virtual school starts again tomorrow and we have an email from the teacher saying she expects her 7yo students to be as "accountable" about their work right now as they would be in class and I want to SCREAM INTO THE FUCKING VOID BECAUSE 7YOS ARE NOT ACCOUNTABLE FOR ANYTHING

is the work they're doing being graded? no. would it be graded ordinarily? also no. does "student accountability" mean "parents must photograph the work their kids do, email it to the computer their child is using and then upload it on canvas"? EVIDENTLY SO.

the situation right now sucks. it sucks for everyone - kids, teachers, parents. is it so much to ask for the schools to ACKNOWLEDGE that it sucks, and is imperfect? to stop chirpily pretending that Everything Will Be Cool And Normal Actually If You Follow Every Instruction?

I have over a decade's experience in dealing with Bullshit Administrative Busywork Because Capitalism Doesn't Like To Acknowledge That Admin Work Has Natural Slow Periods, You Must Be Busy At ALL TIMES Or Your Salary Isn't Justified, and virtual school is HITTING SOME BUTTONS

"it's extra important to help kids treat virtual school as much like regular school as possible!" NO IT FUCKING ISN'T. THEY ARE AWARE IT IS NOT REGULAR SCHOOL. WE ARE ALSO AWARE. DROP THE GODDAMN PRETENSE.

here's what's getting to me: schools KNOW that young kids cannot do virtual school without parental assistance, but have done nothing to take this into account in a practical way. their starting principle has been "make it as close to Real School as possible" without considering-

- how this will actually WORK beyond "use the internet for teaching." they haven't thought, "hmm, many parents have multiple children in different grades, how can we make this easy for them?" or "what about parents who are also working from home right now?" -

- and have instead made it so that the only way to be completely on top of what your child is doing & is expected to do is to SIT THROUGH CLASS WITH THEM. LIKE. I AM THIRTY-FOUR GODDAMN YEARS OLD, I DO NOT WANT OR NEED TO SIT THROUGH A SECOND GRADE CLASS AGAIN.

and yet, this is what I've had to do, because the teacher gives verbal instructions to the kids that aren't written down anywhere. so when my 7yo zones out in class and doesn't know what he's meant to be doing, checking the schedule and embedded links only helps so much.

I've heard the teacher ask the kids multiple times to ask their parents to buy whiteboards for them to use. She hasn't requested this in any of the emails she's sent to parents. Ditto asking kids to print things in the middle of class instead of alerting parents beforehand.

Parents who actually have printers probably aren't keeping them in whatever space their kid is using to work right now! They're most likely in an adult's office! You know, WHERE THAT ADULT IS WORKING.

You can *try* to look at the schedule & figure out what stuff needs printing ahead of time, but it's not obvious! Stuff you'd think needed printing turns out not to be an activity they're meant to do, or else you're meant to switch over to the physical workbook (if you have one)

Last semester, the school gave parents a work-from-home schedule and let us do that with kids in our own time. But now that's seemingly no longer an option, because we have to pretend that this is Regular School once more, which means making adults live to a 7yo class schedule.

Zoom would be great for letting students talk in small groups, while superverised by the teacher, or doing one on one time. But having them all in one big meeting while the teacher talks and they can't interact with each other is just exhausting and bad and depressing.

I'm so done with this, you guys, and I only have the one kid! Do you know how much worse this is for parents with multiple kids in different grades? I've gone one friend with five kids, four of whom are doing virtual school; the fifth is still a baby. It's IMPOSSIBLE.

in conclusion: AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHH