Is “Working from Home” Really Working?
Imagine: Your school chair is your couch. Your commute is the length of your hallway. Your lunchtime consists of spending fifteen minutes vigorously raiding the pantry.
Think this is all a dream? Not these days when we’re learning how to live with the reality of COVID-19. Distance learning has become a bitter reality for us all.
Distance learning has shaken students all around the world. With remote working on the rise, productivity can be threatened by an unprofessional environment in addition to noisy families and a lack of proper equipment.
“Just give up on home learning already! I feel like I’ve learned nothing. My teachers are always inaudible and classes consist of students talking over the teachers. The teachers themselves aren’t even making the effort to engage in productive, hands-on learning with the us!”
— Zoha, a high-school junior
Homeschooling and Home Education
Many school districts have attempted to shift schooling to home, but it’s difficult to simply school at home. That’s why “homeschooling” is often referred to as “home education” by homeschoolers.
Home education involves an understanding that children can learn while doing everyday tasks; baking can teach math, science, and home economics.
Sitting on the couch reading Charlie and The Chocolate Factory to children in grades two and three counts as “school.” So does taking the casual natural stroll and creating a nature journal.
Homeschool parents often tailor their curricula according to their own schedules as well as their family’s individual needs.
The COVID-19 pandemic has ultimately thrust all parents in America and around the world into the same situation. One-size-fits-all education barely works in a classroom, but it is completely unmanageable with students spread out across their various households working independently.
Most children are probably not going to be returning back to school this calendar year; school districts already conceded as much, as have many universities.
Is this how children should be spending the next few months? Sitting inside staring at a computer screen for six hours a day? Most adults have a hard time concentrating during online meetings for one day; it’s unreasonable to expect a child to do the same for months on end.
And it’s leading to behavioral issues too.
According to The Atlantic, “ On one recent Facebook thread about screen time-generated outbursts, one mother wrote, “This is a major conflict in our family because we do not believe in this amount of screen time, and the kids thrive without it. Yet it is expected in order for online learning to continue.”
An International Perspective… Podcast Learning or Online Learning?
Around the world, matters regarding the abrupt and unprecedented shift to online distance learning have not any better for students.
In Pakistan, many families face technical issues and problems regarding internet connection and electricity shortage, making online learning already a challenge.
Therefore, some schools have called to not turn on the video camera while children are “learning” as the Zoom or Microsoft Team video camera hinders the overall connectivity of the online lesson.
The result of this?
Children have to stare blankly and aimlessly into the technological abyss of their computer screens while listening to dogs barking, birds chirping, classmates chattering, and fighting among one another in annoyance in the background of the lesson.
Children, as little as eleven and twelve are facing many issues with their social and psychological development.
I often do ask my twelve-year-old brother Azlan, the question:
“How is your online school going?” — His response?
He pursues his lips into a shallow and minuscule melancholy frown, looks down to his knees and simple mutters: “I miss my friends.”
But is Going to School Actually a Better Solution?
A friend of mine who lives in South Korea shared her face-to-face return to school journey with me recently. As the number of COVID-19 cases in South Korea has drastically dropped, schools are starting to open up for physical learning once again.
My friend said that on her first day at school, she was completely overwhelmed already. On top of that, some teachers had announced that she and her class would have to take an entire course test on her first day back at school.
The toll this took on her mental health was devastating.
As she would walk from class-to-class, supervisors would bark orders at her and other students, telling them to move away as quickly and efficiently as possible from one another.
She explains that her in-class experience was even more strange as she had to plant herself on a desk more than six feet away from other people.
She said that she wasn’t able to concentrate the entire time at school as there was a large “plastic face shield” covering the front of her and everyone’s desks.
She concluded her story by telling me:
“I would have rather just stayed at home…”
The Solution: So How Can Online Learning Improve?
Schools can still play a constructive role, even if they aren’t holding online classes for children stuck at homes. Instead of spending time on online lessons and hours of video chats, schools need to provide a crash course in education for parents and guardians, provide loose individual lesson plans and suggestion, and operate as a helpline.
Parents and children across the country have been thrown into the deep end of the pool, and they could use much more support.
Parents, teachers, and administrators should try to understand the unique nature of education at home. Every family looks different and has different needs. Some children have no siblings; some have many.
Some children have parents whose mother tongue is not English, but who could provide instruction much more easily in their native language.
Some parents have two working parents trying to fit in school with their children. Some families have an out-of-work parent because of the financial crisis that has resulted from this pandemic.
The next few months will radically alter how parents and students think about children’s education. For the time being, they are responsible for it. That’s why it’s time for parents to also take charge of their children’s schooling.
Teachers, administrators and parents must work collaboratively to meet each and every child’s individual schooling needs during these incredibly difficult times.
References
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