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Comment by tagoregrtst | Hacker News Reader

Its not my kids career that Im worried about, its her mental well being.

There might have been no school, but I doubt the kids didn’t go out and play with their little gangs.

Yeah, in 1918 the sort of car centric sprawl that is ubiquitous now would be unheard of. It's doubtful that removing school would have removed social interaction the same way it does now.

Especially when the alternative is social media.

Exactly! There are numerous studies stating to limit screen time for kids because it’s not good for them, but now it’s okay for the same kids to be on zoom calls 8 hours a day!

Zoom school is one of the worst things to happen to kids since the beginning of computers.

I have two kids who take classes from an online school. All the classes are taught in a virtual classroom and have been for years. It is an incredibly rich academic experience. Most teachers have their PhD in their fields and there is pretty much zero class behavior issues.

I've of course heard horror stories of schools that have no idea what they are doing trying to use zoom, but there are places that are really good at it and give the kids an incredible academic experience.

Not to discount your experience, it is a useful data point showing it can work, but almost any learning scheme that begins with willing PhDs teaching a group of well-behaved children (with parents that care enough to put them in a special school) is incredibly more likely to succeed. These are the sorts of people who could be left in a cave with some rocks and would likely come out more informed. You can't extrapolate from that to the general public.

Maybe that's obvious to you, but it's a factor that seems to be routinely ignored when discussing educational outcomes.

My point is that it is very possible to create a good academic environment online. It is also possible to create a horrible academic environment online and most of what I've seen people complaining about "zoom classes" are classes where no one really cared enough to even try. And in those cases it isn't that the classes aren't working for the poor students...it is that they aren't working for anyone. It isn't the technology that is the problem. It isn't the fact that the classes are taught online that is the problem. The problem is that you have to actually try to make an online class work well.

In addition, you most likely had at least one female adult continuously present at home. This has changed dramatically.

People forget that part of what is driving many of the problems is that a single worker with only a high school education isn't enough to stay above the poverty level.

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