Thursday, April 16, 2020
Political Mayhem Thursday: The Cost of Covid to Kids
According to the Washington Post, the schools in Fairfax County, Virginia (a wealthy area just outside of DC) have pretty much melted down. First, they took a month off, with no classes after March 13 until this week, when they were supposed to start distance learning. That transition, even with so much prep time, didn't go very well. The system they use, Blackboard, proved to be unreliable. Perhaps worse, it was insecure, and miscreants were able to enter the virtual classrooms and post chat comments like "F___ you, yiu smell like gay" (which is not only offensive, but pretty confusing-- how can the sense of smell be the basis of online harrassment?).
After a few hours of that, they shut the whole thing down until Monday. Which, by my calculation, will be the fifth week of lost instruction for a 189,000-student district that should have resources many smaller districts lack-- and still couldn't pull it off.
Here in Minnesota, things have gone somewhat better. In my town, Edina, the administrators had a head start because they had been working on a distance learning plan to cover snow days, which are kind of a big deal in Minnesota! Even at that, there was some awkwardness at first and some technical issues. Still, it was nothing compared to Fairfax County.
I'm a teacher. In fact, I'm a teacher who had to switch over to distance learning on four days notice, which was kind of a shock. Fortunately, I work for a very well-run school, and my students are well into their 20's and older, with the maturity that usually comes with that. I'm struck by how challenging it is-- at the end of teaching a few classes, I'm whipped.
The cost to those students who aren't plugged in or who are suffering through failures like the one in Fairfax will be significant. Five weeks is a lot of school, no matter the level. You can't usually, for example, expect to pass an AP test if you missed five weeks of material (this year, apparently, they are adjusting the tests-- but that just means that AP students will be less prepared for college).
And, of course, all of this will hit the least affluent the hardest. Their schools have fewer resources to handle the transition, and the families have less access to technology and WiFi. This is just another aspect of the pandemic that is going to exacerbate income disparities over the long run.
The disruptions caused by COVID-19 are largely masked right now by disconnection and dispersion. But when we look back at this in 20 years, the tragedies wrought by a thousand small blows will be very clear to see.
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Timely and salient. My wife has been teaching her fifth grade class here in Warsaw remotely for over a month now, and we comment regularly how difficult it is to keep kids engaged and moving forward (and her school is resource rich with excellent support from admin and, mostly, good buy-in from parents) and how schools without those same advantages must be struggling mightily. I certainly hopes this creates a much needed and overdue shift in appreciation (and the commensurate respect and remuneration) for teachers and how much they really add to the fabric of our society and world, although I don't know that I have that much faith in people's collective ability to see them for what they are. I, too, wonder about the underlying and hidden traumas and grief that kids are dealing with now and how that will be manifested in their future lives and socialization. What a time we're living through! Miss you professor, keep fighting the good fight and keep pushing!
If, as some believe, the need to postpone the fall opening of schools occurs, the students will have, altogether a lost year. It has happened in some places before, as in the "dust bowl", and sometimes in fire season, but never essentially nationwide. The losses are great, and the remedy is rarely effective.
# posted by 
: 10:09 AM
: 10:09 AM
I don't know whether I'm doing a particularly good job teaching online at Baylor or not. The comments I receive are positive, but it is the ones I don't hear from that I worry about. Along the way, I've learned more about their lives this semester than all of my previous semesters combined. They've told me things about themselves, their families, their circumstances. It is both frightening and humbling and sometimes inspiring. This has been a strange off-shoot of this whole online teaching situation that I never expected. I don't know what's ahead for higher education. Every college I know is already making cuts or planning cuts. But I suspect that by the end of this semester, I'll have a bond of some kind with these kids who digitally walked through this experience with me that I've never had before and will probably never have again.
Bob
Bob
# posted by : 2:05 PM
: 2:05 PM
Bob-- You are so right! It's amazing to have this little window into their homes. And I find that something about this makes us all (including we teachers) a little more vulnerable and humble. And that's good.
Jon-- It is good to hear from you! Keep on doin' what you are doin'.
WF-- I hope this isn't the Dust Bowl...
Jon-- It is good to hear from you! Keep on doin' what you are doin'.
WF-- I hope this isn't the Dust Bowl...
And hello from Fairfax County! We're in the thick of it with the distance learning mess. Many of us were ready to jump right online after we closed down on March 13, but we were told to hold our horses. Equity was on the front burner, so if some couldn't access teaching, then everyone had to wait. Then along came the blackboard snafu. That was sad, because I really like the blackboard platform. I really don't understand why FCPS had us route our students to BB Collaborate Ultra using guest links (not secure) instead of the usual entry through BB (secure). Another mystery.....
This adventure also brings up an interesting topic -- teaching teachers/professors to instruct online. I've been teaching online for over 10 years for VT and local community colleges. To be effective, online courses should be designed in an entirely different way from FTF classes. I hope colleges and universities (as well as high schools) start to learn that lesson.
On the bright side, AP really stepped up with nice daily classes and videos for AP students. I frankly think my students will be even better prepared for the tests. I'm not saying it's better than being in class and doing labs, but they're definitely teaching to the test, so students are going to be well prepared for the exams! I see some 5s in my students' futures!
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This adventure also brings up an interesting topic -- teaching teachers/professors to instruct online. I've been teaching online for over 10 years for VT and local community colleges. To be effective, online courses should be designed in an entirely different way from FTF classes. I hope colleges and universities (as well as high schools) start to learn that lesson.
On the bright side, AP really stepped up with nice daily classes and videos for AP students. I frankly think my students will be even better prepared for the tests. I'm not saying it's better than being in class and doing labs, but they're definitely teaching to the test, so students are going to be well prepared for the exams! I see some 5s in my students' futures!
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