The kids have now been in High School for a week.
It's still online only due to everyone both teachers and parents alike going into hysterics at the thought of doing it in person. Statistically, they're in more danger every-time they get in a swimming pool than in a live school as far as Covid goes. Unfortunately, unthinking fear is winning out over the statitstics.
We actually know a few parents who have not let their kids out to play with other kids, even socially distant play - since March. Note these are normal kids, not with any comorbidity or immune system disorders, except for their parents' hypochondria. That's just not healthy.
So, online only it is.
The kids each have a room in the house from whence they Zoom and do their online learning.
Leah is having a harder time of it, as it is hard to make friends and connect over Zoom in class and hard to connect with teachers, even with their "Zoom breakout rooms".
Abby at least already has a good solid set of high school friends, knows her classmates and the teachers and has a good rep already established.
Both are complaining about tiredness and headaches form having to stare at the screen for hours. We're going to get them some computer viewing screens/glasses to help alleviate that - we'll see if it helps.
The upside - no need to rush and fight traffic to get to school, no need for us to worry about Abby driving in traffic on the way to school, and they don't need to get up as early as a result. The lunchroom is their own kitchen, and the food unquestionably beats the cafeteria food hands down. Bathrooms are clean, private and by comparison spacious. They also have access to healthy snacks all day long whenever they get hungery and being teens that doth occur.
I still don't envy them the situation, High School is tough enough without this online only stuff.
3 comments:
I think there are unanticipated benefits as well as no traffic headaches: in person bullying from peers and staff is off the menu. Everything is probably recorded and retrievable ergo far less “he said/she said” foolishness. The street and the wired culture is a little further away.
Won’t nostalgia be stamped out for this generation of kids? For that they may be thankful.
Thanks!
dmurray:
True, the lack of bullying is a good thing. I half expect a rash of cyber/social media bullyings to take its place.
Other benefit I consider is that there is no school shootings as a result of no easy targets of kids in stuffed classrooms without any protection.
It'll be strange in any case, that's for sure. Hopefully it leads to some improvements in education.
Welcome to the world of homeschooling! The trouble is, they're trying to impose the structure of the public school day onto the home school and it just doesn't work that way. The key to homeschooling is flexibility. If your eyes are getting tired, OK everyone outside for a half hour of goofing off, then back to math (or whatever). Having trouble with math - OK, let's do geography or literature for an hour and come back to math after.
Not saying it was easy, but we controlled the process and that helped. Not sure the schools will be inclined to do that.
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