Schools closed until February? (part 3)

khalessi

Fire requires oxygen, no oxygen no fire, ignore.

Dave0301

teachinggal123 wrote: »

It’s not my job to upskill my colleagues.

And I’m not skating anyone. I’m just saying what is happening.

People (particularly parents) can judge how much of a raw nerve I’ve hit by reading through the responses I’m getting from the teachers on this thread.

See, that is where we fundamentally disagree. My department is very collaborative in its approach. The more tech savvy among us have upskilled others in the use of Teams and OneNote, as well as pedological aspects relating to delivering content. I was part of a whole school teaching and learning group that met on a weekly basis to discuss best practice. Resources were made and shared with each teacher responsible for a particular year group.

You seem to have a me vs them attitude in relation to your colleagues.

As for hitting a nerve, I suspect that teachers on here are just exasperated at having to repeat that your experience is not representative of what has happened as a whole.

teachinggal123

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Like playing handball off a haystack...what you are doing is fairly disgusting. It'd be easier to accept if you were a troll just pretending to be a teacher.

I have not said what I am doing. I have spoken only about the conversation currently happening amongst my colleagues.

I have a question for you. From March-July my local primary school had a policy of sending a block of work at the beginning of each week for each class. There was no possibility to contact the teacher (only one general school email address) and no online classes whatsoever. Would you call this sufficient or is this also “disgusting”?

Tippex

my experience with the last lockdown was mixed with the teachers in my son's school.
Out of his 7 exam teachers.
Only 1 held regular online lessons via zoom his DCG teacher who is also the most technical in the school.

1 asked the students if they wanted to do zoom classes or did they prefer to have the work set for them which the students agreed to have the work set for them.

4 of them set work and regularly corrected the work and interacted with the students.

1 his maths teacher basically done nothing she set a total of 3 pieces of work during the entire lockdown, did not interact with the students at all even going as far as not even bothering to correct the work (I only noticed when I was reviewing things with him and seen he was not uploading anything to google classroom as the instructions were basically do page x and whatever questions were involved). I went through the instructions from all the other teachers and they all specifically said to upload the work apart from the maths teacher, I told him to upload the work even though the maths teacher did not specify and (he grumbled as they all do) but he uploaded it and it was never corrected.

I raised it with the school and did not get a huge amount of a response apart from we will look into it but on the plus side, the class have a new teacher for 6th year who is brilliant and completely at odds with his previous teacher.

So out of 7 teachers, 6 made an effort and actively had concern for the students by sending messages both to the class and also privately to the students and 1 did not give a $hite about the students (yes may have had things going on personally but effectively left her students in the lurch for the duration of the lockdown).

not here for any teacher-bashing purely like all elements of society you have the good and bad

irishrover99

Our kids had their books sent home at Xmas and in the email I got today from the school, it never mentioned anything about online work.
The principal sounded delighted with the extra days off.

khalessi

Tippex wrote: »

not here for any teacher-bashing purely like all elements of society you have the good and bad

Yes you do, but some people only appear out of wood work to slate teachers and if they are disagreed with, then accuse everyone of bullying. It has been repeated scenario since March so it is easier not to engage with this type of approach.

Balanced conversation is fine.

teachinggal123

Dave0301 wrote: »

See, that is where we fundamentally disagree. My department is very collaborative in its approach. The more tech savvy among us have upskilled others in the use of Teams and OneNote, as well as pedological aspects relating to delivering content. I was part of a whole school teaching and learning group that met on a weekly basis to discuss best practice. Resources were made and shared with each teacher responsible for a particular year group.

You seem to have a me vs them attitude in relation to your colleagues.

As for hitting a nerve, I suspect that teachers on here are just exasperated at having to repeat that your experience is not representative of what has happened as a whole.

I’m not very technical. I’m not an expert in online teaching hardware/software. I’m not an expert in online pedagogy. How the hell am I expected to upskill anyone?????

How do you know what I’m saying is “not representative of what is happening as a whole”? Is that your own personal opinion? Or can you link to an external piece of research to support your claim.

beggars_bush

irishrover99 wrote: »

Our kids had their books sent home at Xmas and in the email I got today from the school, it never mentioned anything about online work.
The principal sounded delighted with the extra days off.

Wouldn't be surprised, especially if they are a teaching principal.
The children and staff in schools were exhausted by the xmas holidays

wirelessdude01

irishrover99 wrote: »

Our kids had their books sent home at Xmas and in the email I got today from the school, it never mentioned anything about online work.
The principal sounded delighted with the extra days off.

There is no indication from the govt that online is expected on these days. If it is extended for some or all then I would fully expect online to start happening.

downthemiddle

teachinggal123 wrote: »

I’m not very technical. I’m not an expert in online teaching hardware/software. I’m not an expert in online pedagogy. How the hell am I expected to upskill anyone?????

How do you know what I’m saying is “not representative of what is happening as a whole”? Is that your own personal opinion? Or can you link to an external piece of research to support your claim.

You have had nine months to upskill. What have you done?

Bananaleaf

irishrover99 wrote: »

Our kids had their books sent home at Xmas and in the email I got today from the school, it never mentioned anything about online work.
The principal sounded delighted with the extra days off.

Whatever about us teachers who got to walk out the door on 22nd Dec, but with all the extra days that principals have spent contact tracing, if anything they are owed days

kippy

wirelessdude01 wrote: »

There is no indication from the govt that online is expected on these days. If it is extended for some or all then I would fully expect online to start happening.

It's an extension of the holidays and specificily noted as so, so no online next week but yes, I would expect online from Monday week should things continue to deteriorate.

teachinggal123

downthemiddle wrote: »

You have had nine months to upskill. What have you done?

I’m happy to answer questions when teachers on this thread answer my questions.

teachinggal123

teachinggal123 wrote: »

I have not said what I am doing. I have spoken only about the conversation currently happening amongst my colleagues.

I have a question for you. From March-July my local primary school had a policy of sending a block of work at the beginning of each week for each class. There was no possibility to contact the teacher (only one general school email address) and no online classes whatsoever. Would you call this sufficient or is this also “disgusting”?

It wouldn't take a genius to figure out what you are doing...

No, I would not consider that sufficient to be honest. But no, I would not call it disgusting either.

I would call what you did embarrassing, though.

wirelessdude01

I know in our school that prior to Covid, we used to use some of the CP hours to show and tell others about useful things we found doing our EPV courses. Max 15mins to stop people from droning on. We used to find it very useful and informative. Good sense of collegiality around it to be helping your friends and colleagues.

Dave0301

teachinggal123 wrote: »

I’m not very technical. I’m not an expert in online teaching hardware/software. I’m not an expert in online pedagogy. How the hell am I expected to upskill anyone?????

How do you know what I’m saying is “not representative of what is happening as a whole”? Is that your own personal opinion? Or can you link to an external piece of research to support your claim.

A report in May from the IFS. I am UK based so do not know if there is a similar report for back home. Based on that it would suggest that the majority of secondary aged pupils were being offered some sort of online provision that they were able to engage with.

Obviously there is an issue in relation to socio-economic status, and private schools in the UK are much more common than Ireland.

By the way, I do not believe that online teaching can fully replace the experience of pupils being in school, and I have no doubt it will be hugely damaging for some children.

Primary and secondary students are each spending about 5 hours a day on average on home learning. However, secondary school children are more likely to have online classes and to spend their leisure time online.

Higher-income parents are much more likely than the less well-off to report that their child’s school provides online classes and access to online videoconferencing with teachers. 64% of secondary pupils in state schools from the richest households are being offered active help from schools, such as online teaching, compared with 47% from the poorest fifth of families. 82% of secondary school pupils attending private school are offered active help, with 79% being provided with online classes.

Children from better-off families are spending 30% more time on home learning than are those from poorer families. Children in the highest-income fifth of families spend 5.8 hours a day on educational activities, over 75 minutes more than their peers in the poorest fifth of households (4.5 hours). Over the 34 days (minimum) that schools will be closed, students in the best-off families will have done more than 7 full school days’ worth of extra learning time. If schools do not go back until September and current rates of home learning continue, the gap would double to 15 full school days. This could have very substantial long-term consequences in light of evidence that even one extra hour a week of instructional time can significantly raise achievement.

teachinggal123

History Queen wrote: »

I and my colleagues share a lot of the concerns you listed. It doesnt mean we won't engage with online teaching though. It is absolutely true for example that the Dept gave no guidance or support. There's nothing wrong with pointing out issues as long as people do their best to their job to the best of their ability. Are you misunderstanding frustrated moaning and interpreting it as a refusal to work rather than seeing it as people venting?

That is a fair point.

We’ll see if/when schools close for a longer time.

kippy

teachinggal123 wrote: »

I’m happy to answer questions when teachers on this thread answer my questions.

Will ya get outta that.
Sure who knows who is who or who does what on a forum like this. For christs sake.

downthemiddle

teachinggal123 wrote: »

I’m happy to answer questions when teachers on this thread answer my questions.

It is an achievement to embarrass one's self on an anonymous forum.

wirelessdude01

kippy wrote: »

Will ya get outta that.
Sure who knows who is who or who does what on a forum like this. For christs sake.

Let them fire up their questions and see if we can call their bluff. Even if we all answered they still won't.

Alex86Eire

Dave0301 wrote: »

See, that is where we fundamentally disagree. My department is very collaborative in its approach. The more tech savvy among us have upskilled others in the use of Teams and OneNote, as well as pedological aspects relating to delivering content. I was part of a whole school teaching and learning group that met on a weekly basis to discuss best practice. Resources were made and shared with each teacher responsible for a particular year group.

You seem to have a me vs them attitude in relation to your colleagues.

As for hitting a nerve, I suspect that teachers on here are just exasperated at having to repeat that your experience is not representative of what has happened as a whole.

We did something similar. We were put into pairs with one person who was comfortable with technology and the other being less so. It worked really well. Each department also developed a set of online resources just to make everyone's life easier.
There were a few free courses on offer during the summer regarding online teaching which many of us completed and shared the information when we got back to school.

If people needed additional help with online teaching they should have asked for it. We knew there was a possibility of teaching online again. It was up to every individual to get themselves together and prepared.

teachinggal123

Dave0301 wrote: »

A report in May from the IFS. I am UK based so do not know if there is a similar report for back home. Based on that it would suggest that the majority of secondary aged pupils were being offered some sort of online provision that they were able to engage with.

Obviously there is an issue in relation to socio-economic status, and private schools in the UK are much more common than Ireland.

By the way, I do not believe that online teaching can fully replace the experience of pupils being in school, and I have no doubt it will be hugely damaging for some children.

Thanks for that ... very interesting reading. I’ll definitely have a look at the full report. Pity there is not something similar for Ireland.

However, it would seem to support the points I am making as opposed to your claim that the vast majority of teachers are engaging in online teaching.

khalessi

Alex86Eire wrote: »

We did something similar. We were put into pairs with one person who was comfortable with technology and the other being less so. It worked really well. Each department also developed a set of online resources just to make everyone's life easier.
There were a few free courses on offer during the summer regarding online teaching which many of us completed and shared the information when we got back to school.

If people needed additional help with online teaching they should have asked for it. We knew there was a possibility of teaching online again. It was up to every individual to get themselves together and prepared.

Yes we did and there was the document to schools in Autumn about online learning. So each teacher should have done some form of upskilling whether course or with a colleague like yourselves.

wirelessdude01

Alex86Eire wrote: »

If people needed additional help with online teaching they should have asked for it. We knew there was a possibility of teaching online again. It was up to every individual to get themselves together and prepared.

Easier to blame others though rather than being proactive. The word pathetic comes to mind about attitudes like this.

kippy

History Queen wrote: »

I and my colleagues share a lot of the concerns you listed. It doesnt mean we won't engage with online teaching though. It is absolutely true for example that the Dept gave no guidance or support. There's nothing wrong with pointing out issues as long as people do their best to their job to the best of their ability. Are you misunderstanding frustrated moaning and interpreting it as a refusal to work rather than seeing it as people venting?

No doubt about it, I did say it earlier in the thread, there doesn't seem to have been a co-ordinated policy response from the Department at all, to at least set the guidelines/expectations for teachers and parents for kids of varying ages in the online only world of delivery.
This is a complete failure.
Locally, the school here, has come up with a relatively comprehensive policy that has been issued to parents, on the delivery of online learning and setting certain expectations. That is to be admired as it is being pro-active at least and making sure expectations are set.
There are definetly issues, training, technical and support wise that many people do not see, HOWEVER these are not excuses for basic engagement in times of a global pandemic.
These are things to bring to the fore along with other issues when the time is appropriate.

teachinggal123

wirelessdude01 wrote: »

Let them fire up their questions and see if we can call their bluff. Even if we all answered they still won't.

Nope. I will definitely answer any questions put to me directly as soon as I start getting answers to the questions I am asking. I’ve already asked a few this evening, only one of which has been answered.

Only fair.

In fact, I’ve offered to delete my account entirely if one teacher can back up the claim they’ve made against me. Offer still holds.

Ted_YNWA

teachinggal123 wrote: »

I’m happy to answer questions when teachers on this thread answer my questions.

Mod

Don't keep deflecting like this.

Answer questions & engage with everyone who engages with you.

downthemiddle

teachinggal123 wrote: »

but it is a fact that some teachers will not do online teaching. It is also a fact that no sanction can be brought against these teachers.

Teachers denying this is, frankly, pathetic. It also looks very bad to the parents/students who know this is going on.

Nobody can deny it. You have admitted to it.

downthemiddle

Ted_YNWA wrote: »

Mod

Don't keep deflecting like this.

Answer questions & engage with everyone who engages with you.

downthemiddle wrote: »

You have had nine months to upskill. What have you done?

Perhaps you would start with this question.

teachinggal123

teachinggal123 wrote: »

Nope. I will definitely answer any questions put to me directly as soon as I start getting answers to the questions I am asking. I’ve already asked a few this evening, only one of which has been answered.

Only fair.

In fact, I’ve offered to delete my account entirely if one teacher can back up the claim they’ve made against me. Offer still holds.

I answered your question.

Will you be teaching online if schools close beyond the 3 day extension?

Did you prepare yourself in any way over the last nine months for the possibility of another closure?