Episode 13: Teacher Confidential: A Veteran Educator's Anonymous Story of How Remote Schooling is Broken
Play • 48 min
In this third installment of navigating a remote education, code name “Beth” joins us to discuss what it’s like being a teacher during the pandemic. She is currently teaching virtually and she and her peers are struggling. The U.S. wants teachers to go back to school, but this is a terrible idea. Beth doesn’t want to risk her life, but there is a stigma happening that it’s because she and her peers are ‘lazy.’ That’s far from the truth. Beth shares her thoughts on what’s happening and some of the problems that are occurring.
Key Takeaways
* Keeping schools closed is the right call. So, why is no one listening?
* We have teacher “Beth” on the show to discuss her thoughts about what the school system is doing.
* Why did Beth become a teacher?
* When schools tried to do online learning, they were surprised to find many children did not have the internet or even computers to study on.
* There were security concerns in the beginning for Beth’s school. Schools just did not know how to best manage this stuff.
* No one brought in an outside consultant to help them set this stuff up securely!
* It is not required for students to have their cameras and mics on and it made it impossible for Beth to teach and keep children engaged.
* Anna was schooled in a digital age. How did she manage? The difference here was Anna had one-on-one teaching and she couldn’t slack off.
* Beth has roughly 34 students in her class.
* Anna always chose the classes she wanted to learn, so she always wanted to be there and attend.
* For Larry’s kids, they don’t need to be read to or babysat. One of their teachers said he trusts they’re doing the work, and will also test them every week to verify this.
* Beth had office hour classes, but it ended up turning into a big joke.
* What happens if your kid doesn’t learn or doesn’t want chemistry? The key here is it’s important to teach your children how to learn.
* Teachers are afraid to go back to school because they’re in a high-risk demographic.
* Israel was at 100 cases a day. They thought they had it under control and opened up the schools. Within a week, everything was shut down again because kids, teachers, and parents all got sick.
* Beth never thought she’d be afraid for her life, even when she taught inner city. This pandemic has changed that.
* Regulations have stifled teachers where they are unable to teach outside of schools/classrooms. Larry never thought there would be ‘black market’ teaching.
* The lightbulb is coming on. You can work from anywhere in the world.
* The kids will be safe? They still have to come home to their parents.
* The reality for most parents is they cannot leave their children at home. Both parents are working or even single parents are working. There need to be alternatives.
* Teachers should not be a replacement for parent, counselor, nurse, etc.
* Children raised in the ’80s know what it’s like being latchkey kids who had both parents working. They survived.
* Remote schooling = more child abuse?
* It takes at least 5-plus years to become a decent teacher.
Resources
Thebraveworkforce.com
Bravenewcompanies.com
Email Anna: Anna@Thebraveworkforce.com
Quotes
“It’s really hard to get teenagers to show up for stuff that they don’t have to be at.” — Beth
“A lot of the education system, in my opinion, is throwing courses at kids that they don’t really need, they don’t want to learn.” — Beth
“People think we don’t want to go back because we’re lazy. The public is now against the teachers. We’re worried for our safety!” — Beth
“If you don’t have childcare, you could always know that, if you have a school-aged child, they’d be taken care of.” — Beth
Special Guest: "Beth".

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bravenewworkforce.substack.com
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