There is much to unpack here. There is no doubt that the majority of students would do better with in person learning. But there is also a reality that the article, and most people, are simply not discussing. Thread... 1/ https://www.texastribune.org/2020/10/23/texas-students-remote-learning-failing-schools/?utm_campaign=trib-social-buttons&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social

To preface, I can assure you that every teacher, myself included, are doing our best in this environment. Between having kids in person, other kids logging on to Zoom for synchronous instruction and other kids (hopefully) accessing the material asynchronously, it's a lot. 2/

And to be honest, I still haven't fully figured it out. It is rare that I get to school after 7am (first class starts at 9) or leave before 530pm (last class ends at 430). Even though I've been doing this gig for 14 years and have a lot of material to pull from, I still 3/

have to adjust, reformat, upload...and that's only if I don't shitcan the previous year's material all together (which happens more often than you might think).The TEA, districts (and I work for a great one), etc throw words around like 'grit' and 'rigor' and it drives me nuts 4/

It is one thing to ask a kid to have persistence, or to come to tutoring or whatever but if they are at home 24 hours a day and staring at a computer screen for instruction, they don't need persistence. They need time management. 5/

The vast majority of kids, indeed most parents of those kids, have no fucking clue what that means. I give time *at least* every other day in class for the kids to work on assignments, ask questions (either out loud or via private chat) etc and as soon as those words 6/

come out of my mouth all I hear is the tone telling me people are logging off from the Zoom session. Now, if they log off because they don't have questions or have finished the work, that would be fine. But I don't have to tell you what the reality is. 7/

And then we get emails from administrators - and god bless them, because they are the shit catchers right now - asking for feedback on how much we are assigning, is the kid participating, etc. I can virtually guarantee that the volume of work is no different than it has been 8/

the difference is now they have to do it with virtually zero truly structured time. (And if you think being logged into a Zoom session is structured, I have a bridge I'd like to sell you.) Less than 5% of student cameras are on so a non-zero (and probably fairly high) 9/

number of them log on and are not engaged at all with what is going on in class that day. Did they participate? If you measure that by looking at a Zoom log, sure. And that doesn't even *begin* to measure participation of asynchronous kids. How do you measure that? 10/

And then there is rigor. I'm no mind reader, but when I see a kid's face I can generally tell if they understood what I just said and do a quick check by walking around and having conversations. But how do you do that to a black screen that may or may not actually be there? 11/

Do I have high expectations of my kids? Yes. Do I communicate those expectations? Daily. But, to coin a phrase from back in the day, I no longer know what they know or what they don't know. And it ain't from lack of asking. 12/

And then there is a subset of kids that have great grades but *clearly* are not doing the work themselves. There are dozens (hundreds?) of apps that will completely solve math problems, step by step. I know when they are used. But I can't prove it so they get their 100. 13/

To be clear, I am totally fine with a kid using outside resources. If they LEARN a different method than how I teach it, that's super cool. But when I see notation that is rarely (if ever) used outside of an undergrad math major class on an Algebra assignment I have to wonder 14/

Of course when I ask the student what that notation means or where they learned it from, they a) have no idea what it means and b) make up a story about learning it from their older sibling (who, in some cases, I taught and thus know not to be true). 15/

Anyway, this thread has gotten way out of hand and I doubt anyone will get this far anyway so to close I'll just say this. Repercussions of this whole era of public education will be felt for years, if not decades. And there aren't any good solutions right now. /end