OT: College in the COVID era

[CL82]

And for elementary school kids, even more so. HS or even middle school from home, ok, maybe. Elementary school kids need to be fully in person. If a teacher is at risk, find a different teacher. Shift roles. I know an immune compromised teacher who applied for a remote job instead of her usual and got it. Better an inexperienced teacher in person than an experienced one on Zoom.

I could see a hybrid of really experienced (and or compelling and qualified) teachers presenting Zoom teaching plans to multiple classrooms with less experienced teachers in room keeping kids on task and taking questions. Maybe like a 30 minutes on 30 minutes off kind of a thing. COVID will push a reinvention of teaching in the same way it is redefining the need for a bricks and mortar workspace.

 

[Fishy]

I could see a hybrid of really experienced (and or compelling and qualified) teachers presenting Zoom teaching plans to multiple classrooms with less experienced teachers in room keeping kids on task and taking questions. Maybe like a 30 minutes on 30 minutes off kind of a thing. COVID will push a reinvention of teaching in the same way it is redefining the need for a bricks and mortar workspace.

No, it won’t.

You need a bricks and mortar school because you need kids in that school with other kids.

Our local high school, in a fairly affluent district, decided to just boot education into the weeds. Kids will be remote only for six weeks and then go to school once a week for the rest of the year. In recognition of the fact that they’re really not actually teaching anyone anything, they’ve done away with the grading system as well.

Good luck applying for college with a series of Completes as your junior year grades.

The scramble for private school has been so intense that the schools’ guidance counselors have set away messages on their email and voice mail accounts so that they can plausibly delay sending transcripts parents need to place their kinds elsewhere.

 

[upstater]

I could see a hybrid of really experienced (and or compelling and qualified) teachers presenting Zoom teaching plans to multiple classrooms with less experienced teachers in room keeping kids on task and taking questions. Maybe like a 30 minutes on 30 minutes off kind of a thing. COVID will push a reinvention of teaching in the same way it is redefining the need for a bricks and mortar workspace.

Anything can happen, given the type of people making the decisions. BUT--the value is going to get sucked out, just as it is already being sucked out now even pre-Covid.

You can blame us in academia for a lot of things, but maybe the biggest thing you can blame us for is retaining the medieval guild system, which is difficult to stack and scale. So much is gained in the mentoring process. As you cut the number of mentors, then presumably you cut avenues of knowledge. This is the way it has always worked. It may be possible to do things otherwise, we don't know yet, but at that point, there will be no need for universities.

 

[superjohn]

Here’s the rub....

Online instruction is essentially make-believe learning. The kids really won’t learn, but you can still pull tuition out of them and everyone still gets paid which is really the schools’ primary goal at this point.

The younger the kid, the more damaging a year of make-believe school is - and if you’re young and do not have the social infrastructure around you to even make the best of this nonsense approach, you‘re screwed now and in the future.

Given that, and given that the supposed ten-alarm fire touted by our resident pearl-clutcher above will likely result in 123 kids who will feel just fine in a few days, the cure looks a lot worse than the disease right now.

This generation of kids will be called "The lost generation."

 

[Fishy]

This generation of kids will be called "The lost generation."

It kills me how casually some of these idiots are consigning a generation of kids to the scrap heap.

 

[NJHusky]

It kills me how casually some of these idiots are consigning a generation of kids to the scrap heap.

Can someone explain to me why it's ok for child care to be open in NJ but not schools? Could it be that nursery school teachers don't have a really well funded union???

 

[NJHusky]

I guess every company I've ever worked for or with and never once have I seen a member on any level of upper management that's majored in a social science. And for an earner making $130k+ I assume them to be upper/senior management

Probably that and some engrained stereotypes that things like English and other social sciences aren't high paying majors

That's about the starting salary (with signing bonus) of a 2020 grad I know.....Computer Science & Math Major from good engineering school...And he's working remotely first six months..

 

[HuskyHawk]

No, it won’t.

You need a bricks and mortar school because you need kids in that school with other kids.

Our local high school, in a fairly affluent district, decided to just boot education into the weeds. Kids will be remote only for six weeks and then go to school once a week for the rest of the year. In recognition of the fact that they’re really not actually teaching anyone anything, they’ve done away with the grading system as well.

Good luck applying for college with a series of Completes as your junior year grades.

The scramble for private school has been so intense that the schools’ guidance counselors have set away messages on their email and voice mail accounts so that they can plausibly delay sending transcripts parents need to place their kinds elsewhere.

Glad we are in private school. Full grades and testing even last spring. Hybrid is live two way, with kids on camera interacting with teachers and classmates in class. Not ideal. But a hell of a lot better than what our public school is doing.

For college the question is what you pay for. Full tuition for remote? Nah. I’m hopeful that next year will be normal. I walked around UNH today in a mask outside and that was, not necessary really. Just excessive. Inside sure, fine. They made an ok attempt at a tour when most are straight up closed.

 

[Dooooooomed]

 

[8893]

Handle/post!

I was pretty frosted when my daughter's college announced a little over a week ago that they would be closing campus and going solely remote for the fall semester, after spending all spring and summer priming us to expect an open campus and in-person instruction.

After attending a Zoom meeting with the Sr. VP last week I understood a good bit more about why they made the decision they did, given where we are with testing and spikes right now.

Their primary goal was to avoid having to switch back to remote after getting everyone back on campus, which would have been a worse logistical problem than simply starting out that way. He gave an example exactly like what is happening here and explained the logistical problem of having quarantines within quarantines, to the point where it would become more of a prison--i.e., not an open campus at all.

It hasn't taken long for UNC and this experience to show the wisdom in their decision. It sucks, but I don't have a better answer. And they are offering full refunds for anyone who wants to defer or withdraw, so it's not like a money grab either, which is what the cynic in me initially suspected.

 

[temery]

Over 30 years I had more than a dozen students, and others in my school but not in my class, miss all or most of a year due to illness. They all did fine when they returned.

 

[Ajs120102]

Michigan State told kids not to come to campus today. Notre Dame moved to remote for 2 weeks (they’ll end up sending them home inevitably). This will be the case across the board.

 

[8893]

Over 30 years I had more than a dozen students, and others in my school but not in my class, miss all or most of a year due to illness. They all did fine when they returned.

Can't believe I get to mention Tom Jones here twice in one day, but this reminds me that I learned from listening to the episode of the Desert Island Discs podcast featuring him that he was isolated at home for two years in his teens because he had tuberculosis.

He turned out okay.

 

[temery]

Can someone explain to me why it's ok for child care to be open in NJ but not schools? Could it be that nursery school teachers don't have a really well funded union???

One theory is younger kids are less likely to get sick, and their little lungs aren't able to spread the virus as well and as far as older kids. That, and very few decisions being made make much sense.

 

[temery]

Can't believe I get to mention Tom Jones here twice in one day, but this reminds me that I learned from listening to the episode of the Desert Island Discs podcast featuring him that he was isolated at home for two years in his teens because he had tuberculosis.

He turned out okay.

My mother missed a year of high school due to Rheumatic Fever. She graduated, graduated from Smith, and got a PhD from Tufts. Not bad.

 

[M.S.G.]

My mother missed a year of high school due to Rheumatic Fever. She graduated, graduated from Smith, and got a PhD from Tufts. Not bad.

I feel like there should have been a Jim Calhoun video attached here.

Graduated from Smith, PhD from Tufts, she's NOT bad!

 

[M.S.G.]

We got our schedule for the opening week of PD, absolute silliness, every building goes to the gym or the theater in staggered sessions, and many of the opening week training videos will be viewed alone in our classrooms virtually... So silly...

I doubt we even make it to the first day of school, this is so ridiculous.

 

[Kenny11]

And for elementary school kids, even more so. HS or even middle school from home, ok, maybe. Elementary school kids need to be fully in person. If a teacher is at risk, find a different teacher. Shift roles. I know an immune compromised teacher who applied for a remote job instead of her usual and got it. Better an inexperienced teacher in person than an experienced one on Zoom.

even middle school and high school kids (apart from maybe the most mature juniors and seniors) will not learn anything online. This is an educational disaster in a country that has already been damaged because of lack of education. Kids didn’t go to school from march through June, had the whole summer off and now have to go through online or “hybrid learning” which is inexcusable, especially in a state like Connecticut where the positive test rate is 1% or lower. Kids are feeling more depressed, more withdrawn, less motivated and abandoned by the schools and teachers who have shown they don’t give a crap about them at all. It’s disgusting. If it’s too dangerous to have school (after a 6 month period where plans could have been made) then no store or restaurant Or business of any kind should be open. If educating our kids isn’t essential, what is?
And yes, the federal government should give more money to the school systems to operate. Public Education has been Defunded For years in this country and the head of education in this country literally is against public education . It’s all so disgusting.

 

[Hey Adrien!]

even middle school and high school kids (apart from maybe the most mature juniors and seniors) will not learn anything online. This is an educational disaster in a country that has already been damaged because of lack of education.

I'm not saying it is as good as teaching in person, but having experience teaching middle school students live last school year from March to June, the kids learned something. In my math classes, on average, I finished the year about two weeks behind. Not ideal, but not as terrible as you might think.

The key though, is being available to teach online live, interact with the students, take questions, have discussions with the students and provide feedback both to their daily work but also their assessments. Thankfully, my school did that right away after Spring Break and we'll be ready to go back online whenever that happens. I saved a lot of time and effort conferencing with my students verbally, displaying their work on my screen than writing a bunch of comments that most will be unread. But this was only possible due to my small class sizes. It would have been impossible with 25 per class.

Anyways, first day for teachers is today and it'll be my first time in school since March. I can't lie, I'm incredibly anxious and it's hard to have even an hour not thinking about it, but once the kids start coming it'll feel better to get the ball rolling, even though I have no idea how it'll look.

 

[upstater]

even middle school and high school kids (apart from maybe the most mature juniors and seniors) will not learn anything online. This is an educational disaster in a country that has already been damaged because of lack of education. Kids didn’t go to school from march through June, had the whole summer off and now have to go through online or “hybrid learning” which is inexcusable, especially in a state like Connecticut where the positive test rate is 1% or lower. Kids are feeling more depressed, more withdrawn, less motivated and abandoned by the schools and teachers who have shown they don’t give a crap about them at all. It’s disgusting. If it’s too dangerous to have school (after a 6 month period where plans could have been made) then no store or restaurant Or business of any kind should be open. If educating our kids isn’t essential, what is?
And yes, the federal government should give more money to the school systems to operate. Public Education has been Defunded For years in this country and the head of education in this country literally is against public education . It’s all so disgusting.

I share some of your sentiments, except for the distress over the lack of education here. In studies that account for our poverty rate, we're actually pretty good in educational attainment. Math and literacy are really high when you measure the top 90% of students. We're in the top 4.

Our bottom 10% drag the levels of American education from top 4 to 15-20. We have a massive dropout rate too. When compared to European countries who have much more social welfare for people in the bottom decile, we look bad. If you take the top 90% though, we look good.

 

[Lefty2one]

This generation of kids will be called "The lost generation."

I thought that was already Millenials thanks to being destroyed by student loan debt, a terrible job market, fading middle class, etc.

It's a wonderful new American tradition: instead of parents feeling confident about their children leading a better life than they did they're praying their kids will be out of the house by age 30.

 

[Improviser]

I thought that was already Millenials thanks to being destroyed by student loan debt, a terrible job market, fading middle class, etc.

It's a wonderful new American tradition: instead of parents feeling confident about their children leading a better life than they did they're praying their kids will be out of the house by age 30.

Out by 30 can be optimistic. Sometimes, never out or if they are out, the grandchildren are in.

I have read that often when kids have kids, not infrequently, the grandparents wind up raising your kids' kids, because of bad decisions made by your kids and their self-induced substance abuse or opiod abuse, or spousal abuse.

 

[upstater]

Things change.

Look at Italy. Personal private debt is very low. Home ownership is very high. Homes are passed down through generations. People live with parents until a very late age, take over the home when parents die, or else they get an apartment maybe in their late 30s (often returning to parents home each evening for dinner or laundry), only to take over the home once the parents pass.

Not saying that this will be America, but there are any number of ways to do it.

In most population centers throughout the country, there are very good universities, so many students simply attend their hometown school and thereby save on room and board.

 

[superjohn]

I thought that was already Millenials thanks to being destroyed by student loan debt, a terrible job market, fading middle class, etc.

It's a wonderful new American tradition: instead of parents feeling confident about their children leading a better life than they did they're praying their kids will be out of the house by age 30.

Let's just say I'm really happy to have grown up when I did, it seems like it's all gone to hell since then.

 

[Improviser]

Things change.

Look at Italy. Personal private debt is very low. Home ownership is very high. Homes are passed down through generations. People live with parents until a very late age, take over the home when parents die, or else they get an apartment maybe in their late 30s (often returning to parents home each evening for dinner or laundry), only to take over the home once the parents pass.

Not saying that this will be America, but there are any number of ways to do it.

In most population centers throughout the country, there are very good universities, so many students simply attend their hometown school and thereby save on room and board.

Sounds like we are talking about solid, responsible, and respectable people, with high regard for parents.

Not that way everywhere.