[kenberg]

I have been wondering what is happening and how it is working. I'm thinking mostly of K-12, but my grandkids ages range from 6 months to 27 years so everything is of interest.

I live in Carroll County Maryland. The school year is finished, the summer day camps are for the most part closed although I think the local Y is doing something. For fall they are still discussing it, perhaps they will have a rotation where some kids come in on one day while the others work from home, then change it the next day. In nearby Howard county my understanding is that they have decided they will do distance learning in the fall, no in person classes. The Univ of Md is, as near as I can tall, still working on exactly what to do. That's not a criticism, it's a tough problem and predicting how it will evolve is chancy.

Some thoughts:

Perhaps the most important thing is that this time not be wasted. I mean that if the student learns well during this time, then that's good even if what s/he learns is not exactly the same as what would be learned in a traditional classroom setting.

It might be useful to recall our own younger years, the good and the bad, in thinking of what might work.

One thing teachers do is to say "Now study this". Saying it is one thing, getting the student to do it is another. Mathematics? Sure. I claimed I had lost my math text at the end of the year so that over the summer I could read the parts we skipped . Poetry? Good luck with getting me to study that, but the same was true in a classroom setting.

We did a lot of term papers when I was in school. Most of the work was done outside of classroom so that's not so different from now. Someone has to read the things and criticize.

Ideas and facts are a big issue: Ideas often require discussion. A student might change his/her way of thinking about something through discussion. Other things require memorization. The Louisiana Purchase was in 1803 during Jefferson's presidency. That's true whether the teacher writes it on the blackboard or puts it up on Zoom.

These are just starter thoughts, I am interested in how this can go, should go, will go.

[PassedOut]

We have an eight-year-old granddaughter and how her education will continue in the fall remains uncertain. She's very proficient on her computer and iPad, but so far her school district has no plans for online education. In fact, the current plan is to open her school as usual -- no masks, etc. And if that doesn't change, my son and his wife won't send her there, period, until the pandemic is under control.

Her mom is qualified to teach her -- she's not teaching now while she has a toddler and her daughter at home -- but she prefers not to combine the roles of mother and teacher (and her daughter prefers that too). But she might not have a choice.

[kenberg]

PassedOut, on 2020-July-03, 09:28, said:

We have an eight-year-old granddaughter and how her education will continue in the fall remains uncertain. She's very proficient on her computer and iPad, but so far her school district has no plans for online education. In fact, the current plan is to open her school as usual -- no masks, etc. And if that doesn't change, my son and his wife won't send her there, period, until the pandemic is under control.

Her mom is qualified to teach her -- she's not teaching now while she has a toddler and her daughter at home -- but she prefers not to combine the roles of mother and teacher (and her daughter prefers that too). But she might not have a choice.

The mother's reluctance to combine roles makes great sense to me. My mother tried to teach me to play the piano when I was maybe 10 or so,. I describe it as 15 minutes of instruction, another 15 minutes of yelling at each other and then lesson was over. I know some people do home schooling but and it sometimes even works, but for my schooling my parents figured the teachers teach, they parent, and they each stay out of the other's way. I think it was the right approach, at least in my family.


My younger daughter was struggling with Algebra and while I first followed the above plan eventually I decided to butt in. She said "It won't do any good". I said "We are going to do it anyway". My approach was different from that of a lot of parents. I had here tell me, as best she could, what her teacher said and then I set out to help her understand what the teacher had said. Whether I would have taught the material the same way never came into it. This worked well. But that was one class for a modest period of time. Doing the whole thing? Just thinking of it tires me out.

[PassedOut]

kenberg, on 2020-July-03, 09:58, said:

The mother's reluctance to combine roles makes great sense to me. My mother tried to teach me to play the piano when I was maybe 10 or so. I describe it as 15 minutes of instruction, another 15 minutes of yelling at each other and then lesson was over.

Haha -- I can just see it! My mother was a professional musician, but didn't even try to start me or my siblings with piano lessons herself -- she sent us to a teacher she liked until we really knew how to play, so that mechanics weren't an issue. She said that it didn't bother her to hear other folks' kids mess up a song, but she couldn't stand it with her own kids.

And while my granddaughter's mom had to be away for a couple of months after the very premature birth of her second child, the thought was that I'd help distract my granddaughter (then six years old) by giving her some piano lessons myself. But we both saw right away that it would be better to go swimming instead...

[Winstonm]

I am a product of the public education system. It was not a great education but from what I have heard from others it is light years ahead of what is available today. Until there is equality of educational opportunities and less income disparity there will be strife - some violent.

[kenberg]

Winstonm, on 2020-July-03, 19:39, said:

I am a product of the public education system. It was not a great education but from what I have heard from others it is light years ahead of what is available today. Until there is equality of educational opportunities and less income disparity there will be strife - some violent.

I start with this: The people of St. Paul, who did not owe me anything, provided me with w free K-12 public education. I thank them for it. But that's the start, and yes we could look beyond that.

One of my big gripes is that many courses have eliminated textbooks. Among my reasons:

1. When a grandchild calls and asks for help it is hard to help unless I know some context. As I mentioned above, when I helped my daughter with algebra i tries to help her understand it in the way she was taught. Partly this was having her tell me what the teacher had said, but also we looked at the text. There I cold see what had gone before, what notation was being used and so on. Now that context is frequently missing.

2. It is very important for a young person to learn hat if s/he is willing to sit down with a book, read it, think about it, and then read it again there is a good chance s/he will be able to understand what is being said. This teaches the youngster (a) that books atr useful and (b) s/he migh be more intelligent than s/he first thought when s/he first looked at the material and could not understand it.

3. For brief periods of shutdown a student can read the book. And at least maybe, even in a long stretch like now, part of coping could be to read the book. Help might well be needed, but it could be a focus and a start.

I understand that the internet is a source of knowledge but, as the saying goes, it can be like going to a fire hydrant for a drink of water. And some of those hydrants are better than others.

Equal educational opportunity is hard to define and probably impossible to achieve but the lack of a path to perfection should not deter us from looking for improvement.

[Winstonm]

kenberg, on 2020-July-04, 11:11, said:

I start with this: The people of St. Paul, who did not owe me anything, provided me with w free K-12 public education. I thank them for it. But that's the start, and yes we could look beyond that.

One of my big gripes is that many courses have eliminated textbooks. Among my reasons:

1. When a grandchild calls and asks for help it is hard to help unless I know some context. As I mentioned above, when I helped my daughter with algebra i tries to help her understand it in the way she was taught. Partly this was having her tell me what the teacher had said, but also we looked at the text. There I cold see what had gone before, what notation was being used and so on. Now that context is frequently missing.

2. It is very important for a young person to learn hat if s/he is willing to sit down with a book, read it, think about it, and then read it again there is a good chance s/he will be able to understand what is being said. This teaches the youngster (a) that books atr useful and (b) s/he migh be more intelligent than s/he first thought when s/he first looked at the material and could not understand it.

3. For brief periods of shutdown a student can read the book. And at least maybe, even in a long stretch like now, part of coping could be to read the book. Help might well be needed, but it could be a focus and a start.

I understand that the internet is a source of knowledge but, as the saying goes, it can be like going to a fire hydrant for a drink of water. And some of those hydrants are better than others.

Equal educational opportunity is hard to define and probably impossible to achieve but the lack of a path to perfection should not deter us from looking for improvement.

My mother was a first grade teacher for 20 some years. She always claimed that maturity level was critical to the start of school, that children mature at different paces. Some of your suggestions only work with someone mature enough to recognize the benefits of learning. Not that there is anything wrong with your ideas - but they depend on a maturity that the personal history you have shared about yourself indicates that you were at if not well above - so depending on your own history as a determinate is iffy unless it is for more advanced students. And, for me, I wish someone else would have explained algebra to me - my teacher was absolutely horrid.

[kenberg]

Winstonm, on 2020-July-04, 12:20, said:

My mother was a first grade teacher for 20 some years. She always claimed that maturity level was critical to the start of school, that children mature at different paces. Some of your suggestions only work with someone mature enough to recognize the benefits of learning. Not that there is anything wrong with your ideas - but they depend on a maturity that the personal history you have shared about yourself indicates that you were at if not well above - so depending on your own history as a determinate is iffy unless it is for more advanced students. And, for me, I wish someone else would have explained algebra to me - my teacher was absolutely horrid.

I completely agree that what works for one might well not work for another. I think this is extremely important.

This has applications to the current problem. The most important thing as we continue the prolonged shutdown of schools is that the time not be completely wasted. This will mean very different approaches for different students. Age and maturity matter of course. I can sometimes seem hopelessly optimistic but I believe that the vast majority of young people actually want to grow into successful adulthood. They need guidance and they need resources. Exactly what this means in practice is not so clear, and that's part of what I am hoping to hear about here.

Maturity? In my adolescence I was an adolescent, with all of the pluses and minuses that entails. A key thing was that I had interests. If a youngster does not have interests, it's a tough job teaching him/her in school and next to impossible remotely.

I'll put up my biology teacher against your algebra teacher in any contest for hopeless teacher award. He knew little biology, he had little interest in biology, he talked of his time in the navy where he boxed (he always won) and got into brawls (he was always right and always won). But this was an exceptional case. My algebra teacher, Mrs. Swan, was great.

Anyway, I want these many months with schools closed to not be a waste for the students, and yes this will require different things for different students. And some realism on the part of adults handling it.

[Winstonm]

Thinking about your reply I consider that many of my educational problems were my own fault - or at least my underdevelopment was the proximate cause. Sure, there were outside considerations, but many others faced the same types of problems and found success. How to turn those who were like me - now there is a Gordion's Knot for you.

[PassedOut]

Winstonm, on 2020-July-04, 12:20, said:

And, for me, I wish someone else would have explained algebra to me - my teacher was absolutely horrid.

kenberg, on 2020-July-04, 15:55, said:

I'll put up my biology teacher against your algebra teacher in any contest for hopeless teacher award. He knew little biology, he had little interest in biology, he talked of his time in the navy where he boxed (he always won) and got into brawls (he was always right and always won).

For me, it was the English Literature teacher when I was a junior in high school. I still remember a true-false test she gave with the statement "Everyone has heard of Wordsworth." When she returned the test, my answer of "false" was marked as an error. When I demanded a correction, she told me to turn to Chapter 6 of the text. Sure enough, the first sentence in Chapter 6 was "Everyone has heard of Wordsworth."

[kenberg]

PassedOut, on 2020-July-06, 09:21, said:

For me, it was the English Literature teacher when I was a junior in high school. I still remember a true-false test she gave with the statement "Everyone has heard of Wordsworth." When she returned the test, my answer of "false" was marked as an error. When I demanded a correction, she told me to turn to Chapter 6 of the text. Sure enough, the first sentence in Chapter 6 was "Everyone has heard of Wordsworth."

I suppose this is a counter-argument to my praise of textbooks!

No doubt the author meant "Almost everyone" Or "Most adult educated people in the English speaking world" or something like that. Everyone has heard of Dr. Seuss? Well, most people. But the text says "Everyone" and so you were to answer "True". Good grief.

I'm still wondering what will happen in the fall. Your answer was interesting and I can believe many people are thinking that way.

I want time not to be wasted, or not wasted in a big way. It seems unavoidable that remote learning will not be as good as a classroom experience with a good teacher and other students, but after accepting that we can still hope to have the experience be productive. We wrote many term papers in school much of it was independent work, and I believe it was very instructive. books can be read. You do not have to be in a classroom to read, say, A Tale of Two Cities. But some background would be useful for most students.And discussion. So some Zoom, some reading.

I really do not have the answers, I am interested in what is happening.

[Elianna]

My AP Government + Economics teacher just gave up on teaching. (For those who don't know, an "AP" designation on a class means that it is supposed to be college level while still in HS, and that students take a test at the end of the year to be eligible to earn college credit.)

He literally taught us almost nothing about government the first semester, and absolutely nothing about Economics the second. He had assigned reading books that we never went over in class, so no one read (Crime and Punishment for Government, and The Little Prince for Econ).

He would go on these long lectures based on whatever he felt like talking about for the day. The one that really stands out is that he told us that women don't need the right to vote, because they control men through sex, and so can vote through men. The others were just as unenlightened, but it's been 20 years so I don't remember them. Probably should be happy about that.

[Winstonm]

Now, on the other end of the spectrum were some of my college professors - especially in the sciences. If you don't know, I went back to school when I was 51 with zero college credits. In microbiology and biology (two different profs at different schools) both asked the class what were our majors. Turns out almost everyone in the class was geared toward medicine in one fashion or another, so in both cases the professors de-emphasized those aspects that were not related and emphasized those that were. I especially was taken by my microbiology prof who told us she didn't care if we didn't memorize names of bacteria but whether or not we understood them. Great prof. She has just come in to Oklahoma from teaching medical students in Arizona so she really knew her stuff and how to pass it along.

[kenberg]

Elianna, on 2020-July-06, 13:42, said:

My AP Government + Economics teacher just gave up on teaching. (For those who don't know, an "AP" designation on a class means that it is supposed to be college level while still in HS, and that students take a test at the end of the year to be eligible to earn college credit.)

He literally taught us almost nothing about government the first semester, and absolutely nothing about Economics the second. He had assigned reading books that we never went over in class, so no one read (Crime and Punishment for Government, and The Little Prince for Econ).

He would go on these long lectures based on whatever he felt like talking about for the day. The one that really stands out is that he told us that women don't need the right to vote, because they control men through sex, and so can vote through men. The others were just as unenlightened, but it's been 20 years so I don't remember them. Probably should be happy about that.

By any chance do you think this guy went to college in the late 1950s? My first reaction was Dostoevsky and Saint-Exupery? Maybe extra credit for a little Camus? I remember my college years!

But the last paragraph? That's just weird.

Just as a cheerier note, I was talking to a middle school teacher today, someone I would be happy to have any grandchild be in her class. This is far more usual. That's the cheery part.
She doesn't know if her school will be open this fall but, unless the situation changes for the better, she thinks "classes as usual" would not be a good choice. A widely held view, I expect.

[Elianna]

kenberg, on 2020-July-06, 18:38, said:

By any chance do you think this guy went to college in the late 1950s? My first reaction was Dostoevsky and Saint-Exupery? Maybe extra credit for a little Camus? I remember my college years!

I think that he was likely a baby boomer, but I could be wrong about ages. This was 1997, and I think that he was likely in his 40s or 50s, but I could be way off.

[kenberg]

Elianna, on 2020-July-07, 13:45, said:

I think that he was likely a baby boomer, but I could be wrong about ages. This was 1997, and I think that he was likely in his 40s or 50s, but I could be way off.

It might be close enough to explain The Little Prince assignment.. I was an undergrad at the University of Minnesota 1956-1960. We were all Existentialists. Stefano's Pizza was an off campus spot with amateur performances on Friday nights. I saw both No Exit and The Little Prince there. And while it is not well-known, probably Dostoevsky didn't even know it, Dostoevsky was an existentialist. So we were told. Also I took Greek Humanities, Agamemnon and such, from a Christian Existentialist. And so on. I can see how, well, sort of see, how this could lead someone to assign The Little Prince.

The weird teachers at your school were definitely more interesting than the weird teachers at my school. That might or might not be a good thing.

[y66]

Matt Yglesias at Vox said:

Getting schools open again can be done, but it’ll take a lot of money and a real plan.

Key points:

• Distance learning is not working.
  
• If you can test students, teachers, and staff frequently, isolate the positive cases, and retest their close contacts, it is possible to control the spread of the virus without heavy-handed closures. Things like masks and an effort to shift as much activity as possible outside would serve to further enhance the impact.
  
• A shift to a testing-based strategy rather than a distancing-based one would require both money and regulatory changes.
  
• State and local governments are broke.
  
• Schools operating at full capacity under reasonably safe conditions would be an enormous step toward normalcy and, as such, a boon to Trump’s reelection efforts. But achieving that goal would require leadership, work and federal $$$.

[Elianna]

kenberg, on 2020-July-07, 14:19, said:

It might be close enough to explain The Little Prince assignment.. I was an undergrad at the University of Minnesota 1956-1960. We were all Existentialists. Stefano's Pizza was an off campus spot with amateur performances on Friday nights. I saw both No Exit and The Little Prince there. And while it is not well-known, probably Dostoevsky didn't even know it, Dostoevsky was an existentialist. So we were told. Also I took Greek Humanities, Agamemnon and such, from a Christian Existentialist. And so on. I can see how, well, sort of see, how this could lead someone to assign The Little Prince.

The weird teachers at your school were definitely more interesting than the weird teachers at my school. That might or might not be a good thing.

In my freshman year I had a very interesting experience with my health class. At first, they didn't have a teacher, so we had two subs, for a week each. Then they got someone who was supposed to be the regular teacher, but she was obsessed with every disease she thought she had, or thought that she might have. We spent about a month learning about almost every disease under the sun it felt like, until someone decided to submit a HW assignment in red ink. This was a genius move. She started yelling at the class about it, and not like normal teachers who are offended by non-blue/black ink. She completely lost her cool, accusing the person, in front of the whole class, of writing in blood and trying to get her sick. I remember thinking that she was absolutely crazy, because the assignment was a full page of writing, and who would use that much blood for a silly Health class assignment? That was her last day.

We had another sub for a week, and after that the school managed to convince a teacher that retired last year to come back until they found another sub. He decided that the most important thing that teenagers should learn about was STDs, but at least listened to us after a week of complaining, and switched to nutrition. He stayed about a month until the school found another teacher (victim?) willing to take us on. I don't remember much about the last guy, except that he seemed nice and reasonable, and was colorblind (he told us that his wife lays out his clothes for him the day before). I think that we were all ready for a quite, nonmemorable teacher, and settled down for the last month of class. I have no memory of what he taught us, but he was still in the job the rest of my years in high school, so he must have been okay.

[kenberg]

Elianna, on 2020-July-08, 09:46, said:

In my freshman year I had a very interesting experience with my health class. At first, they didn't have a teacher, so we had two subs, for a week each. Then they got someone who was supposed to be the regular teacher, but she was obsessed with every disease she thought she had, or thought that she might have. We spent about a month learning about almost every disease under the sun it felt like, until someone decided to submit a HW assignment in red ink. This was a genius move. She started yelling at the class about it, and not like normal teachers who are offended by non-blue/black ink. She completely lost her cool, accusing the person, in front of the whole class, of writing in blood and trying to get her sick. I remember thinking that she was absolutely crazy, because the assignment was a full page of writing, and who would use that much blood for a silly Health class assignment? That was her last day.

We had another sub for a week, and after that the school managed to convince a teacher that retired last year to come back until they found another sub. He decided that the most important thing that teenagers should learn about was STDs, but at least listened to us after a week of complaining, and switched to nutrition. He stayed about a month until the school found another teacher (victim?) willing to take us on. I don't remember much about the last guy, except that he seemed nice and reasonable, and was colorblind (he told us that his wife lays out his clothes for him the day before). I think that we were all ready for a quite, nonmemorable teacher, and settled down for the last month of class. I have no memory of what he taught us, but he was still in the job the rest of my years in high school, so he must have been okay.

Times change. In HS in St. Paul, 1952-1956, we did not have health classes. At least the boys didn't. I think the girls might have had some health things included in some general class. Cooking, sewing and monthly cycles, or some such. I very seriously doubt that they told the girls anything that they did not already know. .

At the end of my freshman year my Spanish teacher advised me to ease up a bit on the studying. "No girl wants to be Mrs. Einstein" she explained. She was a very eccentric teacher and despite the weird advice I found her interesting. .She was French and would tell us about Parisian nightlife. Just how she ended up in St. Paul would have made an interesting story.

There is the theory of teaching and there is the practice, what is actually done. Many of my memorable teachers were a bid odd, certainly including that Spanish teacher. I seem to fit in pretty well with odd. But some of yours seem downright crazy.

[barmar]

kenberg, on 2020-July-08, 15:52, said:

Times change. In HS in St. Paul, 1952-1956, we did not have health classes. At least the boys didn't. I think the girls might have had some health things included in some general class. Cooking, sewing and monthly cycles, or some such. I very seriously doubt that they told the girls anything that they did not already know. .

I was in high school in the late 70's, and I don't think they were common then, either. I think they became more common in the 80's.

The only health-related class I remember was sometime in 5th or 6th grade they had an evening assembly where they told us about how our bodies would be changing during puberty. I'm pretty sure they had separate sessions for boys and girls, and I recall my father going with me. I assume it must have been optional, as I'm sure many parents would have preferred to deal with it (or not) at home. I'm pretty sure it was the first time I'd heard the word "masturbation".