BEATTYVILLE, Ky. (AP) — John Ross worries about his children returning to their classrooms this fall with coronavirus cases rising in Kentucky, but he feels he doesn’t have much of a choice: His family’s limited internet access makes it nearly impossible for the kids to keep up with schoolwork from home.
"They're going to have their education," the father of three in rural Lee County said as he recalled his children's struggles to do their work this spring over a spotty cellphone connection.
Lee County, a community of around 7,000 people deep in the Appalachian Mountains, is one of many rural school districts around the country where the decision over whether to bring students back into classrooms is particularly fraught. As in other places, parents and officials are concerned about the virus, but dramatically limited internet access here also means kids could fall seriously behind if the pandemic keeps them home again.
MORE
There's only one virus, and Corona ain't it.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile in the highly subsidized western part of Jefferson County (Louisville, KY), the city is installing free internet. regards, Alemaster
ReplyDeleteMy town has "free" internet if your family qualifies for the free lunch program. "Free" my fucking asshole. They expect us paying customers to believe that?
DeleteThey need to look into StarLink.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.starlink.com/
Kids were a lot more educated (in the real classic sense)before the internet. sounds like a massive plus to me. (look up a 6th grade reader from the 1930's, you'll get my point instantly)
ReplyDeleteYeah, agreed. Which is why it's a huge negative to our rulers. High literacy, critical thinking, knowledge of history -- all highly undesirable, and must be stamped out. The only things a person need know are:
Delete1. Whites bad. Protected minorities good.
2. Christianity bad. Other Abrahamic religions good.
3. Competence, honesty, achievement, hard work and thrift bad. Victimhood, grifting, multi-generational welfare parasitism, eternal whining about claimed victimhood good.
Send kids to today's public schools, and they'll get all the above, good and hard.
Our local school district is having to send out local wifi hot spots way out in the boonies, far from the city limits. What is not yet an issue are families having multiple kids in household needing wifi friendly computers. Going to be a while before this gets ironed out.
ReplyDeleteWife is a teacher and elected to go on campus and teaching her students in an empty clasroom via a program. She is far from a computer nerd but got caught up quickly and will have to get used to remotely teach her kids. This will be her 35th year of teaching - pretty far out shit for her.
When I attended elementary school in Louisville back in the 60's, we had a couple of classes on television. They flew an airplane in circles to broadcast to schools in a wide area. Maybe they could do something like that with Internet, or via satellite dish.
ReplyDeleteBooks, assignments with a deadline, and parents who care. Trust me, it will be an improvement. Teachers post the assignment and Mom or Dad pick it up on their way to or from work on Monday. They turn in the assignment the next Monday. Paper can be easily sanitized with a UV light at the school to protect both teachers and students. Few families are without phones these days, and a chat line can be established with the teachers for any questions. It's not as big a shift in teaching as many want you to believe. It's also a chance to shift away from the current practice of slowing the class down to the slowest student and allow the more advanced students to move at their own speed.
ReplyDeleteI don't know how Ky. works but here in La. you'd just remove them from school enrollment, submit a homeschool curriculum, which there are many, to the school board and have at it. No internet connection required.
ReplyDeleteJD
Dang! Poor kids can't even mail their homework in since Trump's hauling away all the mail boxes.
ReplyDeleteThat is a lie.
DeleteHomeschooling is the answer. If done properly, you really only need to devote a couple of hours a day to instructing your children. In reality, that is as much, or more, than they receive in school, after shuttling them between classes, role calls, classroom disruptions, etc. Once you teach your children to read, and comprehend what they have read, then all you have to do is assign the work, and grade it, with occasionally assisting them with the hard problems. My wife homeschooled both of our daughters. The oldest is constantly being promoted in her job because she is able to learn on her own and has good work ethics, and the youngest graduated with honors from college and is now pursuing her masters degree.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree more. My wife did most of the schooling while I worked, but I did history, bible, and outdoor stuff. They used the internet in high school grades, but ealier grades was all old fashioned 'readin ritin and rithmatic." We even used reprints of the old McGuffey readers to teach them to read.
DeleteBack in the 90's and beyond, in NY, we Home schooled our kids. No internet needed. Pen and paper. My grandkids in KY are staying home and apparently the school busses are being positioned as signal boosters for those out lying areas. The school system is still providing laptops. I highly recommend home schooling your children and disposing of the Government Idoctrination
ReplyDeleteCruachan!
Highlander
The first 3 years you basically teach the kid to read, after that they educate themselves by reading. Math is a little harder to teach that way but oddly enough there are courses you can download at work and bring home that teach every kind of math much of what is rote repetition to gain skill at a knew knack.
ReplyDeleteI got an idea--I heard about this new technology called "books". I know, it sounds wacky, but hear me out.
ReplyDeleteThey write on paper, then glue all the pieces of paper together at one edge, so's you can read 'em all together, one after the other. Now if there was just a way to write a bunch of the same pages at the same time...
Tell ya what, I'm gonna roust out my buddy Gute. His name's Yo-hom Gootleberger or some such jawcracker, so I just call 'im Gute. He's pretty sharp at whipping up machinery out of near nothing. He's a religious feller--nothing at all wrong with that--so mebbe I can suggest printing up verses of the Bible, or something. That'll get his brain turning. Hell, I bet he could think up something laying flat in bed!
Lemme fire up the bike & I'll go see him. Hang on....
--Tennessee Budd
You know, that ain't a half bad idea. Only problem: Pope Francis will make sure Mr. Gute doesn't see the sunrise tomorrow, just like the Catholic Church's major objection to the printing press back in the 1500's-knowing that such a thing would take a lot of their power over the people away.
DeleteYou mean to tell me that without high speed internet, the teachers will not be able to indoctrinate our children?
ReplyDeleteYou mean to tell me that without high speed internet, our children may actually be able to learn the subjects that these same teachers are failing to impart?
You mean to tell me that without high speed internet, people might have to (gasp) interact!
.
I think I made my point.
Abe Lincoln would be distressed....
ReplyDelete