Online education doesn't work

This was the week I finally broke.

This was the week when I finally resigned myself to join the parents like those featured in the self-explanatory New York Times article, "'It Was Just Too Much': How Remote Learning Is Breaking Parents."

After watching the upteenth or so video and accessing the upteenth or so app and printing out the upteenth or so worksheet, I finally had had enough. Everything became tedious, and obligation. It was getting harder and harder to make learning fun, or even tolerable. My elementary-aged daughter was being slowed down, not aided, by keeping up with her school-imposed work. I had to take matters into my own hands.

Her school--in the large and much maligned Chicago Public School district--and her teachers are wonderful. We moved to our neighborhood mostly because of the school, and it hasn't disappointed.

But the last two months have been increasingly painful from an education standpoint. First the school was slow to respond to the situation, then it went on spring break, and now it seems like we're riding out the school year in fits and starts that don't cohere, don't inspire, and leave much to be desired on pushing students to explore on their own.

It's led me to one inevitable conclusion: online education doesn't work.

I could see it in the sighs, in the reluctance to engage in a new topic, in the pushback on joining another Zoom call with classmates. And sometimes my daughters did those things, too.

But I'm not just a lazy father too busy and impatient to push two young girls through early education. I taught for nearly two decades, and for the past eight years I've taught online. I have a PhD in education. My research centered on online interaction. I've seen the magic of in-person learning. I've defended public education and educators to the point that I had to permanently leave Facebook because I'd get too worked up. One would think that I'd be a huge supporter of the current efforts to reach students like my daughter.

But I'm not. I don't believe it. And maybe I never did: I really truly sadly believe that online education is at best a cheap imitation, at worst a complete waste of time.

The new generation of student

Of course mine is but one opinion, and one that is very much biased toward my own selfish ends. Take for example, a counter narrative published in the New York Times by 13-year-old Veronique Mintz, who writes, "I have been doing distance learning since March 23 and find that I am learning more, and with greater ease, than when I attended regular classes. I can work at my own pace without being interrupted by disruptive students and teachers who seem unable to manage them."

Ms. Mintz argues eloquently at length for why distance (online) learning works better for her than traditional schooling, in part because "Distance learning gives me more control of my studies. I can focus more time on subjects that require greater effort and study. I don’t have to sit through a teacher fielding questions that have already been answered."

But as much as I acknowledge and admire her contribution--not to mention her great writing and analysis making it to the Times--her opinion piece is largely about "doing school," not learning. As a result, it's addressing the education system--this one in New York City where the student complains about unruly peers, impersonal teaching, and discipline-related distractions--but not education itself.

"Doing school," on the other hand, is a phrase often used by education researchers to describe acts like paying attention, being prepared, showing respect, etc. that often mark a "good" student. Often well-performing students are indeed good at "doing school," but it never is a 1:1 relationship with actually learning. We could easily assume that Ms. Mintz is both good at doing school and learning, and in the current environment, she is freed up to focus on the latter without having to exert so much energy on the former.

But saying that she's "learning more" isn't necessarily accurate. Perhaps she's just learning more easily because of a change in environment.

The guilt of parents vs. The guilt of teachers

Of course few of us are in our professional environments these days. Few would have thought at the beginning of 2020 that we'd be sharing our desk space with our children's homework and this morning's cereal bowls, but here we are.

Personally speaking, I'm a parent who works a full-time, demanding job. My wife could say the same. We've been able to find a balance where we can work and teach the kids, but it hasn't been without a lot of anxiety and hurt feelings (mine, of course.) And even then, it's often my wife who carries the heaviest load while I'm locked away in our bedroom.

Simply put: it's hard to be an employee and a teacher while also being a parent.

What that means for me is a lot of guilt. I've spent the better part of March, April, and May feeling guilty. By stretching myself I'm being equally mediocre across every area of my life. But if I concentrate on one thing--like my job, let's say--then I feel awful that I'm neglecting my children when they need me the most.

And clearly I'm not alone, as a CNN article titled "Disengaging from Distance Learning" features stories of parents feeling guilty and fed up with trying to balance the workloads. The article has been echoed in major outlets across the country over the past few weeks where parents finally reach a breaking point and either devalue the online education their schools provide or cut down or out on the education altogether. Some parents have switched to only teaching/learning on the weekends, while others have unofficially proclaimed it summer vacation in the first week of May.

One mother in the article finally came to the conclusion: "We could do this and have this negative experience. Or I could just let go of it. For our family, this doesn't work." Giving up, for her, was a better solution than creating negative associations with learning for her 8- and 5-year-old children. I can't say I blame her.

"For our family, this doesn't work."

But any teacher worth her salt feels the same guilt each time she teaches a course. My constant anxiety nightmare while teaching has always been that I'm not doing enough. When students do poorly I'm more apt to blame myself than blame them.

I'm currently finishing up an online course I teach at NYU. Though the course was a directed study where students either did an internship or did work for a fictitious company, I still live my days with a low level anxiety that I'm not being hands-on enough with them. I still worry that I didn't give enough feedback, didn't choose the best readings, or didn't give them the best opportunity to learn.

It's the same guilt and anxiety I feel with my daughters. And while this certainly reflects more on me than the current moment, it's useful to at least see the possibility that both parents and teachers are facing an unwinnable battle where previous metrics are being applied to new ill-fitting situations.

I still feel like garbage at the end of most days, but I'm not giving up. Thankfully our teachers haven't yet either.

The need for reflection

I have taught my online class for nearly a decade within a Masters program at NYU. My courses are asynchronous, and welcome students from all over the globe. Even though I've been with the program for eight years running, and have formed some long-lasting, intimate bonds with my students, I have never stepped foot on the NYU campus nor have I met any of my students in person.

Overall I'm satisfied with the work that I'm able to put into it, and given that the program started the same year I did, students seem to continue to learn and be happy, too. But I don't fool myself into believing this is the outcome because of some mastery on my part. Far from it, I'm constantly in pains at how I'm not connecting with my students enough, and how their weekly posts in a forum is busy work that doesn't actually replicate classroom conversation.

Instead, I think the program is successful when students have the maturity to own their own learning. Our program enrolls students who are either starting their careers in our specific field, or are mid-career and have learned enough to know that this type of program is what they want. In addition, nearly all of them are paying for the privilege to do so, so their maturity is buttressed by their financial stake in the outcome.

But students in elementary school to high school (and sometimes even college where a BA has become expected in many cases) don't have the same incentives. Even mature students are being asked to prematurely own their education in ways that they never prepared for

All of this leads to the conclusion that online education doesn't work--especially for younger students--because true learning requires reflection, if not maturity.

Although many erroneously believe that we've learned something when we can teach someone else, the true measure of learning (note: not having learned, but actually in situ learning) is being able to reflect on something, think about something, wrestle with something, contextualize and rephrase it.

true learning requires reflection

Watching videos and doing workbooks in isolation gives no direction to young students on when or how to reflect. My daughter, for example, approaches the task much like I most likely would: she rushes through her work so that she can either move onto the next thing or be done. How many of us would be much different?

But when my wife or I work with her, we slow her down, and make sure that after each task we talk about it, and get her to situate the learning within her ongoing worldview. This necessary step is all but required in classrooms where students can't leave until a pre-determined time. The best teachers engage students while they reflect, further pushing them to internalize concepts.

But teachers--through no fault of their own--can't do this as effectively through a screen. This means there must be an other--a tutor, if not a teacher--to fill this gap in learning. And for working parents this is typically impossible. As a result, the teaching is impaired, the learning is stunted, and the education is onerous and implicitly doomed to fail.

I'm lucky that I still have some time to fill this gap. The other day my daughter complained hours later to my wife that I had explained to her over and over again how the way I added was different from the way she added. Repetition aside, I took delight in slowing her down and getting her to recognize that her natural way of doing something wasn't the only way. The fact that she remembered it enough to complain hours later made me very proud. It was evidence of reflection, and hopefully of learning.

The need for preparation

Veronique Mintz makes an important distinction near the end of her article. While the majority of it focuses on distance learning, which we can largely assume means asynchronous learning via recorded videos and work materials, she concludes the piece by noting how "the same teachers who struggle to manage students in the classroom also struggle online."

While we can't begin to understand what struggles her teachers experience in the classroom (and we can't assume Ms. Mintz won't encounter her own struggles when she faces these teachers in person again) we should certainly be able to sympathize with teachers who "struggle" in live video like the ones she describes.

As I watch my daughter's videos for her subjects, one thing becomes immediately clear before either of us hit Play: the videos are too long. A concept that takes a minute or two to explain is often drawn out over ten or more minutes in video form.

In the classroom this is often considered best practice; it's an approach that typically facilitates reflection. In the classroom, students may be learning at different speeds, drifting off in thoughts, or needing to hear the concepts retold multiple times through metaphors, visual cues, or dialogue. But in a one-way recorded speech--where every second and eye twitch can be rewound and rewatched--it's simply not necessary. Perhaps the teachers also feel like they need to give us our "money's" worth in the videos, providing ten minute chunks instead of two minute sprints.

But at the end of the day, it's not their faults. They weren't prepared, and few instructors in the entire world are.

When I began preparing to teach online for the first time at NYU in 2012 I was given a modest stipend, access to education technologists, and ample time to write and revise my materials. By the time the course went live six months later, nearly every angle of the course had been pressure-proofed.

But that was eight years ago. And in the eight years of teaching the same course since, very little has changed. Of course I update the course each year, and change each lesson weekly to keep up with student interests, but I simply don't have the time to go in and make all of the changes that in a real classroom I could make on the fly. Add to that that I'm not incentivized to do so: no stipend has ever been offered since I started; any improvements I make are on my own time and dime.

Today's teachers--like my daughter's--are in the same boat, though unlike me, they weren't given any advance notice that they'd be teaching online at all.

If these same teachers, as well as Ms. Mintz's or nearly any teacher who remains committed to her profession, were given proper time to prepare, instruction on best practices, and feedback to revise and refine, I guarantee we'd have better outcomes in a majority of cases. Even if online education weren't best for everyone, at the very least it would be more uniform.

We're all still learning

If you've read to this point you've hopefully seen through the bombast of my title and realized that despite my misgivings about online education in the current moment I don't blame teachers, students, parents, or administrators for trying. My only complaint ever could be if our teachers did nothing. But at least in my school, the teachers are seemingly doing their best to try new apps, record new videos, and reach out to students in ways that increasingly show depth of understanding each week.

But it's not school. And I'm guessing no one involved would argue that point.

Learning about how we learn is, in the end, a valuable enterprise. I'm fearful for the lost time my daughters are experiencing in this ongoing moment. I wonder if their knowledge--or their thirst for knowledge--will regress. I fear they're not getting every opportunity I owe to them as their father.

But then I think about my 17-odd years of teaching and realize I was making it up as I went. I think of my 5 years of getting a PhD in education and realize I was lost most of the time. I realize that I went to college for poetry and now run the marketing team at a software company (where, shh! I'm still kinda making it up as I go.)

And it's then I realize that learning and education isn't about the actual instruction, it's about being supported, and being pushed (sometimes a little, sometimes a lot) to explore what interests you most.

I struggled with the first month of working remote. Trying to balance working, teaching my kids, being a dad to my kids, and being a good husband was all too much. But then I heard someone say that kids don't see your imperfections the same way you do; they just see you supporting them. Being there. Not giving up.

And that's what education is. Being online makes it a lot harder, and requires a much bigger leap of faith to believe that the people on the other side of the screen still really care. But if they do, that's the biggest--and maybe only--thing any of us should care about. The rest will work itself out, just like it did for me, and just like it did for you.

We're all still learning, and you can't give up on that.

Chris Gerben fully admits this article wasn't as good as it could have been (a bit choppy, not enough focus on parents, kind of a weak argument, etc.), but hey, he's working full-time and trying to be a good dad. Let's give him a break, or something.