China News Service, January 11. According to the US "World Daily" report, after the New York City public school opened in the new year, the absenteeism rate and infection rate of students remained high. The United Teachers Association (UFT) called for the closure of public schools and the change to online classes. But the mayor refused, saying "schools are the safest."
Chinese parents and teachers have different opinions on whether schools should be closed in the city. One side believes that closing schools is unrealistic, and it will do great harm to families who are poor or not fluent in English. The school is even more unrealistic. It is difficult for a teacher to take care of students in class and online classes at home at the same time. When students feel uneasy, they are even more unwilling to learn.
The two children of Mr. Huang, a Chinese-American parent, go to the 11th public elementary school in Brooklyn. He said that since the children and the whole family have been fully vaccinated, he still sends the children to school every day and does not expect the school to close.
As the president of the New York Chinese Parent Association, he talked with many principals and Chinese parents and found that online classes not only affect academic performance, but also damage children's social skills. "Obvious" social barriers, let alone switching to online classes across the board, does not mean that the entire family can live in sterile soap bubbles. "Exposure to a risky infection environment is unavoidable."
Mr. Huang also pointed out that the closure of schools is more harmful to families who are poor and who are not fluent in English. According to his understanding, during the few weeks of the closure of public schools in New York City last year, Chinese parents in Flushing could not communicate with the school in time due to language barriers or work difficulties. Communication, tutoring children's schoolwork, and unable to take time to take care of children at home.
Teacher Wang, a Chinese-American high school math teacher in Queens, has felt that teaching has gradually become an "impossible task" in the past two weeks. Students feel "tired", "burned out" and unwilling to learn. The attendance rate has dropped from the usual 98% to 60% to 65%, in a class, while teaching the students present, he opens the Zoom video and uses other teaching platforms to synchronously and remotely teach the students at home in real time.
This is Teacher Wang's method of teaching synchronously. Last year, he took online classes in his high school for nearly a year, and he gradually explored a teaching model that could take into account both sides.
However, since the city government and the state government have not yet given official guidance and advice on remote classes, some teachers may be out of control when facing students inside and outside the classroom at the same time, and only assign homework or give simple, non-real-time homework guidance through the Internet. This is why Flushing City Councilor Huang Minyi recently joined more than 20 councillors to suggest that city public schools provide the option of remote classes.
Teacher Wang said that it is not realistic to continue to open schools, and the most important thing in teaching is unity and continuity.
When more and more students are absent, it is extremely challenging for the same teacher to teach half of the students online and half in the classroom. When students are upset, they simply don't learn.
Mr. Wang, who has 34 students in his class, said that there are too many students in high school and it is difficult to maintain social distance. Unlike elementary schools, which can divide the class into two classes, high schools implement the system of "selecting courses and going to classes", which cannot be divided into classes to ensure safety. .
He believes that schools should be closed "temporarily" to coordinate those special students who cannot take online classes at home. "Society cannot provide care and volunteer services for vulnerable families, and the government encourages this kind of economic burden to be passed on to schools." ( Zheng Yiyan)