A Few Bad Apples…
This school year for my elementary aged kiddo has been turned on its head and I know I’m not the only parent who feels this way. The past three months of online learning have been a shitshow, to say the least.
Let’s be clear – most of us, as parents, are not experts in classroom instruction of children. This is where we turn to those with degrees in education in non-covid times to “teach our children well”, but I must ask this question as I sit here day after day for months and try to now be Mrs. Garrity 3rd grade teacher, is this actually working for anyone? It doesn’t take a degreed individual to solve for X, when the answer is clearly “No.”
I believe the day of the in person classroom teacher will surely meet the same fate of the dinosaur and no one needs a Science degree to figure that out. Evolve or die, right? Sadly, I don’t feel that the teachers evolved, and our kids are paying the price for it.
I know some are already disagreeing with my stance on this, but I beg you to hear me out before you reach any conclusions. Let me share my own experience as a parent, part time teacher, full time worker and we just might all learn a thing or two.
In Mid March, Texas went strictly to remote learning. My kiddos then 2nd grade teacher jumped right in with Google classroom and helped all of us learn what we needed to do to get the work done. We had teacher – student Zoom Rooms twice a week and we all were learning and doing the best we could. Yes, there were times when we clicked the wrong button and had to “unsubmit” an assignment, but it’s no different than the shared purpose of a pink eraser. Mistakes happen, but they can be fixed. Best of all, we all got through it and we were ending the school year a whole lot smarter with Google Classroom than ever before. It was a life lesson for everyone – teachers, students and parents. We all did it, together.
Summer break seemed to fly by and it was no time before it was time to “go back to class”, except yet again, the chalkboards and whiteboards were happening on Google Classroom. This shouldn’t be so bad, right?
For me, this couldn’t have been farther from what I had expected. What I fell into was finding myself teaching the teachers how to use Google Classroom via email. My kiddo tried, but when he would try to be helpful, he got in trouble with his teachers, who have just escalated every bit of nonsense to the Assistant and Principal of the school he attends. So, here I was repeating the same thing he was trying to explain on “Google Classroom 101”.
We know Gen Z kids are basically brainiacs of technology, so don’t even think for a second they don’t know a thing or two about how technology works. My son learned to unlock my phone at two years old by watching me enter my passcode. It’s ingrained in them.
Where were these teachers for three months? No seriously. Why weren’t they spending time learning this platform and learning to master it? We did – my son and me, and every other parent because we had to. I believe they thought it was an option and it is seriously biting them and everyone in the ass.
I now spend my lunchbreak sitting next to him and helping him with school in addition to hours after 5. His lessons are recorded, and I’m filled with an hour of sifting through teachers getting on to kids, teachers not giving clear instructions, kids taking over the recorded sessions, teachers not understanding versioning of Google slides, teachers not understanding permissions, teachers with zero grasp of information technology, and more. I find myself asking the question of “Why am I, as a homeowner in this state, paying for this through my taxes?” Because, unfortunately, I don’t have a choice.
I have been told over and over “Give the teachers some grace.” Grace, huh? You’re asking us for grace when you aren’t even trying to listen to what we’re saying so we can get to an understanding. You get an F for effort. I’m looking forward to the day when your kind becomes extinct, because that is where I feel we are headed – even beyond covid.
Someone, please, get teachers trained in Google Classroom and let’s get back to learning. Someone at the schools needs to know how it works inside and out. Please stop wasting our time running everyone in circles because you refused to adapt to technology and chose to bury your head in the sand like an ostrich. If you can work an iPhone, you can learn Google Classroom. Some of the apples out there are rotten, and we can smell it a mile away. They need to be tossed out before they spoil the bunch.
Or, maybe perhaps it is time to separate out this role and have in person teachers and online teachers, and the online teachers can earn more. I’d even be willing to pay higher property taxes for someone who “gets it”. Hell, I’d even be willing to create this program or job role or even do the online teacher job, because I have been building online learning curriculum for adults for over 20 years. This isn’t rocket science – it’s simply learning.
This isn’t an attack on every teacher. I know that there are some that did take on the responsibility to learn more about Google Classroom. Thank you. Any other job also requires all of us working adults to learn new technology and teachers aren’t getting a free pass from me on this one, just because they’re teachers. For the teachers who took initiative and learned how Google Classroom works are who can have my “grace” by the cupful. You all get “A’s” in my book.
