Lessons learned from my kids’ online schooling
plans to transform the economy have been mostly talk. — kelly mcparland
With my three kids home and participating ( some of them more actively than others) in their school’s remote education program, I have learned a lot.
That strikes me as funny because I did not expect to learn anything. The hope was that my children would be edified in lively Zoom meetings with their teachers and classmates while I went about my usual business. Mostly tapping things out on my laptop in solitary communion with a caffeinated beverage.
It turns out, other people’s lively Zoom meetings can be loud, especially when the participants are giggly nineyear- old girls or 13- year- old boys on the squeaky verge of puberty. So, I have heard a great deal. I have heard more than I intended to hear. And it is probably fair to say I have heard more than I wanted to hear. But I am wiser for it.
With apologies to Robert Fulghum, author of the classic All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, here are the things I have learned from unintentionally eavesdropping on my kids’ virtual classrooms.
Keep your camera on. It feels like it does not matter if people can see you or not. Why do they need to know that you are attending this lesson in a bathrobe while eating Nutella straight from the jar? Your newly widened definition of casual attire and relaxed personal grooming habits are none of their business.
And yet, there is something about your nods, your half- smiles, your furrowed brows, your face palms, and your thumbs- ups or thumbs- downs (with flesh and blood digits rather than emoji approximations of the same) that give the person speaking to you crucial cues about how you are reacting to their message. It allows them to adjust accordingly — maybe pick a better analogy to explain the concept of bioamplification, or drop the “reading is lit” puns that aren’t helping anyone. Maybe ask you to volunteer your expertise because your eyes light up at the mention of quadrilaterals.
Keeping your camera on allows you to remain connected and engaged with the other human beings on your call. And no matter how virtual or remote your learning may be, it will always depend, at its heart, on a give and take with other human beings.
Turn your microphone off. It is hard to listen when you are talking. Yes, you may need to talk at some point — when the speaker has finished speaking and you have something meaningful to say that has not already been said or made obvious. And you can turn your microphone on then.
But you do not need to talk until such a moment occurs. And chances are, such moments will occur far less frequently than you anticipate they will. So, it is best to leave yourself muted as a default, taking advantage of that extra split second it takes to activate your microphone as an opportunity to digest what you have heard so far and consider: Do you have a point to make or are you just talking? Is your reference to your favourite Minecraft vlogger’s most recent hide- and- seek video truly relevant to calculating the area of a circle? Or might it be best set aside while you are being handed the secrets to geometry?
Disconnect from wifi. The homework doc isn’t loading. You have refreshed the page seven times and now feel like jumping out a window, not even caring if you are less than a metre away from anyone who might be walking by on the sidewalk when you land in a splatter. Or you want to refresh the page for an eighth time while cursing your computer, COVID-19, and your crappy curriculum. Disconnect from the wifi instead. Perseverance is great, but sometimes you just need to stop trying and get a cookie, while trusting that the internet gods will work the connection problems out themselves.
Reconnect to wifi. When you feel better, try getting back online. There is no logical reason why the wifi should work any better now than it did 15 minutes and two Oreos ago, but somehow it will. And the homework doc will load and it will be a lot shorter than you remembered it being, and technology will feel like a miracle again rather than something that hates you and wants to confine you indefinitely to the Zoom waiting room of a teacher who never comes.
Watching my kids, I have realized that online learning is hard. It requires making a conscious effort to let others see you, even when you would prefer not to be seen, and a conscious effort to hear others, even when you would prefer they would listen to you. It requires the flexibility to sometimes stop trying and to sometimes try again, with no reliable rule for knowing when to do which.
But these are precious lessons. I hope my kids are learning them. I’m certainly glad I am.