In another thread I was complaining that Biden and his administration had started to demonize remote learning by saying it was damaging to students. This is a shared idea with the right wing elites who have balked at schools going remote because of COVID. IMO this is an attempt to limit students to local teachers which is a tool of racism and classism. It also feeds into the for profit education system which is a huge gatekeeper for financial success and power. Yes, the unprepared shift to remote learning for the COVID pandemic was probably an overall pit in the education of the majority of students who had to go through it, but that damage did not come from the method, but rather the piss poor implementation and lack of preparation and decent execution. Also, certain things do need to be done in person, but in high school a lot of that is not dealt with in the academic part of it. Most of the stuff that needs to be done in person is socializing and physical fitness. Almost every academic high school subject can be instructed remotely with local teaching assistants helping students understand the lessons and evaluating their work. This system could allow for much smaller class sizes and attention to the students needs. Imagine a online math lesson about algebra. It could be presented in different ways through multiple instructors online. If a a student does not get one explanation you could chose another that they might get. Meanwhile a person with training in education methodology could be overseeing their progress and be available for immediate in person instruction. That person could handle a much smaller class size, administer tests, and be much more personally involved with their students. That teacher could also have resources to go to for whatever they happen to need. This is a dangerous thing to the elites. Because if I am a black student in a underfunded crowded district I can get the same lessons the white kids in an elite school are getting, and then get more attention and help with my individual learning. All of a sudden you do not have minorities and poor kids being beaten down by their birth status. That is something that the rich and powerful elites do not want. They do not want an equal playing field because then their children will have to compete with all children. We cannot let the Biden administration, or any other administration, demonize the access to lessons of the elite that would be given to them by remote learning. This is Biden demonizing bussing again. This time he cannot pretend that bigots will abuse non-white students so it is in the best interest to keep the poors at home.
@Order2Chaos our education system needs a complete overhaul. Remote learning is not dangerous. It is when it is done wrong that it is dangerous to the student. The fact that it has not been implemented with a plan and support means it was going to fail. However, it is the future. It is also dangerous to the corporatist democrats and republicans. There is a conspiracy to stratify the US into a classists system. Part of the definition of that system is your education which shows where you belong based on brand names. If you do not have the instruction from a certain academic brand then you are not going to rise as high because you are limited by your brand name education. If I say I went to harvard that matters. The people who are involved in this academic power structure have made it matter because it allows me to make more money. Harvard is a gatekeeper to the elite world of corporatist power. If I can get lessons from a harvard professor anywhere, while having teachers help monitor my absorption of the information and my ability to apply it, then that greatly reduces the power of the harvard brand to be scarce. This directly threatens the educational system while also being the greatest thing to happen to students.
Remote learning at university level is a little different to that at school level, in terms of the ability of the students to self-teach and organise to an extent around the online material. Even then, we have seen here that students prefer in-person activities as much as possible because they are important for peer interaction (even more important for schoolkids) and hands-on experience in STEM fields. I'm doing a remote-learning degree myself at the moment, and students definitely queried over lockdown why they should still pay the higher tuition fees the "regular" universities charge if they were only getting what they might from the Open University (the entity running my course). I had to explain that we were giving MORE support, albeit online - the OU only offers online tutor sessions (usually monthly), course reading/exercises and occasional physical textbooks, whilst we were ensuring there were weekly video lectures matching the physical sessions we'd normally have run, plus weekly tutoring. The lack of in-person lab classes was the major issue - video demos helped but can't teach a student how to actually pipette or use a centrifuge.
Yes, I hear what you are saying, but it does not have to actually be that way. For example I will go into biology dissection. For high school biology you could get away with a well done video of the process with explanation. Most kids are not going to need the experience. For the ones who would go on the classroom teacher would direct them to the path of actually performing it in a lab setting, and for the kids who asre just going to pass biology they can be instructed from there without wasting resources. The classroom teachers would be more focussed on the path the child is wanting to follow, or at least getting them through the basics that are established. There are certain public resources available in many areas where children could go to a science center where they would join in hands on labs that are open for the population. For instance down here in florida we have a local science center that sets up science experiments that classes from the local communities can come and participate in. If you think of things like a literature or business writing class you could have the students get the general experience while allowing those who want to get deeper exposed to the paths that they need by teachers.
