We got a ton of boo hoos and bemoanings, of time lost and skills wasted, especially from two income families, which is most of them. Not all of them get to keep their Zoom jobs, nor the kids. Enough "remote time", back to school. Good news for all.
Except a tiny minority of kids had some interesting adventures from the safety of a Zoom job, which is what we gave them, in place of classroom TinyDesks [tm] and a storage locker plan. They got to be more like adults and in many cases got exposed to more real world relevant learning, sans the bullying, sans the insipid nature of the day care center's fake school.
Now I'm only using that language to empathize with that tiny minority, who had a good experience trying distance education. We're told the vast majority hated lock down (who wouldn't, that's prison talk) and now have a built in reason to need remediation going forward. The ones who thrived are not the ones making news, that much seems obvious.
As a teacher during that period, I went from middle to high school level in a hurry. Drilling down in Python the way the schools envision, in big computer labs, in the day care setting, is different from staying home in a privileged nerd cave with high bandwidth. We were clearly happier here, with our JupyterLab dashboard, in the high school of tomorrow. I could use the same pedagogical techniques I used with adults, and andragogy often makes good pedagogy, I think any Muppet lover will tell you.
Some kids have continued with day camp, putting in nonstandard hours and not riding the bus everywhere. Having kids off the streets, in cubicles, learning, more hours of the day than not, might be a good use of cubicles, if we ever decide the TinyDesks [tm] are not enough. Shared MakerSpaces. Elevators to classrooms on other floors, for when debate teams meet. But debates could be on Zoom as well no? When exactly do we need an auditorium?
I'm saying only a minority of education planners are given skyscraper type buildings to think about, as mixed use structures. My model is more people spread about around town in more traditional dwelling units, more like the one I'm in, where the giant walnut trees fall. High wind today. One fell.
