Think of how great your cardiovascular health will be if you work on the ninth floor!
I’d climb 9 flights of stairs then need a nap at my desk.
Probably why they took away 50% of the desks, so you have no where to nap.
Menzo
1830
That’s really taking it seriously. Do you think they are hardcore rules that will be enforced, or are they “rules” that will be set aside once things get up and running?
Ya, my kid hates the distance learning and really is not learning anything. 50 minutes per week per class. Uh, that’s not much. And he is one of those kids that is smart but always asks questions to the teachers so he is super frustrated now and relying on me to be the teacher when he needs answers…which is hard when I’m working all day. He rufuses to do any home work at night and now plays rage music after doing his basic work that he forgets 2 seconds later. Proper home schooling would be so much better and keep him advancing and not falling behind the school levels…UGH.
I’m sorry it isn’t working out for you. Please don’t take anything that I say after this as directed at you but I have to rant a little.
You say your kid is smart but always asking questions of the teacher. So why aren’t they asking them to the teacher now? Or, perhaps more importantly, why isn’t the virtual teaching in your branch of the woods set up to encourage questions from students and responses from teachers?
I don’t love virtual teaching but it frustrates me horribly to see it implemented so poorly. If the students are being asked to learn than I’m damm well going to be available for them in as many ways as possible and I expect other teachers to do the same.
So very much this. One of the biggest frustrations teaching virtually for me is that I can’t seem to get students to engage and ask questions nearly as well as I can in a classroom, no matter what I try.
RichVR
1834
Yeah. There should be a part of the time that is reserved for questions and answers. As a kid I would often be lost during a class. And I was afraid to ask questions because I was afraid people would think I was stupid. Give and take between a teacher and student is so very important.
I’ve had a couple of students really jump on the chance to ask questions virtually (because their questions are now private between the two of us instead of in front of the class). So there are some advantages. I have others who use the screen as a way to avoid any interaction. Part of me even relishes the challenge - can I move students out of that second group without face to face contact?
But all of that is different from the situation that @Clay seemed to be describing of a teacher sending out work without any system in place to allow the student to effectively get help.
I only really had one who did that, but perhaps I’m not playing up that capability enough. Assuming we’re still stuck in this mode come fall (and good lord, I have no idea what to expect in fall!) I’ll try and play up the private chat aspect.
Oh absolutely, that just really sucks. Unfortunately I don’t know what to offer @Clay on that one beyond sympathy.
Clay
1837
My kids’ (7&9) teachers are trying their best, but they’re working with a series of edu systems that are not integrated and all work differently. Even just typing a sentence is an ordeal for my 7 yr old. I did try to get them to do some typing.com lessons (LOL) but there’s a long way for them to go.
That does change things a little. From your initial post I made a assumption that your kids were older. I already had a lot of sympathy for you but when dealing with those ages I have a lot more sympathy for the teachers also. Sorry for ranting a little based on wrong info!
I’m surprised there aren’t good self-guided software programs for math and some other subjects.
Khan Academy is pretty good in that regard, as I understand.
My school worries are different. My son and his wife are high school teachers, and I wonder what happens to them if schools don’t open this fall.
Yeah, it’s bad enough worrying about your own situation, but with ones family it’s a particularly helpless feeling. My son is a sous chef at a restaurant here in Wisconsin and he’s been on 1/2 pay while they do take out/delivery, but now with the stay-at-home order struck down by the state supreme court, they’re getting ready to reopen the dining room. So great that he’ll be back to full pay, but new worries about his health.
Meanwhile my daughter works at a nursing home and that’s been a whole, big whoop-ass can of worry. It looks like the worst of that has passed, at least for now, but who knows if this parental anxiety will ever go away.
Well put. In practice, my wife and I aren’t really worried about ourselves at all. We can sit in our quite comfortable apartment for years if need be, without any financial worry — any hardship like that is years away — and occasional forays to the grocery store don’t seem to carry very much risk of infection if well-managed. But I really don’t know what my son and his wife will do this fall if schools don’t open. They haven’t been hurt financially so far, but if they aren’t being paid in the fall they will be in real trouble. And of course if schools do open, they have a whole different set of worries.
It’s “fine,” I guess, if the student does well with generic self-guided and virtual materials. Think any of the random on-line seminar programs you may have done at work in the past.
The central problem is that some students are too tactile, visual, auditory etc for a given offered experience and, of course, there’s no customization to a particular student’s needs.
Basically these work well for somebody who’s intelligent and sufficiently self-motivated. Not so great for somebody who’s maybe not as bright or lacks maturity & motivation.
Diego
Matt_W
1845
So I had a trip to New Zealand that was supposed to depart yesterday booked on Fiji Airways. It took weeks for Fiji to formally announce that the flight had been cancelled. I contacted them almost 3 weeks ago to request a refund. They agreed to the refund in an email and then never actually credited my card despite repeated assurances that it would be ‘2-3 more days.’ Finally earlier this week, I called my bank to dispute the transaction. They gave me a temporary credit while investigating the dispute. Still waiting to see what the results of that are.
Cormac
1846
Hope you manage to get your money back. I was supposed to fly to Canada 2 weeks ago and after my KLM flight was cancelled I was told I’d get a voucher (no refunds possible), however I still haven’t actually received it…
The rental car company also refused to reimburse me, but at least I got their voucher immediately. Now I’m hoping they survice this current mess. KLM / Air France got a bail out recently, so I’m more optimistic that they will stick around.
