We are coping with the too early introduction to screens and YouTube. Some of the home learning content was only on adult YouTube and not the kids version. I’ve put loads of parental controls on now in addition to hiding the iPad because both kids are able to quickly navigate to videos. I actually chose their school because it is less dependent on devices than some others so this is a very unwelcome development.
So 9:09am this morning on a school day the 14 year old is at the market with her mum buying breakfast and mangoes for mango shakes, the 12 year old is still in bed watching anime. 10am having breakfast.
Online classes are limited to a couple of hours a day at most, none today. They don't need to turn cameras on if they don't want to and if they choose only turn mics on to register attendance. If they choose they can go.paper based and avoid online classes
On the other hand they can work in the evening or at weekends if they are not doing anything
Popping in to see all the childless creeps mandating home schooling for my kids
As many of you know, I have no kids and don't even like kids... but I think the year of home schooling in HK was an absolute disgrace and a complete abrigation of societies responsibilities towards it's young (and their parents). Had the pandemic targetted school age children, possibly this would have been the right response to save their lives. But to destroy this many lives (and some will absolutely have been destroyed; others just damaged) in the name of keeping their elderly grandparents or sick relatives alive is disgusting. We could, and should, have done better.
In the US, some school districts are allowing children to repeat the year if the parents (and presumably the children) want it. Kind of an admission that the whole system was, umm, "less than ideal..."
If I had a kid for whom home-school wasn't working (thinking of my older brothers as students), I can imagine just withdrawing them and then re-enrolling the next year for the same grade. Not a perfect solution (and one likely not available in HK)- or finding an actual distance learning school curriculum for home-schooling rather than being on the computer all day. Some of the set-ups in the US were pretty dire.
Just a disaster that will the subject of more than a few Doctorate of Education theses in a few years...