By: Jim Garrity

Jim Garrity — Tue, 12 Sep 2023 01:28:30 +0000

Hi,
I finished your article about math and the pandemic. Sure, the pandemic shares the guilt along with the teachers who passed them along hoping the next teacher would bring them up to speed. I was talking to my wife about this during the pandemic. At that time, I had one kid in 2nd grade and one in 8th. My wife and I worked remotely at this time so we were able to help our kids out but they (and their teachers) would tell us stories about kids unable to do anything, kids not showing up at all, kids turning in NO WORK AT ALL, and they got passed along. I told my wife, kids that can’t meet the requirements will be required to go to summer school, right? RIGHT???
No, the kids were being coached about their feelings. How do you feel? Are you doing OK? Meanwhile, their actual work was falling behind. Imagine this, my daughter was in second grade and given a laptop to do her work on. HOWEVER, she had to be watched like a hawk because they didn’t lock down any sites and the teachers posted all their stuff to YouTube so I couldn’t block the site. Oh and her 6 hours away of schooling went to MAYBE an hour and 30 minutes. It was ridiculous.
Now I understand, this was all new territory for everyone involved but you can’t just lay the blame on the pandemic. You can’t just pass people along because you don’t want to hurt their feelings. I would have conducted an assessment and anyone who doesn’t meet the bar, summer school. Don’t want to do summer school? You are right back in the same grade next year. This wasn’t done and now we are paying a HUGE price for it.

Just my 2 cents.

Comments on: College students are still struggling with basic math. Professors blame the pandemic

By: Jim Garrity