
Ask HN: Parents, how is virtual education going for your kids? - softwaredoug
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...
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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).

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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.

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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.

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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).

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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giantg2
That's sounds better

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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).

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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.

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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.

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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.

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tboyd47
I hear you. Hope you find a good solution!

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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.

