I know people are just blowing off steam on social media in terms of their children schooling at home. I do cringe at many of the comments. As people are discovering, not everyone can teach. It is not as easy as our educators make it out to be.
Educators, at times, also find teaching hard. They are rising to the challenge of teaching students through distant learning. This type of teaching is also not second nature to a lot of people, professional educators or not. Back in the 1970’s, the University I attended attempted to project real time live lectures from one lecture hall to another due to having so many students and not enough space in classes. Unfortunately, the University found that the students in the hall without access to the professor did not do as well as those in the hall with the professor. Now, a lot has changed since then and online learning is a huge industry.
The students now can interact with the teacher as well as with their classmates. It has become more personal and real than ever before. I feel that the hardest part for the teachers is the multi-tasking that takes place in the classroom to fit the lessons to each of the students. These operations are often minute and flexible. Many teachers do them so naturally that they do not even realizing that they are! Hard to observe a student nonchalantly when you are facing them through the camera.
Despite all these difficulties, I think the educators would want to invite the parents to hop on the joy train that motivates us. It is the joy of seeing a student “get it” and/or enjoy a lesson. The light in a child’s eyes who is learning. I see parents being proud of their students doing their lessons without complaint. But, I think the more important element is that parents see that they have the opportunity to experience a little of the joy in their child’s learning during this unique time.