Online learning isn’t working for our children
OTTAWA This pandemic is hard on everyone, even those of us who are used to being home or alone. (For once, writers are at an advantage.) But it’s especially hard on kids.
One of the toughest things about being a kid is that you don’t have control over much of anything in your life. That’s why toddlers have tantrums and teenagers sulk. It’s a way for them to exert a small measure of control over something, even if it’s a stupid, meaningless sort of something, at least seen from our adult eyes.
As they get older, they begin to make choices of their own, including which kids they’re going to be friends with. They benefit greatly from being close to other humans of their choosing. It helps them figure out who they are as individuals, independently of their parents.
Now that’s completely gone. And it’s getting to be so bad that even teenagers say they miss school.
The sarcastic part of me can be heard mumbling something about how extraordinary it is that it only took a pandemic to make teenagers appreciate what we nearly killed ourselves reminding them they should be grateful for. But my heart aches for them.
Many of us have got used to working from home and having virtual meetings, which are having the weird effect of making us feel more connected to our colleagues, somehow. We know each other’s pets and kids now, because they often make appearances during Teams meetings. We peek into each other’s homes, see what we really look like when our roots start showing. Even CEOS are wearing soft clothes, just like us.
The other day, I attended an online meeting for the Ontario section of the Writers’ Union of Canada, my first union meeting ever. Several others remarked that this was their first time, too, including one person who had been a dues-paying member for two decades. We attended this one because it was online. We didn’t have to go anywhere or dress up. The pandemic allowed us to get to know one another.
Kids are having the exact opposite experience.
The ones I know and hear from, not just my own offspring, don’t like virtual meetings one bit. This, the most screen-addicted generation in the history of generations (or screens), actively despises Zoom and other tools used for online learning and virtual versions of their extracurricular activities.
“It’s not the same,” is their simple verdict. I think I know why. We adults are used to having a lot of meaningless relationships. We interact with a bunch of people in the course of a day. We simply don’t have the emotional bandwidth to develop a genuine interest in most of them, so we don’t. We prioritize a few relationships, and focus on those. We don’t feel bad or stressed-out about the others.
Kids aren’t like that. They haven’t had time to get desensitized, the beautiful souls. Most of their relationships are important and meaningful to them.
To kids, virtual meetings with their teachers or friends from theatre make them feel lonelier and less connected. I appreciate all the work teachers are doing to help children learn at home, but after nearly two months, it’s clear to me that’s not working. And it’s stressing out the kids no end.
Children thrive on meaningful relationships, and those have suddenly been yanked away for reasons few of them truly understand. I don’t know what the solution is beyond doing our best to wait it out.
Maybe we need to forget about teacher-led learning at home and make plans to catch up whenever schools reopen instead.
It’s not a great solution to resign yourself to your kids losing academic ground. But the alternative is to see their emotional and mental health plummet, and as a parent if I have to choose between math and my kids’ well-being — that’s not a hard choice to make at all.
Brigitte Pellerin is an Ottawa writer.