micromanaging by mass email
Oct. 2nd, 2020 08:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eiriasOur experience of virtual school so far this year has been interesting. It's been a lot more work and more face-time than last year, which has required us to adapt. We've settled into it well enough now that I think I can talk a little about it publicly.
True distance education, with the flexibility it allows, can actually be a great thing for my particular high-mean, high-variance kid. You get to do the work in a time, manner, and place that suits you. Last year, for instance, we got a pile of work on Mondays, and we got to set the ground rules that made sense for our kid, and in a way that was compatible with us continuing to focus on our own needs as workers. Second grade was mostly very rough seas, and for me, this transition was a welcome balm.
What we have so far this year is ... not quite true distance education. Moreso than last year, teachers seem to be trying to pretend that the classroom is theirs and that normal classroom rules apply. No snacks, no pets; sit up, don't wiggle; cameras on, unless your internet is dire. In reality, each teacher has roughly thirty co-teachers per class, and these co-teachers are adults, who are generally not used to taking orders the way that elementary schoolers are expected to. And yet I don't think the institution has quite adapted to this reality.
I gained some clarity on this point this morning when a mass email from a teacher came our way. (The infraction: allowing our children to get the work for this class done too soon, without first watching all the videos, which are doled out one by one and not at a pace that is compatible with the blocks of protected work time she has, which are frontloaded in the week.) The message reminded me of working in a place with a shared kitchen, and the passive aggressive notes that so often come with that perk. I now realize that part of why those notes are so ineffective is that they carry with them the subtext that the behavior they're condemning is common. If someone were pooping on the kitchen counter, you wouldn't leave a passive aggressive note about that. The fact that you have to actually means I'm in pretty good company if I leave my dishes in the sink, or (heaven forfend) let my eight-year-old work ahead.
True distance education, with the flexibility it allows, can actually be a great thing for my particular high-mean, high-variance kid. You get to do the work in a time, manner, and place that suits you. Last year, for instance, we got a pile of work on Mondays, and we got to set the ground rules that made sense for our kid, and in a way that was compatible with us continuing to focus on our own needs as workers. Second grade was mostly very rough seas, and for me, this transition was a welcome balm.
What we have so far this year is ... not quite true distance education. Moreso than last year, teachers seem to be trying to pretend that the classroom is theirs and that normal classroom rules apply. No snacks, no pets; sit up, don't wiggle; cameras on, unless your internet is dire. In reality, each teacher has roughly thirty co-teachers per class, and these co-teachers are adults, who are generally not used to taking orders the way that elementary schoolers are expected to. And yet I don't think the institution has quite adapted to this reality.
I gained some clarity on this point this morning when a mass email from a teacher came our way. (The infraction: allowing our children to get the work for this class done too soon, without first watching all the videos, which are doled out one by one and not at a pace that is compatible with the blocks of protected work time she has, which are frontloaded in the week.) The message reminded me of working in a place with a shared kitchen, and the passive aggressive notes that so often come with that perk. I now realize that part of why those notes are so ineffective is that they carry with them the subtext that the behavior they're condemning is common. If someone were pooping on the kitchen counter, you wouldn't leave a passive aggressive note about that. The fact that you have to actually means I'm in pretty good company if I leave my dishes in the sink, or (heaven forfend) let my eight-year-old work ahead.
(no subject)
Date: 2020-10-02 04:25 pm (UTC)If a student is working ahead and getting lots of things wrong because they didn't watch all the videos, that's a place to intervene (individually!). Why does the student need to sit through videos if they're capable of doing the work without them? (My hatred of watching video as a way of taking in information is showing...)
(no subject)
Date: 2020-10-02 04:29 pm (UTC)Fully agree. (Since the email said nothing about this, I am left to infer that it's not generally the case.)
Why does the student need to sit through videos if they're capable of doing the work without them? (My hatred of watching video as a way of taking in information is showing...)
Not to put too fine a point on it, but it's an especially surprising pedagogical choice for the particular school my kid is at.
Honestly I think the teacher is putting hours of work into these and is feeling miffed that they're going unappreciated. We all need to be flexible these days...
(no subject)
Date: 2020-10-02 04:52 pm (UTC)But frankly, either you release the work to be done after the related videos are released, or you say "here's the work to be done, here are a bunch of resources, have at it" and coach the students who are struggling to figure out how.
Scolding people because you don't like how they exploit your gaping loopholes is... unlikely to inspire change.
(My nephew is doing 1st grade all virtually, and is being super easily distractable, and I am *so* empathizing because as a person with 30-some more years coping with distraction, my primary coping mechanism - take the stuff to a coffee shop - is gone now, and, well... yes. So hard.)