Let's do the following exercise, just imagine, my reader friend, that you participate for the first time in an online cooking course. After reading the first recommendations of the course, you are invited to take notes of the activities to complete, and you are given the following on the screen:
But when you look at the screen you can only say: my God, I don't understand anything!... since many children who are currently being taught under the home school modality, have the same thing happening to them, they fail to understand the online activities.
Homeschooling does not make it easy for the teacher to diagnose the student in front of the screen. This learning is not as effective as face-to-face learning and is deficient if the student has special educational needs. Although we have a series of online resources, the distance teacher does not know how their students learn.
When we talk about special educational needs (SEN), we refer to learning difficulties or disabilities that hinder the educational formation of children compared to most of their peers. They require additional or different help than other children their age. The distance teacher does not know how their students learn, and therefore they do not know if they have SEN. For this reason, children who require specific educational support are the most affected by the confinement measures carried out during this worldwide health crisis...
I recently saw a video where a 6-year-old boy sitting in front of a monitor was screaming to his mother that he could not do his homework because it was too long... or is it, my friend reader, did that the child not understand it? ... the child in the video was showing his frustration by crying and screaming. Poor child, he was in an emotional crisis... It is very difficult for teachers to mediate distance learning. The home school modality does not allow to evaluate and detect early on (like the child in the video) possible learning difficulties. It is difficult for teachers to make diversified planning, to modify methodologies and ways of evaluating students with SEN. Most online resources are designed without considering the cognitive difficulties that these students may present.
My friend reader, if your child makes you war every day to sit in front of the screen to do homework, and shows it by rejecting the activities, with unrestrained crying, screaming, is restless, constantly gets up from the chair, even manifesting stomach discomfort or desire to go to the bathroom every time, headache, etc., we are facing possible difficulties in understanding the activities performed at home, I recommend the following:
1.- Establish an open communication plan with the teacher expressing the difficulty, constant behavior, and rejection towards the tasks that you, parent, observe in your child. Behavior that only reveals it at homework time.
2.- Take into consideration that if your child shows difficulty, even if it is slight, it is a great challenge for the teacher to motivate the child in front of the monitor.
3.- Do not forget that if your child has SEN, you should seek specific support for the development of the tasks, since the effort of the family requires assuming very professional roles.
4.- To offer diversity in homeschooling, the teacher must have knowledge of your child's specific needs for educational support from a distance in the home school modality.
Remember reader friend, that for a child with special educational needs, life presents many challenges. It is more difficult for them to do ordinary things, like learning to read. Imagine being a child with special needs and studying in front of a screen!
Final note... On the screen of the online cooking course (above in the Sinhalese language), it says the following:
Well, so are the kids getting online classes and they don't understand anything. And the university students are about to take to the streets to look for their professors. They're freaking out because they don't understand online classes, what can you expect from little kids?