E-learning

Curious what’s going on with other parents? As some of you probably know we live on the south side of Chicago and my partner is a CPS teacher. My 7th header and my art teaching partner are essentially in the same room based on the layout of our apartment. This situation might change soon which will garner posts in a different thread. But, currently, this situation blows. Thankfully since our son is 12 he hasn’t had any issues with tech and he still talks with his friends every night playing fortnite so he’s coping with that decently. He did start at a new school, which is an academic center, so I think the workload and change of school day hours has been weird. On the other side of the room, She has trouble with all grades in different ways but the challenges of multi age families is becoming quickly apparent. I’ll give you an example of a common situation at her school. Multi age family, 4 kids 2 adults. The 2 adults work out of the house leaving the kids to themselves. The kids range in age, 13, 8, 7, 5. Just imagine the possibilities there. I’m sure it’s only slightly easier for families working from home... also, teaching art isn’t easy over the internet for obvious reasons. Especially for the younger kids who haven’t mastered anything. With all that being said, I support e-learning until there is a vaccine. I would never want my family to put themselves or others at risk. I’m curious what other people’s feelings and situations are like?

You know why they call it remote learning? Because there is a remote chance they’re learning anything!!!



We’ve found the experience to be stressful and feel nothing is being accomplished. The kids are not engaged, the curriculum seems taped together & making sure they stay in front of the computer is half the battle. Our company encourages Zoom breaks because adults can not handle hours of Zoom so how kids are actually learning this way is beyond me.

My kid is starting Kindergarten and we're pretty pleased with the situation, but 1) she's an anxious little person sometimes and it's probably beneficial to have a slow exposure to a classroom setting 2) there isn't more than an hour of zoom time each day, spread out through 2-4 meetings 3) we have the flexibility of being able to be home with her 4) it's fucking Kindergarten, so even though everything is on the line, there isn't much in the way of concrete learning that's on the line. We feel very fortunate to be having an ok experience while - clearly - millions of parents are in hell.

We kept her out of school and are home schooling her. It has its bumps in the road but overall I think it’s been much less chaotic than the zoom option/stupid admin idea of online learning for her/us. What’s most difficult is my wife is also working on her master degree at the same time, as well as an assistantship.

My daughter likes to learn and beyond the standard curriculum I’ve been able to get pretty creative with music, learning about nature, science etc.

I hope this shit gets resolved somehow before the next school year though.

So you're hoping to re-enroll her in a public school whenever that time comes?

Depending on health and safety, yes.

Is this the end of snow days?

Will kids ever have a true day off from school due to weather ever again? Or will every "snow day" be a "remote learning day" instead?

Short answer, yes.


Another question in relation, do kids who received supplies from the schools, like laptops, get to keep those?

The year my kids spend remote learning was awful. It turned me off to the whole idea of homeschooling. Which prior to our second kid my wife was considering. But after the big pandemic year, no thank you.