The Biggest Distance-Learning Experiment In History: Week One
For 6-year-old Sadie Hernandez, the first day of online school started at her round, wooden kitchen table in Jacksonville, Fla. She turned on an iPad and started talking to her first grade teacher, Robin Nelson.
"Are you ready to do this online stuff?" her teacher asks, in a video sent to NPR by Hernandez's mother, Audrey.
"Yeah," Sadie responds.
"It's kind of scary isn't it?"
"Kind of."
Sadie's teacher reminds her that they'll be using the educational software that she is already familiar with from her face-to-face classes at Ortega Elementary School: "It's iReady, so we've got that. And we've got WritingCity. And now you know how to meet me in the morning."
Every state has closed at least some public schools to fight the spread of coronavirus, and some are starting to say they expect to be closed through the end of the school year.
Thrown into the breach, public schools are setting out on an unprecedented experiment: With little training and even fewer resources, in a matter of days they're shifting from a system of education that for centuries has focused on face to face interaction, to one that works entirely at a distance. Diana Greene, the superintendentSome families, like Sadie's, are adjusting reasonably well. Her parents are both working from home, still earning paychecks. When Sadie has to concentrate on her lessons, they turn on "Daniel Tiger" for her little sister Kate. There's a backyard swimming pool for cooling off when lessons are done. Robin Nelson, an educator with 10 years experience, says one of the students in her class has special needs and needs significant accommodation, and the family also struggles financially. "I've spoken to his mom. There's another little one on the way, if not already arrived."She tears up talking about her "babies" and how much she misses greeting them at the door with a fist-bump, handshake or hug. Sadie Hernandez wrote a note and drew pictures to leave on her beloved teacher's doorstep. "Studies of online learning suggest not only that students learn less in online environments, compared with in person, but that disadvantaged students learn the least. And that's true even when online teachers have experience and training with online teaching. Under the current emergency, most teachers will not have any experience at all with this approach."
