[jwally]

Texas, Dallas: Nothing ground breaking, but I'll provide my anecdote as a possible antidote to survivor-bias:

I have 3 kids (5,3,1). The 5 year old was supposed to start public school this year, but her pre-school opened up a private kindergarten and we opted in.

When the pandemic first broke, we pulled our kids out for 2 months and it was hard for us and them. My wife worked in the morning when I had the kids and we swapped at noon, and finished up work after we put the kids down for bed.

We tried following some sort of curriculum for the first 2 weeks, but it fell apart pretty quick and devolved into me throwing the kids in a wagon and walking around the neighborhood then going in the backyard and pushing them on a swing. Anytime I had a meeting in the morning or my wife had one in the afternoon, we'd plop them in front of the TV then struggle pulling them away from it afterwards (google wifi is great for deus-ex-machina internet outages...).

It stings having to pay an extra $15k / yr, but for our kids learning and mental health I'd happily pay double. In my humble opinion, our teachers don't make near enough for the service they provide.

[bertjk]

> we'd plop them in front of the TV then struggle pulling them away from it afterwards (google wifi is great for deus-ex-machina internet outages...).

I can totally relate. One day our kids will figure out that our fiber internet service is actually quite reliable, and that I've been using the ASUS router app to disconnect specific devices at needed times. My 9 year old is starting to suspect something is amiss. "Daddy, can you stop buying chromebooks? Maybe you should buy another brand. It stops working all the time but your computer never stops working."

[Tempest1981]

Really struggling with Zoom on a Dell Chromebook. It's 7-10 FPS, and outbound audio quality is often unusable. It shows this warning: "You CPU usage is affecting meeting quality". I guess it lacks a decent CPU to do video.

Closing all other apps helps a bit; I guess it lacks RAM too, or is using CPU to compress RAM? Still, sometimes outbound audio gets 5-30 seconds behind. Very disjoint experience. Not meant for the Zoom era.

[ta17711771]

Tell them no.

[mm89]

> It stings having to pay an extra $15k / yr, but for our kids learning and mental health I'd happily pay double.

Austinite here w/family in Dallas. Dallas is unusual compared to Austin/Houston in that nearly anyone coming from a wealthy family living in Dallas proper goes to private schools. I'm not from Dallas but have friends who attended Hockaday, Ursuline, Jesuit, and BL. I always thought it was really odd how many of them went to private school versus my Houston-area friends, who nearly all attended public schools in the suburbs, or one of the better inner-city public schools like Memorial or Lamar. Don't know as much about Austin but from what I hear the public schools here are pretty great too.

[jwally]

I've been in Dallas since '07, and I still don't understand the school system / hierarchy here; but it is fascinating when you look into it.

Big money seems to go to Highland Park (public, but not Dallas despite being surrounded by it), or private (St. Marks, Jesuit, Hockaday). The fascinating part is when you look at school data, there are some stellar elementary schools in areas you wouldn't expect (lakewood), but the same area has sub-par middle-schools. I've known parents to send their kids to public elementary schools for this reason then put them in private afterwards. Then there are the magnet schools which is where my eyes start to cross and I lose interest (why is a 7 year old going to an engineering oriented school? Shouldn't they all be exposed to this?).

[actfrench]

Did you have any luck with digital apps or youtube videos? I've found that some tools are much more effective for personalized, independent learning than others - whereas others require much more parent or teacher involvement. The more they resemble tools used in school, the more work the parent has to do to understand them because they utilize specific methods that have been standardized as teaching methods for group classes to benefit the maximum number of students well (but not necessarily individual students well). Then, in addition to knowing the material, the person facilitating has to understand that specific teaching method (like common core teaching techniques).

As a teacher, I've found that most kids either respond best to digital apps , videos or building stuff for independent learning.

If your kids like TV, they might respond really well to Khan Academy or some of the extraordinarily wonderful educational youtube videos out there. I myself used to be resistant to TV, but then I saw how much vocabulary and science especially our 3 year old was learning from his videos, and I started to change my opinion. I also find that if I let him watch as many shows as he wants, he'll eventually get bored and want to do something else.

If it's of interest to you I've spent the last couple months curating a list of my all-time favorite educational youtube channels for kids. The factors I used for vetting them were that they were 1) secular 2) mastery-based 3) fun and engaging for kids 4) scientifically accurate

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_x3VzF6ifPzFJARuqMulSQ/cha...?

You might be interested to know there's a whole group of homeschoolers that do their entire schooling around youtube videos and documentaries and are really happy with the results they're seeing in their kids. It's often called "documentary schooling"

In the film, class dismissed, the mom gets really frustrated because she feels like her kids are "just watching youtube" all day. Then she goes upstairs and finds out her younger daughter has taught herself sign language. I think sometimes don't give our kids enough credit for the natural curiosity and where it can take them!

Here's a few other groups focused on documentary or youtube schooling:

Homeschooling with Netflix and other secular media https://www.facebook.com/groups/267905676686095/

homeschooling with Netflix https://www.facebook.com/groups/homeschoolingwithnetflix/

Also check out "Gameschooling" if your kids like video games or board games:) https://www.facebook.com/groups/GameschoolMyLittlePoppies/

Also, I agree with you - teachers are incredible. A 15k education is well worth the price.

[jwally]

This is awesome info. Literally bookmarking this. Thanks! To your point, my kids fell in love with "Blaze and the monster machines" (a nickelodeon production that I actually like) and the 3 year old would talk about concepts from the shows for weeks after (centripetal force, reciprocating saws, stabilizer legs, metal = hard).

[snowwrestler]

We took our kid to a county park where they keep some animals that were too injured to return to the wild, and give talks about them, etc. My kid was answering a lot of the questions and the presenter said "wow, you know a lot of about animals!"

"That's because I watch so much TV!!" my kid said proudly.

Bit of a cringe moment in front of the other parents, but then again, my kid did know all the answers...

(The relevant TV show is "Wild Kratts" on PBS and pbskids.org.)

[actfrench]

My kids LOVE Wildkratts too (which is also on youtube by the way)

Recently, they've really gotten into live animal cams and zoo channels on youtube.

[was_boring]

Don’t worry about that. One of the reasons I got really into STEM at a young age was because of educational programs. Started with Magic Schoolbus, graduated to Bill Nye and copious amounts of Discovery (90s when it tried to stay about science)

[actfrench]

We live in a digital age. It's better to help kids learn to navigate technology effectively then pretend that it doesn't exist. And one of the huge advantages is they have access to the best educational programming available at the tap of a finger. Rather than wait for a teacher to teach them, they can follow their own natural curiosity to learn whatever interests them in a given moment. A challenge with technology is that it can become more of entertainment and stop kids from thinking for themselves (same for adults)! I find it helpful to sometimes engage with my child when they're watching TV to nurture our own connection and also encourage him to think critically. Sometimes he yells at me and then I go away;) But hey, I do the same when someone interrupts me when I'm trying to work! It's also often a nice bonding experience. Generally after an hour or so my child asks to play at the park. When I don't tell him he can't watch TV, TV loses it's charge, so his natural desire to get a break from digital media is able to rise up in him without me forcing me to go away from it.

[actfrench]

I'd so glad it was helpful. Every child is differently and I'd be happy to help you out with some more personalized recommendations as well.