Parents are Angry Hornets About Hybrid Learning: Is it all Bad?

Social media is an impossible place to be as of late, but so is Target and also just about everywhere else.

Yes I hear you. Hybrid learning is the absolute worst.

I get it, its expensive, it sucks, the bus is going to drive by your house and you will have to transport Bobby that forgot his deodorant in your own vehicle. Then of course who will be there to offer support when Bobby is having a breakdown with his chrome book and you are working? Kids will be supervising other kids and daycares will be throwing up their arms in in despair. BUT. And maybe you aren’t ready to hear a silver lining. So I will ease it out to you slowly…

What if the hybrid model is good for some?

At least for a time. For example, one time when I was teaching kindergarten 75 % of the kids got a stomach bug. They were either throwing up in their Pokemon backpacks or they were pooping their pants walking down the hall to Miss Heather. My friend Jordan, also watched that stomach bug decimate half of her group. The next day her and I only had a group of 5 and 7 students respectfully. Let me tell you from a teacher perspective, from a student perspective, from a Momma perspective . This was nice and I mean chicken noodle soup, toes in the sand, weighted warm blanket nice. The conversations between the kids and I were deeper. Jordan and I noticed things we hadn’t before in our learners. I observed less anxiety, less behavior problems and an increase an engagement. I noticed this the MOST during literacy time.

Last year, I had seven students in one reading group. SEVEN.

Imagine how much I can get done if I just have one or two students and I am observing, coaching and moving them along at their own level, with fewer distractions and more urgency. Doesn’t that sound Utopian? I think it sounds lovely. Especially considering that some of these kids have not cracked a book since March and they will have a reading coach right beside them cheering them on. Not a teacher who is estimating or rounding out for the group, but really honing in on the reading behaviors and strategies that a kiddo uses.

Consider the students that have experienced anxiety or depression during this quarantine time? Won’t they benefit from the more personal interaction between student and teacher and student and student? Consider the child who has been witness to angry emotional outbursts, verbal abuse, subpar nutrition. Won’t they glean some positivity from being observed closely by ANOTHER adult, other than their alcoholic parent or verbally abusive grandparent?

I know it is not convenient. I have stress on my end of how it all will even come together, but I hope you will see as parents, as kids, as daycare providers. That two days a week is two days a week more than we had. It is two days a week of purposeful learning, of meaningful conversation, and stimulation for the imagination. I am not asking you to cease your bitching on facebook or stop complaining to your best friend at the Depot. I just wanted to point out that maybe a smaller class size is okay in the beginning, when the change is new and the anxiety is raw. After all, you have to learn to crawl before you can walk, and you have to social distance and sanitize before you can watercolor paint.