The Come-Back, Day 33. It's Called a Classroom, Not a Classcreen.

I've been doing a few classes since the lockdown began. Before that, I had classes every afternoon from three to eight. Now, I have a few scattered phone classes along the week, the most are two in one day, and I even have a day without any.

There's been talk that the future of learning will be online. In fact, some universities are only going to offer online classes next fall. It sounds interesting. It would mean studying would be cheaper because you could connect with someone a thousand miles away while still in your own home. It means you could, logistically speaking, sign up for classes from more than one school. 

But is it better than sitting in a class? I don't think so. While it is very comfortable to just set up the phone or sit in front of the computer screen, it is not the same as sitting in a classroom, with the teacher explaining something or writing examples on the blackboard. The teacher may answer questions online, but there isn't the immediacy of that answer. The teacher can't come to the student's desk and look at what the student is writing to point out where they've made a mistake. Online, the student can hold up the paper they're writing on, but it's more difficult for the teacher to correct. "There, where you wrote 'playing', the word 'play' doesn't change the y to an i." Or, "you've got the wrong tense on think, it should be present simple." And the student is hunting all over the paper, because the teacher isn't at their side to put his finger on the exact spot. 

Then there's the connection problems. Because this is Galicia, cell phone service and internet are not totally reliable. So, sometimes, the connection gets cut off and you see a frozen face on the screen with the words, "poor connection". You have to repeat a single sentence with a student maybe four times in four minutes. Then, there's the problem of finishing the gigabytes allotted you by the phone company for the smooth running of internet every month; for which you already pay a rather large fee. And, once they run out, you are returned to the dark ages of 2G speed, the equivalent of riding a mule on a four-lane highway. It doesn't help to live outside a village where fiber optics is non-existent, and the only way to have an internet connection is through 4G wifi. And that there is only one phone company with coverage in the area.

Then there are the students that either don't have access to a computer, or have neither computer nor internet connection, and have to depend on their phones' data plans. Which are not enough for regular use and online classes at all. Those students got hand-delivered worksheets and explanations from their teachers this trimester, but it was less than enough. 

So, the Ministry of Education has decided that this coming September, instead of half the class online and half the class in school, it will be all the class in school, but each class cannot exceed twenty students. That, in turn, has ruffled the feathers of conservative regional governments, like ours, that complains that now they have to hire more teachers, and that they can't handle it because that takes money away from other areas within education. Good grief, give me a break. Has anyone talked with any kind of education expert? Smaller classes, less contagion. Smaller classes, better attention to slow learners. Smaller classes, better education. But the Partido Popular government of Galicia is not interested in better public education. In fact, they have given more money to private schools to open supplemental classes, while closing some of those in public schools. 

Aside from political grievances, and devil viruses, online learning can never substitute classroom learning. There are some that learn well simply from explanations. Others need spatial relationships than can only be done in the presence of the person explaining. Or, at least, done so that there is no doubt on either side of having understood it. Besides, kids need the connection with other kids. Socializing is best done in the presence of each other. On screen conversations are not the same as just sitting next to your best friend at recess without even talking.

And books and worksheets should also be physical. The turning of a page, the physical action of underlining or highlighting a passage, the physicality of writing the answer on a paper, all those can't be substituted by a computer. It's been shown that the physical act of writing helps cement new learning, especially for those who have to see the connection between different ideas.

So, yeah, more teachers and smaller classes sounds like a good idea, even without the devil virus.

Life continues.