The Boston Globe interviewed parents and discovered a groundswell of exhaustion and frustration caused by the closure of schools and their new roles at home. I don’t think these parents will want more of the same when school reopens. The kids and their parents will be thrilled to see their teachers and classmates again when that happy day arrives.
It was music class that finally drove Melissa Mawn over the edge.
She was already dutifully arranging her quarantine workdays around the expectations of her three children’s math, English, and science teachers, surrendering her work station to their Zoom meetings.
Now, the music teacher was proposing a “fun activity” and Mawn’s thoughts immediately turned to the recorder — the piercing woodwind instrument that her twin 10-year-old boys are learning to play this year.
“I mean, we’re stuck here in the house, and I cannot have recorder class for an hour,” said Mawn, who is working full time from the Wilmington home she shares with her three children, her husband, and her in-laws.
“We have to live here and, like, not kill each other,” said Mawn, “and the recorder is definitely going to knock one of us over the edge.”
Mark the fourth week of school closures as the moment when parents began to crack. The state’s experiment in home schooling may have been interesting for a week or two, but as social media rants reveal, many parents are now fed up. Managing their children and their anxieties amid a global pandemic, and working from home if they still have jobs, some parents have begun resisting the deluge of demands coming from their children’s teachers.
“It’s just overwhelming. Everybody’s overwhelmed,” said Mawn, who aired her frustrations last week on a Facebook page for Wilmington residents.
“I understand a love for the arts but in a state of emergency, I can’t teach music and gym,” she wrote. “My children can play outside, in their own backyard or ride their own bikes in our driveway. That will have to count for gym.”
Around the same time, Sarah Parcak, a renowned archeologist from Maine, was drafting a lengthy, expletive-filled Twitter thread reiterating what she’d already told her son’s teacher: First grade was officially over for the year.
“We cannot cope with this insanity,” Parcak wrote. “Survival and protecting his well being come first.”
The parent rebellion is not at all fun for teachers, who have found themselves in a no-win situation since schools were closed in mid-March. First, they were hounded by some hard-charging parents who expected more daily structure and an immediate and effortless switch to online instruction. Teachers had to quickly develop new coursework and ways of presenting it, and jet into families’ living rooms via video conferencing, where their every move would be scrutinized.
Now, with teachers more regularly holding classes online, parents are pushing back, saying the expectations are unmanageable — particularly for younger children who can’t handle the technology on their own and need a parent by their side.
One mother reported that her Dorchester nursery school is offering twice-a-day Zoom meetings for her toddler and preschooler — a gesture that she appreciates but that she considers more trouble than it’s worth.
The first time they participated, she said, “it was like a nightmare.” The 4-year-old did not understand: “Why can’t they hear me? Why can’t I talk?” she said. When the girl did get time to speak, she grew shy and clammed up.
“And five minutes later she wants to do it and the Zoom call is over and then she’s hysterical,” the woman said.
One irony is that many parents have been schooled to limit young children’s screen times; now they’re being steered to it by preschool teachers.
It feels like some weird science fiction story, said the Dorchester mother
The story them goes on to quote one parent at length, who happens to be the leader of the Walton-funded Massachusetts Parents Union. she is not exactly typical because the MPU pays her a salary of $172,500 to advocate for charter schools and against teachers’ unions. Professor Maurice Cunningham, a specialist in dark money who is featured in SLAYING GOLIATH, has the story and the tax returns here.
Let’s ‘hear it’ for public school classroom teachers. 👏👏👏
Teachers are in a bind. We interviewed 5 alums for our zoom seminar last week, all but one teaching in MA. Some have flexibility as to expectations, but others have specific requirements they are expected to meet each week. They understand this is hard for families, but also know they are obligated employees of their school systems. And, now, Gov. Baker wants children to come back to competency testing to see how far behind students are from being out of school! This is a time for us to focus on decreasing anxiety, supporting families (who may also include teachers) as they juggle many challenges, and welcoming children back to peaceful schools (when it’s safe) where they can be with their friends and teachers, and where learning can be relaxed and engaging.
“And, now, Gov. Baker wants children to come back to competency testing to see how far behind students are from being out of school!”
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha . . . ad infinitum. The joke’s on. . .
the students. And it is a sad and tragic joke.
FREE THE CHILDREN!
That is right – free them from any attempt to improve their chances of development in character, morality, manners, spirituality, or aethestics.
Not ,of course, to mention “education.”
Getting highlights test scores is no guarantee that one will also get morality, ethics, character, manners, or an education. We are forced by federal mandate to ignore what matters most.
So true… but Duane indicated that we have no purpose in the school buildings and that our attempts to inculcate those values are a sad, pathetic joke. Do you agree with him?
No, of course not.
I believe the purpose of education is the full development of every student, the cultivation of his/her talents, skills, and character and the introduction of all students to the best that has been thought and known in the world (Matthew Arnold). Standardized tests measure none of what matters most.
Once again, you mistake and misstate what I have written. I have to believe that is deliberate as you have never once addressed my (nor Wilson’s) claims, just your interpretation of them. How very post-modern of you.
So we agree (to a degree). Some students are not interested in the best that has been thought or known in the world (something like 85 percent of them) and standardized tests tend to winnow those students out. I’m not saying these tests are perfect, but in my EXPERIENCE of 25 years, they are pretty close. That is not to say that students who are not interested in the best that has been thought or known in the world don’t have a meaningful role – obviously they do. But we have to be realistic.about growth holarchies. ABSOLUTELY EVERYONE should be able to participate, but the guidelines are also absolute. – son chemin natures.
From your comments, Abby:
“Some students are not interested in the best that has been thought or known in the world (something like 85 percent of them) and standardized tests tend to winnow those students out. I’m not saying these tests are perfect, but in my EXPERIENCE of 25 years, they are pretty close. That is not to say that students who are not interested in the best that has been thought or known in the world don’t have a meaningful role – obviously they do.”
Do you mean to say 85% of students are not interested in “the best” thoughts and knowledge? And that students’ scores on standardized tests measure that knowledge?
Anyone with a cursory awareness of these tests will tell you they “measure” no such thing. The “best” knowledge presented doesn’t represent the world many students live in. The tests are biased, present allusions to a certain limited canon of works and experiences and demean the lived reality of many children who live in these United States.
Here’s one example, drawn from last year’s state tests for Massachusetts, the abomination called MCAS.
Test takers were presented with an excerpt from Colson Whitehead’s powerful novel, The Underground Railroad. They were asked to write a response to that prompt from the point of view of a racist character. Teachers, bound by a mandate to not disclose test materials, risked facing discipline and even the possibility of job loss, by coming foward publicly in protest. They were fulfilling their obligations to students who confided in them that being directed to hone a racist perspective in a test that would determine their right to graduation was disturbing.
https://www.wgbh.org/news/education/2019/08/02/the-life-cycle-of-a-controversial-mcas-question
The entire testing enterprise is harmful to students. It is a lucrative business for monopolistic businesses like Pearson. It has earned no rightful or useful place in our public schools. It is certainly no measure of “the best”.
And the teachers of music and art are no less frustrated.
The visual arts education forum is filled with sincere questions about how painting can be arranged as an at-home experience, assuming there is paper and either coffee or tea that can be spared, brewed, and used as the medium for painting. Paint brushes? There is not much discussion of that. The end of chewed stick works for the Aborigine painters in Australia. And so it goes.
The assumptions of teachers about the living quarters of their students are no less astonishing than those of parents who have taken schools and teachers for granted and are now overwhelmed. Then there is the disorientation of children, especially the youngest, about where school is “supposed to be happening.”
THanks for recycling this splend account of the experiences of parents-as-teachers.
“I mean, we’re stuck here in the house, and I cannot have recorder class for an hour,”…
This online stuff is a horrible situation BUT, I do hope that now more parents are supportive of their local music programs!!! HOO-RAH! for music teachers!!!
[You all know by now that I am a retired classroom elementary music teacher who also taught beginning fifth grade band classes.]
In my opinion, there is no way to adequately teach elementary music online. Forget about teaching beginning band. How long would it take to zoom a lesson to each kid? In addition to this not working, 35% of our children don’t have access to Wifi.
Does anyone actually have an online recorder lesson? I have taught many students how to play the soprano recorder.
My daughter’s guitar teacher is conducting “lessons” online (because the school system says he must). I think it’s more of a social get together with the cool teacher and friends since much of music instruction can’t be taught online My daughter will play for hours a day sometimes and other days she doesn’t play at all. It’s her gift/talent and she gets to choose how/when she wants to use it.
“Around the same time, Sarah Parcak, a renowned archeologist from Maine, was drafting a lengthy, expletive-filled Twitter thread reiterating what she’d already told her son’s teacher: First grade was officially over for the year.”
I hope she refrained from the expletives when dealing directly with the teacher, who is, after all, only doing her job. Most districts are requiring teachers to continue to teach in some fashion, plus teaching is what teachers do, so teachers are trying to be as helpful as possible. As I’ve said before, online learning is a pale substitute for in-person learning, but it can nonetheless be a lifeline for some students to have some connection to normalcy. I for one am grateful for my daughters’ teachers who continue to put effort into offering content for students as best they can.
Of course, not everything is going to work for all families, so by all means communicate with your child’s teacher and set limits or even end the whole thing if that’s what you feel you need to do. From what I’ve seen, most teachers are very accommodating to whatever works for students and families. Just be respectful.
From what I have read on this thread, most readers seem to think that education just happens “naturally” and that school is a mild inconvenience to their child’s normal cognitive growth. What damage Jean Jacques Rousseau has done to the modern (or most especially to the postmodernist) consciousness!
Education consists in what we have “unlearned?”
First you have to learn something to unlearn it!
The kids will be just fine without those annoying passages that you are asking them to analyze. They will be productive adults without having to think about those annoying things like morality and conscience.
How is that going to help them get a job?
Abby,
I think you misread the threads.
What you should hear are the adults saying, “First get a life, then get a job.”
Obviously, Diane, you misunderstood my comments.
Ahh… first get a life. Exactly how, may I ask? By reading Plotinus, Buddha’s Dharmapada, Lucretius,Zeno, Confucius’ Annelects, Plato’s dialogues?
How can students “get a life” if they are not familiar with the experiences of ages prior to ours, who tended to winnow out the wheat from the chaff? This is what is most missing from our contemporary education all the way through the Ivies.
Please read Excellent Sheep by William Derescieiwitz ,
I could not care less about the occupation – the only thing that matters is the level of development. All of us have to work on this.
If by “readers” you mean commenters at this & other forum threads, I can’t think of any who believe “education just happens ‘naturally’ and that school is a mild inconvenience to their child’s normal cognitive growth.” Try browsing other thread topics. These are reactions to attempts to impose a flawed SOP on a unique and disturbing situation.
“What damage Jean Jacques Rousseau has done to the modern (or most especially to the postmodernist) consciousness!”
Please explain what you think that “postmodernist consciousness is. I won’t hold my breath.
“Education consists mainly in what we have unlearned” Mark Twain’s Notebook, 1898.
The kids will be just fine without those test prep work pages they are being fed online. The parents need to have faith that their children will survive and become productive adults without all the tests and the drilling/killing for better scores. Of course my children are doing the online work (minimal) that their teachers are posting and they are logging into the online “classes”, but that’s it, nothing extra from me. They will be OK….. as long as we all survive this terrible time.
You’re beating a dead horse with these repetitive stories of parents and children wanting schools to return to their normal, in-person experiences. Extremely few people claim otherwise. The younger the kids, the less distance learning is a viable option. Highly motivated high school kids can do very well in some technical courses like computer science that have distance learning, as my son did. The vast majority of parents want their kids to return to their regular schools ASAP, be those schools traditional public, charter, or private.
You didn’t need to separate charters out from private. Just community public schools or private schools.
My students do not understand the phrase “beating a dead horse”. They are always laughing at such anachronistic stuff I utter. It takes a long time to explain what a dose of salts was to the earlier generations.
Before we accuse Diane of beating a dead horse with stories of parents tired of trying to perform school at home, maybe we should recall that the thing that killed the horse in the first place was the repetition of phrases like “failing schools” and “the state of education is a national defense issue.” These phrases have been pouring out of the reformist pen like ink out of an upset inkwell.
Mine is easier because I just have a high school student and he does the work himself, but I DO think our school district approach helped. They re-introduced the classes one by one, so he had a chance to get used to it over a period of weeks.
I think there’s something to be said for going more slowly. It’s a difficult adjustment for everyone. The hair on fire panic that they might lose a week or two seems to me to be counterproductive. Speed isn’t always the most important measure. My kid was rattled- his whole day disappeared overnight. We can give them some time to adjust.
Some of our teachers have been just great. My son had an assignment where I helped him and his older brother helped him – he had to produce a short video and “present” the work so we told him he should give us some credit, which he did. So ordinarily this would be out of bounds for that teacher but she was amused that he brought us in and she thanked us for being truthful.
It’s an unusual situation. I think we can be generous with one another. I don’t know why my son had us work with him, but he did, and we all enjoyed it. It’s all so grim. A little looseness and levity can’t hurt.
“I mean, we’re stuck here in the house, and I cannot have recorder class for an hour,” said Mawn,
I have to admit that I found this very funny. Teachers are a strange breed in many ways. They have a little trouble letting go.
The professional critics of public schools continue their work scolding public schools and spouting management slogans:
“There is a really big lesson here: A compliance mentality can compound a disaster by stopping necessary initiative-taking and innovation.”
https://www.the74million.org/article/hill-a-compliance-mentality-stifles-initiative-and-innovation-in-a-crisis-just-when-theyre-needed-most/
They’re not really harmful in the think tanks- just don’t hire them to actually run public schools. Don’t elect any, or hire any for publicly-paid positions. You’ll get more value hiring an extra crossing guard.
I love your last sentence. Crossing guards are essential while deformers destroy.
“The professional critics of public schools continue their work scolding public schools and spouting management slogans.” It is indeed their profession: finding fault.
We teachers are caught between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, we have districts and schools DEMANDING we take roll, assign work, conference live with students, and do more technology, even next school year. On the other hand, we have the same schools and districts, along with parents, DEMANDING that we do less.
What are we supposed to do?
Do like any good adminimal would do: Fake everything!
Or do less! :0)
Unlike Duane,I would not recommend that you fake everything. I assume that you are person of character and intelligence. I do not conference live with anyone.I assign work based on what my students are able to do and I am very permeable as to what I will accept. However, I refuse to accept “no work.”
Keep coming at me with your fallacious verbal assaults, ms. Abby. I can handle it. But you can’t. Whenever I reply with questions/requests you seem to disappear because I never get any cogent answers from you, just spurious claims and attacks on me.
Indeed it’s sad that you can’t recognize a sarcastic comment.
How can you hold students to anything in the state we are in. I do not even know where they are? We have been instructed that we cannot grade anything. This is certainly due to the absence of any connectivity in about 40% of the student’s homes.
Here’s a look at how a Boston family, teachers themselves, are coping with our new world:
“‘I wake up before the birds’
Caroline:
It’s just, the balance can be hard. Sometimes it feels like there’s a lack of understanding from the district. They always say, ‘Make sure you have a balance,’ but also, ‘Make sure you do x, y, and z.’
It’s not like I’m not trying to do my job. I wake up before the birds to do my job.
We are parents and families living through this same situation as everyone else. I am doing my absolute best for everyone.
Patrick:
Just because I want to spend time with my two children and support their education doesn’t mean I don’t care about the BPS students because we love them and care about them. But I also love my children with all my heart, and I have to give them my all as well.
https://schoolyardnews.com/covid-chronicles-teacher-parents-struggle-to-care-for-all-their-children-their-students-and-b54680e7049