Before we start, here are a few key details about what online education is and isn’t:
Good online courses are not equivalent to the “distance education” provided by many schools during the pandemic. An online course should be designed to be online.
Online courses are usually standalone and this article won’t cover full-time online education (which I don’t usually recommend except in emergency situations).
Some children thrive in online learning; others don’t. Know your child, and don’t blame the class or the teacher if your child simply doesn’t take to online learning.
Good online learning requires parental involvement.
Choose a course through direct recommendations from parents when possible
At Athena’s where I teach, we get almost all of our new families through parent referrals. There’s a good reason for that: We are a known quantity and provide consistent quality. You can certainly take a chance on someone new, but don’t think that just because they are using a well-known platform that anyone can pay to use that it will be a good class. I suggest that you join a group on the platform of your choice that has parents whose children have similar needs to yours, and ask for recommendations.
If possible, the course should have a live, synchronous component
“Synchronous” just means that the students and teacher are sometimes in the same place at the same time, interacting in real time. When you start looking for classes, you’ll notice that this isn’t always the case. The reason I recommend it is that asynchronous learning really isn’t most kids’ cup o’ tea. No matter how engaging pre-recorded videos are, they don’t substitute for real, live interaction with a human.
One aside about video courses: Kids who have a specific passion might find that self-directed, asynchronous courses are very engaging for them. For example, I have known some science-crazy kids who just love video-based online science courses.
Asynchronous components should be engaging and keep the student connected to the material between live classes
“Asynchronous” materials are parts of the course that can be accessed anytime. A great live teacher will lose their audience if there is no connection to material outside of class. Students should be able to explore on their own and learn more deeply between live classes.
This is a screenshot of one of my asynchronous classrooms. I interact with the students via messaging and forums all week long, and the students interact with each other via forums and Open Chat.
There needs to be open, two-way communication between the teacher and the students
Lots of courses have distant, inaccessible teachers who pop on once a week, say their piece, and then leave. That may be OK for a college course, but not for kids. Kids should feel free to connect with their teacher anytime via email, a messaging system, or forums.
The most engaging online environments include multi-way social opportunities for the students
At the very least, students should be able to chat before and after class. On top of that, there should be open forums where students can trade ideas and collaborate between classes. Remember, learning is a social activity. One of the big mistakes that teachers new to online learning made was to try to shut down the sort of chatter and fun that makes a school worth going to.
My own opinion is that courses for younger children should be ungraded
Grades do encourage a small subset of students to achieve higher, but research shows that those students are already the high achievers. An ungraded, supportive environment is the most encouraging environment for the bulk of students.
Online learning can be as rewarding and fun, especially since you can bounce on a trampoline during class…
Yup, my kid really did attend a class at Athena’s from the trampoline! This photo was posed, however: he spent most of the class sitting still, enjoying learning outside!
I get lots of requests from parents regarding their students. I am used to accommodating all sorts of needs, and in the online webinar format, it’s very easy to do that. But there’s one request that I’ve received that I will never accommodate, and that’s canceling history or ideas from my courses.
Though “cancel culture” is in the news a lot, let me start by explaining how it works in an online course for children. [Here’s Wikipedia if you want more details.] No matter what subject I’m teaching, whether it’s language, music, or food, we face what I call capital-C Content. That’s content that may not be child-appropriate, may be offensive to some people, or may refer to subjects that are offensive to some people.
My job as a teacher is to decide how to deal with capital-C Content in an age-appropriate manner.
In some ways, this is easy. In my all-ages courses, I tend to skip the personal foibles of historical figures, for example. It’s not necessary to know about a composer’s bigotry unless it’s expressed in the music. But I won’t shy away from age-appropriate discussions that are more central to the subject we are studying, such as Roald Dahl’s unhappy childhood.
In my teen courses, I will address sensitive issues more in depth. I ask students to use our defined standards of behavior and language when discussing issues, but I don’t stop them from addressing them. Teens often have a deep interest in discussing topics that affect their lives, whether it’s a popular writer’s posts on Twitter or their own experiences with discrimination.
“Cancel culture” would have me avoid sensitive topics or cover them with platitudes. Cancel culture asks teachers to offer trigger warnings or to avoid entire topics altogether. Cancel culture also asks us to omit historical complexities when a topic doesn’t align with our modern sensibilities.
What comes up in the classroom
You may be surprised at the topics that come up in classes for kids.
In my music history class, I just had to tell parents that there was no way I was going to avoid all Content…especially in the week that we studied opera! Murder, rape, war, and cultural stereotypes abound.
In my class about food, Yum!, contentious topics come up all the time. Some of my students are vegan and others are dedicated meat-eaters, and that leads to potential conflict.
But it’s in my language courses that we are faced with Content on a regular basis. The history of the English language is fascinating and complex. It’s regularly the case that unsuspecting students share etymological information about a word without even noticing the, ahem, Content that comes along with it. Just think about trying to avoid sex, violence, religion, and bigotry when researching the many meanings and history of these words: head, buck, jazz—even intelligent!
One such situation comes up while discussing the word apoplectic in my vocabulary class. The history of this word really helps students understand just how angry you are when you are feeling apoplectic. Literally, the meaning derives from the symptoms of a stroke, which was referred to apoplexy, which was defined at the time the word was being used as “being crippled, struck dumb.”
Ouch, lots of Content in there. It leads to a discussion of the evolution of the word dumb, from a medical term for something that doctors didn’t understand (being “struck dumb” because of damage to the brain) to the current meaning, “stupid,” which derives from the prejudice that people had against deaf people in the past.
It’s very upsetting for a child to know that there is discrimination in the world, especially if that discrimination hits home. But if I were to cancel all the words with embedded discrimination in them, we’d be left with a language bereft of its complexity and history. Canceling words and their history isn’t the solution—understanding words and their historical context is the solution.
Keeping it age-appropriate
In my all-ages courses, of course, we don’t actually discuss offensive topics in detail. For example, if my student did research on the word jazz and the word gism was in the etymology, I would just simply ignore it and move on. If a student directly asked what it meant, I would say that it’s not appropriate for discussion in our course—and move on.
In one of my writing courses, a young girl used the word “bitch” in the text chat—quoting her teen sisters, who used that word (lovingly!) with each other. As I was reading her writing out loud to the other students, I just quickly said, “oh, whoa, that’s not a word we use in polite society” and moved on. It wouldn’t have been appropriate to discuss it further, so I sent her a private message later.
Teens need to explore ideas in depth
In my teen courses, the controversy over J.K. Rowling’s views about transgender people has been a topic of great interest. It brought up insightful discussions, such as the ethics of enjoying an artist’s work when the artist is someone whose views are repugnant to the reader. Teens are not too young or too fragile to find out that the authors of some of their most treasured stories were not necessarily morally upright people, and our discussions lead to a greater understanding of the interplay between literature and culture.
Nevertheless, I have been asked by students or parents to offer trigger warnings before such conversations take place. But we can’t offer trigger warnings for conversations, given that they haven’t been had yet. All I can do is enforce our standards for respectful discussion. If one of my students started to describe, for example, child abuse in detail, that would be clearly inappropriate and I’d interrupt the conversation. But to say that a teen can’t mention existence of child abuse because it triggers another student? I can’t agree to that.
We have clear rules about respectful language in our courses, and students almost always follow them. We encourage students to speak up when they feel uncomfortable, and they often do. Within the rules for respectful conversation, we have the most in-depth, insightful conversations about difficult topics.
When the student is the one who cancels
Students themselves sometimes buy into the ideas of cancel culture, believing that anyone or anything that upsets them should be dismissed. Those students are the ones who, instead of joining in the conversation or listening to see where it goes, disappear from the webinar with a click. Sometimes we never hear from them again.
This is when I wish I could keep them in the discussion. I always reach out to them after class to try to keep them communicating, because life, they will find out, will not always give them the opportunity just to close the tab and go back to a carefully constructed world. The day that they find out that a valued co-worker has views they don’t agree with, what will they do? Education is more than facts and figures; it’s a preparation for life.
Learn to be a confident messenger
Life doesn’t offer trigger warnings and won’t cancel history as you walk through it. I want my students to be confident messengers for their viewpoints. And in order to do that, they will have to face what the world puts in front of them.
Most of the time—let’s not forget—this world offers natural beauty, kind people, and an amazing and empowering history of humankind. But we do our children no favors by obscuring the challenges that we face in making a safer, kinder, more inclusive culture for all.
My life in the last several weeks included multiple surgeries for family members then sending our youngest kid off to college. County up in flames, 901 of our neighbors have lost their homes, many more have been evacuated from their homes for who knows how long, and the air quality was rated the worst in the world many days running.
Also, we are going into the most contentious, nasty election season ever.
Oh, and there’s that little thing we call a pandemic.
Oh, and classes started. And I’m a teacher.
It’s important to be empathetic
That teacherly side of me knows that parents are under a lot of stress. They are navigating tons of new territory, from (as one mom I interviewed said) “getting to know my kid again,” to learning how to do their job online, to waiting to find out how their kids’ schools are going to deliver education, to figuring out how to fill out myriad mystifying government forms.
This world is a big, fat mess. That much we can agree on.
I forgive each and every one of you who is in over your head and says things you (probably) wouldn’t have said in more relaxed times. I realize that when parents contact me about their students, they are often reacting to stress unrelated to my classes.
Remember it’s not [all] your teacher’s fault
I’ll start by admitting I’m not a perfect teacher, and I’m not the best teacher for every kid. One of the reasons I believe so deeply in homeschooling is that it offers kids the opportunity to learn in a variety of ways with a variety of teachers. Who doesn’t love a smorgasbord?
But please understand: I am an online teacher, and I can solve exactly one of your child’s problems: I can deliver a high-quality course in the subject that I am teaching. That’s all.
Don’t play the blame game
The #1 best parenting advice I can give you is not to protect your mistakes from your kids. If you messed up and signed up for a class late, admit it. If you messed up and didn’t read the instructions, admit it. If you messed up and didn’t test the software ahead of time, admit it.
Your acceptance of your imperfections will make your kid a stronger person, I promise!
And then suck it up and get the job done
Define the problem. Don’t shoot off an email or make a phone call before you have figured out what the problem actually is.
If you screwed up, all you have to do for your teacher is explain and apologize. Their job is not to fix your mistakes.
If you need help, figure out who can help you. Hint: It’s not necessarily your teacher.
RTFM! Yes, there are way too many instructions for accessing online education. That’s why you should start early and make sure you understand as much as you can before you ask questions.
If you screw up, be gracious
Your teachers are under a huge amount of stress just because of their job. You have no idea what else is happening behind that sunny face on the screen or voice over the slides. Our job more closely resembles improv theater than you might imagine.
A simple apology goes a long way.
If you:
Blame a teacher for your own mistake
Get angry at a teacher for software they have no control over
Tell a teacher that you expected more when the teacher is giving all they can give
Mess up some aspect of your kid’s education and then try to pin the blame on the the teacher…
Say you’re sorry, give them the benefit of the doubt, and…
Then move on
Because that’s what we teachers are doing, too. Through pandemic, fires, hurricanes, family troubles, financial trouble, and toxic politics, we are there every day, our smiling faces or voices welcoming your children to a little chunk of sanity.
This is hard. Join us in figuring out our way through it.
Yup, it’s the first week of classes just ended at Athena’s Advanced Academy, and it was a wild and wooly one! We have lots of new students, some of whom have never taken online courses besides the Zoom sessions that their teachers whipped up as crisis teaching last spring. This is my eighth year of teaching online, so I guess I’ve learned a few things. Here they are!
Get comfortable before the first day
Online learning environments have lots of similarities, but it’s the differences that will make your child’s first day of class frustrating and less than productive. Log into the system as soon as you can. It’s very likely that there are activities they can do ahead of time.
At Athena’s, we use Moodle classrooms and Blackboard webinar rooms. Each has its quirks and fun nooks and crannies. Our students can log in as soon as they get credentials and play around in our Social Forums.
Iron out technical problems
I can’t tell you how many kids admit that they and their parents knew about technical problems before the first day. Online teachers simply can’t help. So when we have a frustrated kid with a broken mouse or earbuds that only work sometimes, there is nothing we can do.
We also can’t help if you didn’t use our webinar configuration room to set up your child’s system. We really want to help, but we can’t. You are your kid’s tech support. I know you didn’t sign up for this, but just like cleaning dirty diapers, it comes with the fun parts!
Read the instructions
Sorry there are so many. You won’t remember them all. Neither do I! But please ask the teacher only once you’re sure its answer is not easily accessible. “Search” is available on every page of our site.
Special needs? Contact your teacher!
Online teachers can’t read your children’s faces or body language. It’s not the same as IRL classes. If you contact your child’s teacher ahead of time, they might be able to head of issues before they happen. If your child has had problems in classes before, you are doing them no favors by sending them into an online course without warning. Avoid TMI (too much information). Send a simple note alerting the teacher to an issue that the student might have and you might head off problems.
Be positive!
So many of my students are coming in anxious and concerned because of all the negative stuff they’ve been hearing. They think online learning isn’t as good as their IRL classes. They think their parents expect that they won’t do well. They know that people are arguing about education more than ever.
Help your child adjust by putting on a positive face when you talk about their online classes. Grouse to your spouse, gripe to your friend, express frustration to other parents—but convey confidence and an expectation of fun to your student.
