Week 2 – Teaching Remotely – NYC in Pandemic
There’s a lot to worry about today. Medical supplies, and infection rates. Emergency rooms. Goods in stores. Mortgage. Rent. Politics. Am I going to get it?
In the midst of all this, tens of thousands (how many are we? sixty-thousand? seventy-thousand?) New York City teachers, and thousands more counselors, therapists, paraprofessionals – we’ve reached your kids – set up something like classes – made an attempt to teach. (Also supporting – parent coordinators, school secretaries. Administrators and central staff are also involved, most support us, though some have gotten in our way, that’s a different post).
What we are doing is strange. There are elements of classes, but your kids are home. Watch a video? That’s homework. Answer questions? That’s homework. Interact with a teacher live on one of many platforms (I use Zoom and Google Meetup)? That’s homework. It’s an all-homework, all-the-time model of schooling.
(Nothing could make starker the inequities in our system than an “all-homework” school – when 10% of our students do not have a home – but that’s another discussion)
Some teachers are loud – there are things wrong, and they must be addressed. There was evil done by CONTINUE READING: Week 2 – Teaching Remotely – NYC in Pandemic | JD2718