it very hard to work from home. Virtual instruction tends to just be a frustrating experience for everyone and still requires just as much parental supervision.

The second (and more important in my opinion) is that the primary developmental events that take place at kindergarten age are social. How to interact and relate to others individually and as groups. For cognitive development, it is structured imaginative play that is critical, and near impossible to do virtually.

Many parents fear their children will miss out on this key developmental stage.

softwaredoug
There really is a big difference between kindergarten/1st grade and even higher grades in elementary and above. It's simply not feasible to do remote school for the youngest kids. It becomes much more feasible 4th grade and above, depending on the kids maturity/diligence.

For the youngest kids, the worst thing you could have happen in this situation is for them to learn to hate school. The way this day went for my 5 yo, it seems like his enthusiasm for kindergarten via zoom is rapidly diminishing to frustration.

dabbledash
They probably believe the benefits of providing their children with in person education outweigh the risks of COVID (and car accidents driving to school, and whooping cough, and flu and so on). Life is about managing risk and uncertainty.
softwaredoug
The doctors in my neighborhood (several of which work in the Covid unit) have been moving their kids TO in person education. For the smallest kids, where early childhood education is so crucial, the value outweighs the risk.
cpach
In a rush, so I’ll keep my answer short: I think that the benefits of closing the preschools would not outweigh the downsides. I have three kids and I can’t imagine trying to work if they we’re all at home the whole day.

And AFAIK preschools has not been a major source of spreading of the Corona virus.

elpatoisthebest
3rd Grade is a nightmare in our district where the apparent idea was to settle for the worst possible online experience.

It's a google slides deck that the kids have to edit. They've been assigning the same work accidentally day after day. We've contacted the principal countless times, and although she's sympathetic, the quality has not improved as it's a curriculum from the district.

We just stopped logging in completely and are doing a home school curriculum.

If the school reaches out, I'll deal with it then, but so far there's no indication that they've ever reviewed an assignment to begin with.

liveoneggs
wow my 2nd grader had to do the edit-google-slides thing today and I wrote the teacher a nasty note about how stupid it was!

They couldn't come up with any other way to give a multiple choice sheet? I was convinced it was some kind of local terrible decision but now I'm concerned.

Follow this up with day-after-day of technical nonsense problems, kids interrupting the class all day, lack of breaks/time-awareness, and non-stop testing and I'm ready to stop dialing in.

elpatoisthebest
Our original plan was just to use homeschooling material to supplement things he probably wasn't learning well enough like math and some language stuff. He told me he wished he had workbooks to use, but now after seeing the disorganization and low effort from the teacher/district (I'm not sure exactly where to assign the blame), we're pretty glad we got stuff for every subject.
giantg2
Most states require you sign an affidavit stating you are homeschooling. Might be good to look at that before they send the police or create a legal issue for you.
gwittel
I have a 1st grader and pre-schooler.

While the district mandated google classroom for all kids, teachers of younger ages have been given the option of using Seesaw. For young kids its miles better. Even as an adult I find Google classroom to be awful. It feels like enterprise shovelware with bad UX, inefficient workflows, etc.

A lot of it is both how much work the teacher puts in, and how much leeway the school/district give. At this age, it requires an adult nearby at all times. It may be to help him stay on task, occasional assistance (finding something, tech issues, etc.), and even just company of another person. We've had to juggle help from family, and my wife is not working just to keep things going.

We were lucky last year to have an amazing Kinder teacher who did a lot to try and hold things together for the classroom (including 1:1s, summer penpals, and a lot of things on her own time). This year is a WIP, but our school has been very receptive and flexible. I worry most about the kids with two parents who must be at work and cannot give the same level of support we've been able to. They are likely to fall behind :( Thankfully teachers are trying to help those kids the best they can. It is not easy.

Last spring while my son was finishing kindergarten it was extremely difficult. Seesaw helped a lot because they enabled community sharing so kids could see each others work and reply to it. We had to put a lot of effort in to keep him engaged, doing as much work as possible, etc. There were many meltdowns over seemingly simple things like "write 1 word".

Preschool is different and in a tougher position. The primary goal is socialization and kinder-prep. Both are largely out the window for online only. Kids of this age just can't sit for that long in front of a Zoom type session.

In person is limited but now available. The main challenge is preschools are struggling. The regulatory burdens force class sizes to be a fraction of normal. Naps are basically non starter (physical space requirements), food is tricky. That means the pre-schools are losing huge amounts of money every month or laying off staff. To top it off, the recent fires create such pollution you have to choose: (1) Close windows and violate covid regulations (2) Close for the day.

giantg2
Seems odd the schools even do that much screen time for kids that age. I mean, isn't the school going against the AAP recommended screentime limits for that age group?
gwittel
Absolutely, but there’s no alternative short of no school.

Our first grader is still adapting. Historically he got maybe 20m of screen time a day max. Now it’s about 4.5 hours. There’s a lot of movement breaks and some non screen activity (quiet draw or read), but it’s still a lot of screen time. He’s often pretty bored.

For preschool when they could not open for in person the most they could offer was about 30m a day. That was basically story time and sharing so kids could say hi. Many families opted out.

giantg2
I remember when I was a kid (first grade) they would send home the text books and a bunch of worksheets if you were out of school, or for summer work. I would much rather have my kid reading the books and practicing writing via the worksheets.

I guess I'm biased, but I hate how reliance on computers is being ingrained at such a young age. Especially if it's just being used for something like Google slides, which to me seems like a poor replacement medium for paper worksheets.

gwittel
Slides are indeed a poor way to submit work. That feels more like a lazy way out vs a thought through curriculum. Writing is an important part of the learning process.

In our case most of the work is done on paper and they hold it up to the camera for the teacher to see or take a picture and submit it.

tmaly
we help our daughter get a bit ahead. So online zoom lessons have been pretty easy for her.

If the numbers look good, she will return to in class in a few weeks. Having her start out virtual gave us an opportunity to see what the teacher had planned for her.

tboyd47
We bailed early and now do 100% offline homeschooling. Thankfully we live in a state that makes homeschooling a simple process. We registered our homeschool, it was approved the next morning, and we notified the school that day.
softwaredoug
I wish we could do that. My wife and I both work... but of course it’s hard to focus when you know you the kids are getting a pretty shitty education. The options aren’t great.
tboyd47
I hear you. Hope you find a good solution!
sowhat_alex
My kids are back in school now on a hybrid mode, 50% online/50% in person, which equals 100% ineffective. The bottom line is, it is not working. The technology is halfway there, still has long ways to go. Teachers and school districts (overall) are not trained to deal with it. Kids do not have the discipline either. But, it is what it is, and all I can do is try to compensate it by using some of the time with them at home to teach things that the school will not cover (e.g., cooking, financial literacy).
lemonlizzie
I'm with you there. It's not working, no one was prepared for this. I feel bad for parents who have young ones and work all day and can't homeschool them. In all honesty, most kids probably aren't going to learn or retain anything doing it all online or even 50% online.
leahey
I'm lucky that my daughter just wrapped up Pre-K and is now starting Kindergarten, two "years" that are pretty low stakes in terms of what gets done. With that caveat, remote learning went fine and home schooling is going smoothly (1 week in).
thorin
UK 100% back to school now. Hope it will continue that way as life is a lot easier for us and them at the moment and they seem a lot happier and will learn more effectively.
oldprogrammer2
My kids are in 2nd, 4th, and 6th grade. They all work very independently, and seem to enjoy school more than they did in person.

We always hear about the negative aspects of virtual education, but I think a big positive effect is that they are required to be more independent about watching the schedule and managing time.

Another big positive effect is that I feel like we have more time together as a family. A couple minutes here and there add up throughout the day, and I'm grateful for the extra time with them at this age.

Our elementary school has grouped the remote kids together so that the teacher can manage the class consistently, without trying to be hybrid. Their schedule follows a regular school day from 8-3, approximately alternating 30 minutes synchronous/asynchronous. We pick up a bag of take-home classroom material every 2 weeks, including textbooks and readers, and the students generally work on paper and submit photos of their work through Google Classroom or present during a Google Meet.