An immigrant from Ukraine spoke about her son's distance learning at a New York school

On Friday, August 7, New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that all school districts in the state can open schools, but with certain restrictions and caveats. About it writes immigrant from Ukraine Svetlana Sischuk for "Voice of America".

Next - from the first person.

Before that, the New York City Department of Education offered parents and students two options for learning: a completely distance or mixed system (1-2 days a week at school, the rest at home).

The head of the New York City Department of Education, Richard Carranza, stressed that no matter what option parents and students choose, the educational process will last five days.

Before August 7, parents had to decide which system they and their children would choose, so that the department and school administrations knew the number of children in both variants and prepared schools. It will be possible to switch from blended learning to distance learning at any time, but vice versa - only during a certain period.

For our son, who will enter the second grade of one of the Brooklyn public schools in September, we have chosen a blended learning system, although we have a positive experience of fully distance learning.

Our school - teachers, administration - organized everything at a very decent level. I even think it was perfect: the educational process, and communication, and emotional support, and technical support.

Our children studied remotely for 14 weeks - from March to the end of June.

Distance learning was as close to usual as possible

Since March 16, when all schools were closed in New York, we have had a week to prepare for the distance learning of the school.

Our distance learning school has chosen the Google Classroom platform. For each class, teachers created a separate virtual office, and for each parallel - separate offices for special disciplines: music, science laboratory, physical education and art.

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The distance learning schedule was as close as possible to the normal school schedule. Our children studied from Monday to Friday from 9:00 to 12:20. The schedule included all the subjects, like in school, only the lessons were shorter - 25 minutes instead of 45.

Teachers gave assignments, instructions for them, and links to additional resources in Google Classroom. In the comments for each task, the children could ask questions.

Every day, students filled out a google-form through which the administration tracked attendance. If a child misses classes, parents must inform the school administration and teachers.

For those children who did not have electronic devices, the school or the department of education provided an iPad or MacBook for use against receipt. At the same time, the department noted that each of the brothers and sisters should have a separate device in the family. Our Parent Coordinator also sent in contacts for ISPs and mobile operators who offered free internet or for a monthly fee of up to $ 10 for several months.

School officials strongly recommended that all students eat lunch after the end of the main period of study and only then begin to do their homework. It is advisable to complete your homework before 14:50, while all the teachers are in touch. But the teachers in our class were allowed to complete tasks throughout the week - until Friday. They commented on almost every task and gave recommendations on what needs to be corrected or improved.

The teachers worked from home. And children every day had the opportunity to communicate with each other and with teachers through video meetings.

Those students who studied according to an individual training plan received an additional schedule with special classes. For example, our son had separate hours for occupational therapy and classes with a speech therapist.

For any questions that we, the parents, did not understand, we contacted teachers and school administrators through Google Classroom, the ClassDojo app and e-mail.

During the preparatory week, parents received emails with logins, passwords and codes for Google Classroom and other applications, websites and services that were used at the school. Our teachers also held a virtual meeting with parents through Google Meet on organizational issues and provided a list of additional online resources that were used during home teaching.

One day first grader studying remotely

Every morning before class began, our teachers posted slideshows in Google Classroom, which included audio and video instructions, all related links. Thus, parents and children did not have to search for anything - just click on the link.

For example, the presentation from April 1 included a visiting form, a daily schedule that included a morning meeting and follow-up activities — music, science, phonetics, and writing.

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During the morning meeting, teachers discussed emotions with the children and how to react to them. “When and why are you angry with yourself? They asked. - Which is easier: to be kind and friendly towards oneself or towards others? Why? In what words can you express love and friendliness? " The task was to write a few pleasant words to myself or draw them.

During the break - a snack, toilet, just rest, physical education.

In particular, the classes contained the following exercises. During phonetics, children repeated the alphabet aloud, learned the so-called sight words - words that are often found in English and are not pronounced the way they are written - they just need to be memorized. While reading a letter, compare words like and as and write a poem using comparisons.

In just 14 weeks of distance learning, I was delighted with the work of our teachers.

The teachers organized and explained everything in such a way that on the second day our son filled out the Google form from the visit himself. And on the third day, even the most involved parents (like me) calmed down and left the children to study on their own. From time to time, one of the parents showed up at meetings in pajamas with coffee.

In the parent group, we joked that more tasks came from physical education teachers. And the most interesting were the writing tasks. They just amazed me: the children wrote poems and full stories with an introduction, main part and conclusions.

During our studies, we learned that Miss D. communicates with the children from the kitchen, and Miss Ch. From the bedroom. No one was worried about the cup of tea on the table or the scattered children's toys in the background.

My role in the learning process boiled down to the fact that in the morning I had to provide a charged device connected to the Internet, sometimes print some materials, take pictures of completed assignments and send them to Google Classroom (later my son did it on his own), leave rooms away and don't get in the way.

Unfortunately, this was not the case in every school. Our personal experience has shown that distance learning can be cool, fun and rewarding. And I don't rule out distance or blended learning for my son in high school, high school, or college.

However, as cool as distance learning was, our son missed his teachers and friends. Now we are choosing a blended form of education in the hope of restoring full-fledged schooling in the near future.

The original column is published on the website. Ukrainian service "Voices of America".

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