If anyone wants a snapshot of the impact remote learning is having on parents, I suggest he or she read the article “It Was Just Too Much; How Remote Learning is Breaking Parents” by Elizabeth A. Harris in The New York Times on April 27, 2020.
As the title indicates, a lot of parents are struggling.
Our parents are our vital partners in remote learning. If we lose them, we’ve lost the battle. I wrote in my blog of April 25, “Our Spring Hall Pass,” that parents would cut teachers and schools some slack in this first round of school closures because we were all learning how to function in remote learning. But we have to cut them some slack, too.
Here are some main points from the article. Let’s think of them as lessons for educators.
· It appears there is a high level of frustration in a significant number of households.
· Parents who are highly educated might not easily transition into being their child’s classroom teacher.
· Parents who are working from home sometimes have difficulty finding balance between doing their own jobs and helping their children.
· Parents with more children might have more stress and get less done.
· The kids are stressed.
· A lot of students aren’t submitting work.
· Older students tend to me more independent, and some of them have transitioned fairly easily into remote learning.
· Some students might be successful in school as they are taught by their teachers, but they might be unsuccessful at home as they are taught by their parents.
· A story is told in the article of two parents who opted out of remote learning for their first grader. They sent a polite note to the teacher saying they were done - and the parents received overwhelming support (@ 95%) on Facebook from other parents.
The article also points out that some parents are rolling along fine and their kids are, too.
But enough parents are in distress that this has to be major part of the remote learning conversation. Reaching out to help parents doesn’t have to add more work to overextended teachers. It’s a matter of working smarter, not harder. If we can keep the parents in the ballgame, we’ll get more done. Here are some suggestions.
We have to know which parents are struggling. We can often determine this by seeing which students aren’t submitting much work and by what we hear from the parents. A key question needs to be added to conversations with parents: “How are you doing?”
These parents care and are stressing themselves out. Remember, they might be more stressed out than the kids.
To make it easier on the parents, there could be differentiated assignments. If students or parents are overwhelmed, then cut back on the work. It’s better to get some work done than none at all. Differentiation doesn’t have to mean having a unique lesson for every student. It could be just having two sets of lessons, one basic set for the kids who are struggling and the regular set for those who are being successful. Is this “dumbing down” the lesson for students who could do more in class? Yes. But we’re in a crisis.(If we keep having school closures, it will be time to add an advanced set for those students who want to be pushed).
We have to be kind and supportive of the parents who are working diligently to help their kids but are getting poor results. After all, don’t we have the same problem with some students in our classrooms?
Only so much can be done by teachers and parents in a remote learning environment. Let’s take care of the kids and parents and let them know we care.
Remote learning is exacerbating the ability gap. The students who usually need us the most might be in homes where not much schoolwork is being done, even if the parent is trying to get their children to do it.
Finally, if parents get too frustrated, they’ll do what the parents in the article did; they’ll opt out. They’ll just say, “We’re not doing this any more. It’s too painful.” We have to reach out to them now and try to hold onto them. If school re-opens in the fall, we’ll be making a plan for the next COVID closure. A huge part of the plan has to be the lessons learned this time about helping our partners survive.
Here’s a link to article in The New York Times.