Novel Coronavirus impacts

I teach multiple grades, K-5 specifically, so I've been able to see first hand how different age groups have been affected by this. We just began having in-person learning this week, but at first glance, the younger kids (K-2) seem very unaffected by everything. I'm amazed by the degree to which they've integrated Covid protocols into their daily lives. Teachers anticipated having to battle with students about keeping masks on, social distancing, etc. So far though, with younger kids, thats really not been the case at all. Older students have been a different story to some degree, especially in terms of maintaining social distancing. But for the most part, students have been very resilient and as educators, we might have sold their adaptability short.

One thing is for certain, this is all going to make for a very interesting sociological case study down the road.

We both still WFH rn thru July. My boy started 2nd grade remote learning and it wasnt optimal for him or us. Glitchy internet, lesson plan support, lack of interpersonal peer interaction.  We longed for the days when we cd drive somewhere. We used to just pile into the car and drive around our neighborhood.

Now, K-2 have resumed in person at his school.  Substantial health chex for anyone associated w school, including weekly swabs for kids and 2x weekly for teachers n staff. With increasing traffic its become a legit pain to drive to school for pickup and drop off.

I renewed my cars data plan so when i drop off i just go sit in an EV charger and work from my mobile office.

Resuming school in person is controversial. But for us it was never in question. 

Resuming school in person is controversial. 

IMHO, it shouldn't be and, instead, virtual/distance "learning" should be highly controversial. The consequences of this type of "learning", especially for younger kids, will be with us forever.

Anyways, my family now has extensive experience with online classes, although at higher grade levels than people are discussing here. Here's our experience, in case anybody might be interested...

My older son is in pharmacy school, but he's now finished with classes and is doing his "rotations" (i.e., interning at various locations). My younger son is a freshman at UC-Davis and he seems to be adapting well. He's pretty self-motivated, and he's in classes that he's interested in (he only had to take 1 of those BS general ed courses this quarter, and it's better than most), so that helps. Last spring when he was in high school it was a different story--he had "senior-itis" even before they went online.

I'm teaching 1 grad class (master's level) and I've got students who are located all over the world (about half are in India or East Asia, with the rest local), as we allowed students to start our program from their home country this year. From my perspective, that class is going extremely well. I tend to pile on the work until they scream, and since I can mute them online, they get even more work than usual (just kidding). The only thing that doesn't work is in-class tests, as it's too easy to cheat (they're CS students, so if they were not smart enough to be able to cheat, nobody would hire them). So, I give tests that are part take-home and part "meet 1-on-1 with the professor". When they meet with me, I ask them a couple of questions, one of which is related to the take-home part, while the other is more like an open-ended interview question. I've found this to be a sure-fire way to discover who is doing the homework. The class is small, so this type of testing works very well. I also supervise a large number of graduate student projects, and that sorta works via zoom, but it's not nearly as productive as meeting face-to-face.

My wife is teaching community college math, and that is difficult. Her students tend to not be too technically adept, and most of them have no interest in math. So, cheating is rampant (her classes are too big to use the "meet 1-on-1" trick) and there is not much that can realistically be done about it.

Personally, I'd go back to in-person teaching in a heartbeat, if given the choice. I'm close to the age where covid risks start to rise rapidly, but I don't have any risk factors that I know of, so the (minimal) risk is something I'd be willing to take. But I'm at SJSU, and it's virtually impossible to even get on campus. I'd planned to teach my online classes from a real classroom, so that I could take advantage of the facilities. They have so freakin' many rules (and they keep changing them) that it made on-campus teaching impractical. So, I found a small park near our local public library, and that's where I go to teach all of my classes (my wife and younger son both use the internet from home, but 3rd person makes things bog down). I sit outside at a picnic table. I'm sure that people walking by think I'm some homeless dude talking back to YouTube videos.

For me personally, the only advantage to online classes is that I save a lot of commute time. In fact, with that time savings, I've been able to go fishing a couple of times per week. After classes start in the fall, I'm usually lucky to get out once every-other week...

Resuming school in person is controversial. 

IMHO, it shouldn't be

What I meant to say was that at this school, they offered the option of returning in person, staying online, or a hybrid program.  Highly bespoke options, and ppl debated who would do what, podding up with others, and whther the school was doing enough, or doing enough correctly.  Much discussion ensued, same goes with almost anything at this private school 

I'll pipe in...

My daughter (8th grade) has had the best academic year of her life. Purely online.  We put together a home school curriculum using outschool and a couple of local 1:1 providers.  She's doing 10th grade math, and despite her dyslexia has been doing fantastic in English- again with an amazing online teacher.  When i went through my Secondary Ed and student teaching we never ever touched on remote teaching methods. (I'll admit that was early on in the internet world)  Our experience with expert online teachers has changed our minds. of course our in person teachers haven't been trained for online, other than short courses. They should be trained.

From a personal work side, i'm MORE busy than normal.  i spent probably 80% of my time with remote folks anyway, so the lack of in person had less of an impact- except for those missed white boarding sessions, which we supplemented by watching my daugther's math class work on a virtual whiteboard...

can't wait till this dang thing is normalized, if not over

My daughter (8th grade) has had the best academic year of her life. Purely online.  We put together a home school curriculum using outschool and a couple of local 1:1 providers.  She's doing 10th grade math, and despite her dyslexia has been doing fantastic in English- again with an amazing online teacher.  When i went through my Secondary Ed and student teaching we never ever touched on remote teaching methods. (I'll admit that was early on in the internet world)  Our experience with expert online teachers has changed our minds. of course our in person teachers haven't been trained for online, other than short courses. They should be trained.

check out this article in the merc news.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/04/13/mathews-california-educators-should-have-listened-to-netflix-founder/

Teachers unions, and unions in general are always terrible for innovation and reform in any industry.

This is one area where my left leaning politics skews libertarian.

Teachers unions, and unions in general are always terrible for innovation and reform in any industry.

This is one area where my left leaning politics skews libertarian.

One thing that this pandemic has made crystal clear is that police unions and teachers unions are both bad, and for the exact same reason.

The return to in-person learning is much more complicated than it looks and the way that teachers are being portrayed in this discussion is unfortunate. Yes, there are teachers out there that do not want to be back in the classroom - most for genuine health concerns. But the overwhelming majority of teachers want to be back in their classrooms in front of their students. Of 25 members on the staff at the K-8 where I teach, only 3 objected to full classrooms and full school days. We will in fact be moving to that schedule in the coming weeks and essentially be back to "normal." What's being lost in this discussion though is that the state still mandates that digital learning remain an option for parents. Until all parents are willing to send their students back to school, digital learning will still remain. So you have teachers who are already overworked now being mandated to run two classrooms simultaneously - their physical classroom and their online classroom. Add to it the widespread lack of direction coming from state education leaders and district/school administrations and it begins to feel like this mess is simply being thrown into the laps of teachers to figure out. The burnout that teachers are going through right now is incredibly real.

The return to in-person learning is much more complicated than it looks and the way that teachers are being portrayed in this discussion is unfortunate. Yes, there are teachers out there that do not want to be back in the classroom - most for genuine health concerns. But the overwhelming majority of teachers want to be back in their classrooms in front of their students. Of 25 members on the staff at the K-8 where I teach, only 3 objected to full classrooms and full school days. We will in fact be moving to that schedule in the coming weeks and essentially be back to "normal." What's being lost in this discussion though is that the state still mandates that digital learning remain an option for parents. Until all parents are willing to send their students back to school, digital learning will still remain. So you have teachers who are already overworked now being mandated to run two classrooms simultaneously - their physical classroom and their online classroom. Add to it the widespread lack of direction coming from state education leaders and district/school administrations and it begins to feel like this mess is simply being thrown into the laps of teachers to figure out. The burnout that teachers are going through right now is incredibly real.

I haven't seen a single person blame the teachers.  Teacher's unions, state leadership, local school boards, sure.  But not the teachers generally.