#outschool

Learning about Sonia Delaunay today in art class!

School days are upon us! It is widely known that classes for children have resumed. Recently, social media has been rampant with pictures of people’s children on their first day of school. Some learning centers even opened their doors for pupils as early as the end of July. While most schools offer services that provide special assistance for students needing additional help with their work,…

GSA's are student-led clubs open to all of the student body regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. We advocate for improved LGBTQ+ education, support, & social means for LGBTQ+ students and their straight allies. An ongoing, weekly subscription, live online club. See our schedule of amazing and kewl 😎 weekly live meeting topics in the class description! Come join us for the remainder of spring 🌷 and then for the summer too ⛱️! #Outschool for Teens ages 13-18. https://outschool.com/classes/genders-and-sexualities-alliance-of-outschool-o2qvyqTM?sectionUid=33dc0145-a042-4a2a-a5b7-3f4b6d7ed9e4&showDetails=true

Well, obviously I'm a fan of virtual learning in a professional capacity since it's my actual paid-to-do-it job. The platform I teach on was initially designed for homeschoolers, and that's what it was when I joined, a method for supplementing your child's education in a secular space (hard to find) or for teaching subjects that aren't your forte. It works very well for that. During the pandemic, as students turned to virtual schooling, a lot of traditionally schooled students moved to the platform as an alternative to being physically sent to schools that didn't go/stay virtual or as an alternative to the really shitty version of virtual learning many school systems were using. The market got a little flooded and finding quality classes got harder because there's just so many more to choose from. Vetting online classes is important!

Virtual learning as an alternative to being sent to school during the pandemic, putting children, staff, and their families at risk? 100% in favor of it. Keeping children physically safe has to be the number one goal, because learning retention for children who feel unsafe is drastically reduced. Not to mention I just prefer that children, teachers, etc. don't die. Team Not Dying.

Virtual learning as frantically implemented by many school systems? Shit. Shitty. Badly done. So badly done that many families sent their kids back to in person learning before it was actually safe again, because the teachers didn't know how to teach a virtual class, the kids didn't know how to learn from a virtual class, and it pretty much came down to trying and failing to exactly replicate an in person class online, which you simply can't do.

We used private platform online learning pretty heavily for Feral Child's last year of homeschooling because I was working full time as a virtual teacher, and I wanted another human being to be teaching them instead of having to rely on prepackaged curricula for the subjects that aren't my area of expertise. We found some amazing teachers who provided much broader cover of historical topics from perspectives our local school district couldn't provide, both due to the demographics of the teachers and what teachers in public school are and aren't allowed to cover.

Feral Child's history/civics education was top notch. The online classes were small, students had a lot more freedom to speak, and there was no emphasis placed on testing as the only way to judge knowledge. I think this format COULD be implemented in in-person classrooms, but I think it would be expensive and difficult. How do you provide a 1:6 or 1:8 or even 1:12 teacher to student ratio for an entire school system in a county with almost a million people? The answer is that almost no county can afford to do that. Thus, the online experience for some subjects is by default going to be better, because the only way to make 1:6-1:12 ratio classes affordable across the board is through virtual classrooms.

The pandemic also made it clear that ONLY taking classes online with no in person human interaction is detrimental to students, though, so if you are planning to use virtual learning (either public funded like K12 or through a private marketplace like Outschool), now that the worst of the pandemic is behind us, getting virtually schooled kids out into in-person social situation with peers is important.

Hello!  I would love some more members in my new ongoing group, Anime Fan Club, starting today at 7pm eastern!  Only one students has joined currently and we could use more to have some great discussions.  Come and talk about your favorite anime in a safe environment and make new friends!