The Distance Before Distance-Learning

Connecting intellectually with students has always been the challenge addressed to teachers, even before social-distancing. Students face innumerable difficulties in their life that conflicts with regular attendance and consistent attention in the classroom. Many of these conflicts come from a barrage of social challenges, ranging from complex family tensions, lack of accessibility to adequate resources due to financial constraint, or just plain old emotional growing pains. Going to school each day is the most consistent life experience for many students, and teachers try their hardest to make the classroom experience as reliably consistent as possible.

Teachers who have the opportunity to work individually with students get a rare opportunity. Classroom sizes have limited the teacher’s reach to individual students, and standardization has normalized an almost industrial perspective of student pass-rates, as if failing students are merely the result of quality control. The more that students and teachers become statistics, the less that their human qualities are recognized and accessed. Needless to say, society has been widening the distance between students and teachers long before the Corona virus made it mandatory.

The Current COVID Reality

The age of COVID is an age of uncertainty, and the reopening of classrooms is the biggest uncertainty facing education. Every state faces a different reality, yet uncertainty about the future hangs over teacher’s lesson plans like a thunder cloud ready to strike. Schools could open one day, and yet close the next, and districts are struggling to find suitable interim solutions. Some districts have adopted temporary alternative grading systems, which may include draconian measures forcing students to start over a semester. Others have allowed more tolerant “do no wrong” measures, which lets students improve their grade without risk of lowering it. The problem is, these measures are not able to cut to the true challenges facing distance learning.

Teachers tell stories of students arriving late to classes, barely awake. Others scramble with household distractions from family members or others household responsibilities. There’s also an alarming number of students who attend, then merely shut off their camera, or walk away from the camera at ease. These are grim classroom conditions, but in some districts, about one-third of all students never even attend to begin with! This scenario would be much more alarming were it not for the very understandable circumstances. In the hardest-hit cities, some  students know someone who has contracted Coronavirus. Students may also have a parent who is an essential worker, and who can’t help their children connect through the internet. And of course, there are still many students who don’t even have the technological accessibility to even connect in the first place.

Solutions! (Some Assembly Required)

The truth is, these situations are just a microcosm of challenges that already faced our education system. How are students able to take on hours of homework when they’re burdened with sibling-care and household responsibilities? How are students supposed to get emotional support when they have overworked parents, or worse yet, sick parents? How are students able to excel in increasingly technical work when they have limited access to technology? These societal issues are being amplified by distance learning. The most requested solution by teachers, has been and continues to be the same – reduce class size!

With smaller class sizes, teachers would have the opportunity to reach students more often, even under the stress of distance learning. Anyone who has been in a Zoom meeting during this lock-down knows that communicating effectively with a dozen or more people is nearly impossible, and it’s no different in a classroom. Teachers can prepare some of the best presentations of their life, but there’s simply no way to connect with students, on a human level, when the opportunity for interaction is so small.

Unfortunately, the reality is that our society is not ready to support the best education possible. The downturn in the economy usually leads to larger class-sizes, which means there is less opportunity for individual interaction between students and teachers. As our society stumbles into the necessity of distance learning, teachers are trying to piece together small opportunities to help encourage learning. Some are trying break-out sessions, others are trying to split classes into different sections and still some are relying on video instruction, but all teachers are faced with the reality that they will get just a few hours of facetime with their students. These attempts are admirable, and as some educators have been saying, “some education is better than no education.”

The sad truth, however, is that the public education system is not prepared to advance students academically with the current model. There are simply too many students and there is far too little time available for them to really push the limits of student learning. Students will fall behind and be forced to play “catch up” later. Governments could change the public education system drastically to accommodate the new COVID reality, but the surest way for families to re-engage in pushing academic goals is to seek the help of a professional tutor.

Tutors are accustomed to pushing students to higher achievement levels in individual settings. Tutors can help retrace past learning, focus on present difficulties, and prepare for future challenges. If the public school system is not pushing your student’s advancement, tutors can help your student move ahead and stay on pace with the academic expectations that would have existed before social distancing.

Berktree Learning, specifically, can help your family fully embrace this new reality even better. Our tutors are highly experienced with one-on-one online tutoring, helping to maintain that personal connection that is so important for education. If you are looking for alternatives to the limited public education being offered, we also have extensive experience with distant-learning and independent study programs that are tried and proven for this sort of learning environment. Our programs are adaptable to meet the specific needs of your students, to help them reach their maximum potential. Most of all, our goal is to help each student build a thirst for knowledge and learning, so that they will be able to drink deeply from the well of education in an age where this thirst is too often neglected.

We would love to help your family maintain educational stability. Let us share the joy of learning with you.

Last edited April 2o, 2020.

The post The Challenge of Connecting in the Age of COVID appeared first on Berktree Learning Center.

1. CREATE A STUDY AREA

One of the biggest challenges for most is having a dedicated work space that helps you stay focused on what you need to get done. If your window overlooks the street and you get easily distracted by every passing person or car, maybe moving to another location would help. Make sure that your work area is distraction free. It helps if you communicate that with the rest of your family so that they can help you keep it that way. 

2. KEEP YOUR WORK AREA NEAT AND CLEAN

You can decorate your work space some but try to keep it neat and organized. Its hard enough to stay focused and organized, getting rid of clutter and the like helps you feel good in your space and stay distraction free.

Note: I would start small. Start with a corner and work on de-cluttering and cleaning. Each day you can get more done, its both therapeutic and productive. Maybe when all this is done, we can all live in clean clutter free homes. 

3. SET A SCHEDULE

Organize a schedule of things you need to get done each day, week, month. Having a list of things you need to finish can help keep you organized and motivated. Recognize that some tasks take longer and others can be quick. Divided your work into manageable time slots and include breaks. Watching as the check marks rack up feels like you have accomplished what you needed to and gives you an idea of how close you are to being done for the day. 

4. ASK FOR HELP

BERKTREE LEARNING is available for all your ONLINE EDUCATIONAL NEEDS! We are still tutoring (online) and can offer help on projects and assignments on a daily basis. We can help you get access to tools and resources to help you through this period. 

5. MAKE TIME TO SOCIALIZE

Make a social calendar for yourself. Don’t forget to reach out to grandparents and those who are having a harder time, but keep in touch with your classmates and friends too. We set aside a few hours a day to visit (online) with different people, have children’s classes and devotions, all after school/work time. 

6. MAKE TIME TO MOVE!

I know it sounds silly, but you really have to make time to stretch and move around. We want you to stay safe, but you can’t become a couch potato either. Take a walk around the house (don’t distract others from their work) or step into your patio or yard.

Our family watched a video about extreme hopscotch. This prompted our own extreme hopscotch course, inside. It starts in the dining room and winds around the house through the living room, the hallway and finally the kids bedroom.  We used blue painting tape to mark symbols instead of drawing boxes, and whenever the path gets old we change it. We change the patterns or sometimes what each symbol represents. Its fun, challenging and has us moving. 

7. SCREEN TIME OVERLOAD

If you are a parent, you are probably struggling with how much time your kids are spending on screens. You are not alone. Take a breath. Now lets see what we can do to help make this time a bit more educational and productive. Make some time to browse through some of the picks on youtube. There are some really fun videos that you can watch with your kids. Laughter is a great way to keep stress to a minimum specially for the kiddos. Our family recommends cat videos! We can’t get enough of them. I have also found short educational videos and challenges that are fantastic to keep our children both entertained and educated. I will be setting up a  Berktree youtube channel and will have a play list on there if anyone is interested. We will also feature pre-recorded lessons for our students, as they become available.  

8. THINK OF THE BIGGER PICTURE

Its not everyday that we can get such a unique change in the way our schools function. Make the most of it. While this is a time of difficulty, it is also a great time to build good habits. Study the sections you had not mastered, take a practice SAT test or three, maybe read that book you used CliffsNotes for. Give a little more of your time to the things that matter, like family and creating good study habits. This can be a silver lining of sorts. Berktree can help guide you along the way. If you have questions about content and what you will need next year, don’t hesitate and reach out to us. Together we will get through this!

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