flyingbluepig

Three months into Online Kindergarten, my daughter Carmen’s online kindergarten class has hit equilibrium. The students understand and follow a school routine. There is a classroom parent helping to create social distance play activities for the children to meet and interact with another at a safe distance. The social distance activities have even allowed parents to meet each other than just see one another in the periphery of our child’s laptop screen. Additionally, my daughter has asked me to create play dates with some of her classmates. Establishing these class play activities as well as arranging individual play dates has been tricky, but that will be explored more in another post. Various classes have even created their own class rituals like snack-chat. Snack-chat is when the children sit with a snack after formal class ends and each child takes turns talking about anything they want to talk about with their classmates. The teacher moderates and ensures each child has a turn to talk. These are important elements for the students to create a community of their own as they would have done in the physical classroom. All of this adds up to a semblance of an educational experience that I and other parents are familiar with for elementary aged children. Unfortunately, this is where the pre-SIP (Shelter-In-Place) elements of school ends. The harsh reminder of Online Kindergarten learning in a SIP world often rears its ugly head to remind us that this is a new beast that needs to be tamed. Or, killed.

It is still difficult to keep every child on the screen for various reasons. Zoom glitches or blackouts occur causing the student to be suddenly kicked out of the virtual class. When the child’s image disappears, the teachers acknowledge the loss of the student to the class and continues onward with the class. The teachers have learned to take these glitches in stride and try to assure the students to not worry if a glitch occurs. The teachers try to emphasize they understand and will help students catch up if they missed anything. This gives students some comfort as well as their parents that no child will not be left behind. Every now and then though, I hear the teacher tell a student they can’t see them because the child has left to get a snack or look for their parent. As a result, the teacher has to stop teaching and call out to the student for a few minutes to show themselves on the screen. Usually, the child returns on their own or is brought back by a parent. This causes the class to slow down and allows other children to get distracted or take this a cue to run off as well.

I am sympathetic. As a pre-SIP online instructor, I know how difficult it is to have students deal with glitches or not show their image during synchronous* class time. However, in my case, cajoling a young adult in college level classes to sit still and participate is easier than trying to wrangle twenty five-year old’s. I can reason with the college age student because they are mature enough to hold a frank discussion about how to fix some glitches or why seeing their face on screen adds a personal touch to the online classroom experience. A five-year-old, on the other, does not have the mental maturity to understand how to fix a glitch let alone why they need to sit still in front of a computer screen that is not always fun for them. For instance, I have seen the teacher use a stern voice with students who have difficulty with waiting their turn to talk in class or manually mute children and explain why she had to mute them. Usually, the children are quick to conform to the teacher’s directions and only a few minutes of class instruction is lost. These teachers are doing their best to give their students the best experience possible in Online Kindergarten. Yet, there is an element missing in their Online Kindergarten experience that they would have fully gotten in the physical classroom: Independence.

There are moments that I have witnessed in my daughter’s online kindergarten class that cause me to wonder if we should have made Online Kindergarten occur at all. Once I saw a child end up crying as many kids do when a grown-up chastises them. I felt uncomfortable witnessing this moment unfold in the online classroom. Not because I found fault with the teacher’s approach or action. I was uncomfortable because I am not a member of this community the teacher and students have struggled to form. I am not meant to be a witness to this moment when the child cried and said, “my feelings are hurt.” I was an intruder witnessing something that normally would have happened in the closed atmosphere of the physical classroom that only the teacher and children would inhabit. This is a community that in pre-SIP times would have been off limits to parents/guardians.

Preschool and Kindergarten are intended to help begin the gradual process of children becoming independent from their parents/guardians by giving them the opportunity to make mistakes and successes in a safe environment. These kinds of experiences are meant to be a part of the stepping-stones of creating independent kids who can think, learn, and mentally process situations on their own and make their own decisions. According to Psychology Today’s article Parenting: Raising Independent Children, raising an independent child means “you gave your children the freedom to experience life fully [without constant parent interference] and learn its many important lessons.” (1) We are not meant to be made aware of all these experiences until we are told about them later by our children and hear their thoughts about the experience or answer any questions they have. Going to school away from the home is a part of the freedom we give our children to aid their psychological development in becoming fully functional human beings. Online Kindergarten at home is not always conducive to encouraging such independence. In fact, it is quite the opposite.  

In the early months, online kindergarteners relied heavily on their parents to help them navigate through the online world and learn how to use software tools. Many of these programs were aimed towards children who have some reading skills or used programs similar to them in the past like Leap Frog. The truth that many districts overlooked is that the majority of kindergartners have never used a computer let alone have regular access to one. Parents/guardians had to help their children learn to use a stylus or track pad and read directions on how to do an assignment. The manual dexterity needed to use these tools to complete assignments are not developed yet in many kindergartners. Not to mention the fact most kindergartners do not know how to read. How can they be expected to know what to do without the constant attention from an adult? This prevents the child from moving forward in gaining independence from their parents. The added hours parents/guardians needed to put in to help children learn how to use these tools and navigate software programs made parents become more involved than expected.   

Now that the routine has been established though, loosening the stings has commenced for some parents/guardians in various ways. Some parents/guardians leave the room where the child has class for various period lengths of time to do their own work or chores around the house. Others have pods where the kindergartner goes to a guardian’s house to have class away from their parent so the parent can do work. While this might seem like the child has some separateness from the parents, it is still clear the parent/guardian is nearby. The parent/guardian cannot really be away since there are still glitches that occur requiring an adult to help. The student is forced to continuously rely on their parent/guardian because they do not have the capability yet to solve technical glitches. 

I consider my involvement in Carmen’s virtual classroom community to be a glitch in this process of her development. Since beginning Online Kindergarten, I try to give my daughter space by not always being near the vicinity of her sitting at her laptop. I mainly want Carmen to feel she has a world separate from me that she feels is very own. Her own special time surrounded by friendships she started to form on her own with classmates and a teacher who is not her mother. Nevertheless, she knows I am always close by. Carmen has told me it helps bring her comfort knowing she can call for me when strange dialogue boxes appear on her laptop screen. She has grown to become dependent on me in this area of her life. I know this makes her luckier than other children who are left alone at home or outside of restaurants to get internet access so they can attend class. I still can’t stop wondering what all of this means when she returns to the physical classroom. I find an old saying applies well to this situation: we will find out down the road. I just wish I could confidently say there is good progress occurring in Online Kindergarten.  

1. _{Parenting; Raising Independent Children. Are you raising responsible independent or contingent children? Psychology Today. “Parenting: Raising Independent Children. Are you raising responsible or contingent children.” Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-power-prime/201011/parenting-raise-independent-children. Accessed 12/4/2020}

Getting back on the job market after being on maternity leave is hard enough. But when you are looking for a job with flexible hours that will let you drop and/or pick-up your child from child care, or, participate in your child’s classroom occasionally, the availability of these jobs tend to disappear. When I originally left for maternity leave from my job as a program coordinator at an all women’s college, it was assumed that I would return to work on a reduced hour basis to accommodate childcare. Many departments at the college were accustomed to this practice as long the work was completed and meetings were scheduled during a time that worked for all. It was considered a standard practice. I left for maternity leave with that understanding. My immediate boss, however, had different plans.

I returned to the college at the end of my maternity leave for a formal meeting to discuss my new schedule and begin notifying people of my return to aid in my catching up with the newest campus policies and gossip. What happened next still shocks my former colleagues when we talk about. My immediate boss thought the best compromise was to have a crib in my office so the baby can stay with me while I did my work starting from 8:30 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. and evenings to facilitate workshops. I was shocked to hear these words. It is completely unprofessional to have a crib in your office or expect to have a baby in a college environment for a full day. I mentioned the inappropriateness of this idea and instead proposed a scheduled where I work from home one day a week and leave the office at 4 p.m. four days out of the week. Or, work three full days and two half days with the understanding I would still facilitate the evening workshops on the full days I worked. I also mentioned other program coordinators have done this in their own departments at the college without hindering the needs of students. Many coworkers expected me to have a schedule like this for a semester or two until my child was older and they were fine with it. My boss did not like my idea.

He made it clear that he did not want to spend more than a few hours a week at our department doing administrative work. It was my job description to be there full-time and holding evening workshops. He felt by having a crib that he would pay for was generous on his part. I quickly realized that my boss felt inconvenienced by my becoming pregnant and did not want to compromise. I respectfully told him that I would not be returning to my job if this was his expectation. He dismissed me and asked me to go to HR. I later learned from a friend in HR that he was reprimanded for his comments, but that was it. There was nothing in my contract that said the college had to put me on reduced hour work shift since I had no current medical condition or immediate emergency that required my boss to agree to a reduced hour schedule. Many former colleagues all said they were shocked that he didn’t follow the standard practice at the school and was willing to let me go since many felt I was a valuable part of the team.

Luckily, my husband worked as a software engineer for a big company in San Francisco to help pay our bills and I had contacts whom helped me find a part-time teaching gig to help me keep a foot in the working world. We had to change our budget and rely on my in-laws for babysitting help, but we made it work. Unfortunately, there are many women and families who are not as fortunate as us, especially now that COVID-19 has become a part of life.

Prior to COVID-19, work culture in academia was not as flexible or easy as it liked to portray itself to be. There were no long-term contracts or benefits for teaching adjuncts or part-time staff. Everything is still a semester-by-semester basis and classes can be canceled up to the first day of school leaving instructors in a lurch with no income. The number of classes available to teach are based on the enrollment number of students at the start of each semester. To this day, adjuncts and part-time staff are often not warned ahead of time to prepare for the possibility of suddenly not having a job. However, as the economy began to take a hit, I could see the writing on the wall.

Slowly, adjunct and part-time positions began to disappear. Some contracted instructors and part-time employees for summer and fall semesters were sent emails informing them there were no available classes or students to teach like they originally thought there would be. I was starting a transition from teaching in higher ed to start teaching high school students in a tutoring capacity. Once shelter-in-place began, those with jobs in education began a complicated dance where some were thrust into online teaching with little to no training. Some were told there was employment for them as the school thought there would be. As a result, offers of employment had to be rescended. Others lost their jobs because students could not be held in the physical location of the school. I was not able to begin working with high school students. The school that hired me to tutor high school students has kept me on as a paper hire and wait listed to teach as soon as their numbers rise again. Priority had to be given to full-time employees to ensure their contracts were met. This was a common message heard by many.

The original objective of this blog was to post research and stories about women, especially women of color, who work are part-time in academia or trying to return to full-time work in education after taking maternity leave living in California’s Bay Area and explore what the future lies for us. However, in the course of me updating my blog and observing what is happening around us, I think it is important to chronicle, explore, and encourage discussion because the results of COVID-19 and Shelter-in-Place policies are changing the landscape. I hope my blog can help further discussion and maybe add a bit of information to fill the cracks that are not always at first noticed but can lead the road to a more fruitful perspective down the road.