I just returned from Chicago where I visited my son and daughter in law and two of my grandchildren (2nd and 3rd grade). I cannot describe my complete shock after watching my grandchildren participating in Chicago's version of remote learning. They were up dressed, fed and ready to go by 8:45, logging onto their computers by 8:55 is required. At that time their teacher would be live remote, she would take roll and they would commence their day by reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, and she is ready to teach for the ENTIRE DAY. From 9 am till 3 pm. Lunch break was from 11:30 till noon.
They were instructed by the teacher, taught by the teacher, as they worked through their multiple workbooks and subjects. The teacher would have them hold up their work to make sure they were understanding whatever math problem or English question they were working on. She was very interactive with the many children participating.
Then in would come the music teacher, and she would teach a new song or they would work on a song they had already been taught. It was adorable to watch these children singing along with their teacher all via their computers. She also gave lessons on how to read music, she did an excellent job.
They even had a P.E. teacher who came in mid-day to run them through a series of exercises. Nothing crazy, but definitely something to wake them up after lunch and to get their blood pumping.
The teacher would return and start back on their lessons. The last forty five minutes of the day they would break up into smaller groups, still supervised by the teacher, who would pop in and out of their mini group meeting.
And lastly, the teacher would close for the day and then archive the entire day's lessons should anyone want to go back and watch the lessons again.
The reason I was taken aback by this remote learning in Chicago is because it is a FAR cry from what my grandchild is getting here in Granite City. The difference is unbelievable and very disappointing.
Class, if you can call it that, begins at ten thirty, with about thirty to forty five minutes of interaction with the teacher. And this happens once, maybe twice a week. Occasionally the meeting/class will last an hour. There is no working in tangent during instruction, the students are left to work through xeroxed copies of work books with their parents or by themselves after the live feed ends.
There is no music instruction. There is no P.E. instruction, at least there hasn't been until this week where the P.E. teacher sends an email telling the parents he has uploaded a video from Youtube.com. None of the parents, let alone the students, are able to locate this video, and the P.E. teacher does not answer his school email.
As a grandparent, and a taxpayer, I expected a little more organization and instruction with a little more teeth. If every student K-5 is receiving this same kind of instruction, and I use that term loosely, these children are going to be in big trouble.
I'll close this out with one final thought, how lucky is the P.E. instructor who gets to browse through YouTube and post a video (only one so far) that no one can find, and yet still earns his full salary?
We are going into ten months of this pandemic, I know it's uncharted territory for the teachers, for all of us, but that is more than ample time to come up with something a little more substantial than what these students are receiving. Someone needs to observe what is going on in Chicago, they could teach our district a lesson.
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