In my classmate Allie’s post, Virtual Classes, Allie comments on the increase of people taking online classes at all levels of education and states that though she thinks online classes are beneficial for students in high education, she believes it is bad for elementary school children to take online classes. While I agree with Allie that it is bad for young children to get their education from online classes, I disagree with her reasons why.
Allie’s believes that it isn’t good for an elementary school child’s development for them to learn online instead of in a classroom saying that the child will not be able to socialize with other children their age. As someone who was homeschooled from kindergarten though high school, I know from personal experience this isn’t true. Even though I didn’t take any online classes in elementary school, I also didn’t do any of my learning in a classroom with other children, besides my siblings. I was far from lacking socialization, though, because there are many other ways for children who don’t go to a traditional school to socialize. These things include being on a sports team, going on field trips with other homeschoolers, or simply having play dates with other homeschool families. This means that even though a child may take all their classes online, they don’t have to miss out on socializing with other children.
Another reason Allie says learning online is bad for a young child is because they may not learn how to act in a classroom setting. I didn’t take any classes in a classroom setting until I started high school, but I didn’t have a problem adjusting to that type of learning. In fact, I was better prepared for learning in a classroom setting because I knew how to pace my homework, a skill that was very important since my classes were at a homeschool co-op that only met once a week.
Being able to choose when I started taking classes in a classroom setting also gave my parents and I the opportunity to choose the best teachers for me, something we wouldn’t have been able to do in a traditional school. Allie says that a child who has trouble keeping up with the pace of learning in a kindergarten class will be put into a class that better suits her needs, but unfortunately this is a very romanticized view of public schools. A child has to have very serious problems to be put into one of these classes. My cousin had trouble keeping up and paying attention in his kindergarten class and got notes sent home to his parents very often, but because his problems were due to the fact that he was a five year old boy instead of a serious condition, he wasn’t put in any special class. He ended up having to repeat kindergarten, something that could have been avoided if he had been in an environment suited to his needs. Putting a child in a class room with just one teacher who may or may not be suited to teach him does not mean he will have a good learning experience.
Even though I disagree with Allie about why it is bad for elementary school age children to take online classes, I do agree that it is not the best type of learning for them.
For children in early childhood (ages zero to eight) the way they learn best is through hands-on experience. When I was that age most of my learning came from home science experiments like growing sugar crystals or playing with “gloop” (a mixture of water and corn starch), field trips to museums or parks, and even just talking to the people we met while out shopping. In fact I didn’t even start reading until I was seven, but by the age of ten I was a very avid reader. In public schools children are required to know how to read by the end of kindergarten yet many of them end up being below the level their grade requires them to read at. I don’t think their is any certain age that a child needs to know how to read, and some of my siblings knew how to read at a younger at then I did, but we all started learning when we were ready, which is the most important thing. This just shows that during the early childhood years all children learn at different paces and so the best thing is for them to be in a situation that can easily adapt to fit their individual needs. I don’t think that an online class fits these needs because, like a classroom setting, the learning won’t be hands-on or suited to fit the needs of the individual child.
Though Allie’s topic is an important issue that needs to be discussed because it pertains to our whole education system, not just online learning. Her post, however, lacks any mention of why this has to do with the government. If Allie is viewing online classes as public school at home, then I assume that she wants the government to stop offering online classes as public education for elementary school children. Most online providers, however, aren’t public schools that have gone online, they are private schools. This would mean the child would either be considered to be going to a private school or being homeschooled, neither of which the government can deny them, so there really isn’t much the government can do. This is an crucial issue to discuss with talking about education, I don’t think it’s an issue that the government needs to be involved with, it is an issue that parents and children need to decide for themselves.
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