In a Pandemic, Teachers Responsible for Students' Home Lives

[SweetSue92]

I received a pamphet/reminder that, while we are "online schooling", we are to be mindful of students' home lives, social/emotional wellbeing, mental health, and traumatic pasts, if applicable.

So.

While we are trying to figure out how to teach them virtually, if they even have devices, and how to get those devices to work, we also need to monitor--virtually--the entire rest of their lives. While also taking care of our own.

If this is not a sign that schools have just taken on TOO MUCH of students' lives, I don't know what is. I do not mean to sound insensitive to students' needs; I love mine dearly and miss them. But it should not be our responsibility to see if Susan's mom is drunk all day, if Johnny's dad is beating his mother, or if Tommy is being left alone. VIRTUALLY. How can we even get children into private conversations to discover this?

This is not the schools' mess. This is OUR mess. Society's mess. We have children from every area of America who are not safe at home, with their families.

This is OUR America.

 

[DGS49]

There is little doubt that this academic year will be a total write-off. The Public Schools will promote all of the students, of course, and classify them as being in the next grade next year, but all teaching will have to accommodate the students who DID NOTHING during this shut-down period. If they teach to the ones who diligently stayed up with their coursework, the others will fall hopelessly behind - and will never recover.

So classes will have to resume at the point basically where they were in January, losing at least a half a year of academic progress.

If only you could get a degree in mindless computer games and watching insufferable cartoon-videos.

 

[SweetSue92]

There is little doubt that this academic year will be a total write-off. The Public Schools will promote all of the students, of course, and classify them as being in the next grade next year, but all teaching will have to accommodate the students who DID NOTHING during this shut-down period. If they teach to the ones who diligently stayed up with their coursework, the others will fall hopelessly behind - and will never recover.

So classes will have to resume at the point basically where they were in January, losing at least a half a year of academic progress.

If only you could get a degree in mindless computer games and watching insufferable cartoon-videos.

What did this have one iota to do with what I said?