WSJ Opinion. June 6, 2020.  Andy Kessler’s Give Online Learning an Upgrade

Video lectures leave students cold. Better to have personalized interactive courses.

 A lot of parents are figuring out that remote learning, forced on us by school closings, is mostly same old same old, teachers droning on to students, except online. Not much has changed in education since the Little Rascals’ Miss Crabtree’s one-room class in 1930.  And it’s broken. Even before COVID more than half of incoming students at community college required remedial math or English courses…something is seriously wrong.

 Kessler isn’t writing a research paper, his opinions aren’t cited, but they are very familiar ideas. He offers up ‘flipped classrooms’ as an attempted solution being used by some schools, but he really is showcasing Kahn Academy, and rightly so. Kahn Academy is a tool and a good one. It allows access to learning in a free and interactive way, where you don’t have to be dragged or drag yourself through information you already know, and if you are struggling you can easily access repeated instruction. Homeschoolers have been using Khan Academy for years, pretty much since it’s inception.  (2008 by Salman Khan)

For me the question remains just how bad are traditional schools?  Is it really same old same old? I know there have been advances and credit should be given. But in many respects, traditional schooling hasn’t really changed in substantive ways.

COVID-forced online learning has taught many I know that school often drags on and on…much time is wasted. Kessler argues that time should become the variable. I’m not exactly sure what he means, but I understand the wasted time. My eight-year-old granddaughter took a month to figure things out when her second-grade class went online. She went along with all the classes, lectures, practice etc.. that her teacher put out there.  She took the ‘breaks’ when suggested and finished up school after lunch, as I think her teacher intended. Till one day she got up early, started school, and finished all that was required of her in an hour. She surprised herself. But don’t think she went back to the earlier way, that took hours out of her day. She pretty much completes school in an hour or less every day now. The sad thing is that COVID keeps her from taking advantage of the world around her, the experts and opportunities that she could learn from if she were free to move around.

 

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Published by Jody Cooper

I attended Bryn Athyn College for two years. I attended University of Delaware for two years and graduated with a BS in Economics (1974). I attended Widener University graduating with a Masters in Education and a certification to teach in Pennsylvania (1997). I received an EdD in Curriculum, Instruction, Technology Education from the College of Teaching and Learning at Temple University, May 2015. I homeschooled some of my children for six years.

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