So, earnest questions based on this input:

Is it really the technology itself that is the problem, or the lack of access to that technology that means that some students have access to things other students do not? Given equal circumstances (all students have a laptop, broadband internet access for said laptop, electrical power and a place to set up at home to do the work) would the tech still have an unequal impact on those who have more trouble learning?

Personally I've never been a fan of "distance" communication anyway. I dislike phones, I absolutely detest one-on-one video conferencing/calls and meetings/conference calls through things like teams can f*ck right off imho. I can imagine for some kids (regardless of "socio-economic background") this "distance learning" just doesn't work at all. I doubt I'd have made it through school with the grades I did if I'd have had to deal with that even apart from all the other personal stuff that meant I finished with good grades instead of what might have been "cum laude".

I was a crap student at school even in a class with a teacher, I despised the notion of spending all day at school and then doing more hours of homework, so, in a situation like the pandemic I would have been out on my bike with a camera.

I imagine that without the discipline of a classroom environment many kids will be less than inspired to work.

With the benefit of hindsight, if it looks as though LFH (learning from home) will continue to be a thing in the future, teachers need specific training to manage it and lesson formats need to be developed to fit online learning.

The bottom line though, is to get kids back into school where discipline, a learning environment, peer pressure, the personal presence of an authority figure all contribute to kifs doing the work.

At the age of 7 (local authority experiment for heavily dyslexic kids) I was always a hands on kind of child.

As such being given all work via a laptop at first would have been fascinating but after the first week or two I'd want to be back playing with the toys the school had. I mean think about it, does everyone's home have a science lab, a music room (soundproofed so your Dad working shifts isn't woken up again, ratty as hell), a Design and Tech rooms with etch tanks, soldering irons and metal workshops?

Not everyone learns by sitting still. Some of us do so much better by doing, not reading.

" Not everyone learns by sitting still. Some of us do so much better by doing, not reading. "

Whether primarily based on doing or reading, real learning starts with having to work out how to do . The basic paradigm of most mass education systems is defective. It assumes that [1] "everyone" can make effective use of the same message; [2] being told something and remembering it is equivalent to knowledge of it; [3] commonly, that nobody should be allowed to "fail" as it's bad for their psyche.

The reality of knowledge is that it's demonstrated by the result - being able to use it effectively in novel circumstances, and that capacity is to a great extent acquired by having to solve problems. Consequently, failures are not only inevitable in the path to knowledge, they're essential - provided there's an opportunity to correct them and learn from them without censure.

I guess its not technology in itself that's the problem, the underlying issue is, and will always be, inequality. However, when all pupils go to class physically, the teacher can act as an equalizer, furthermore, the weaker learners may also profit from their stronger learning peers. Who hasn't experienced the following: you explain something that you merely understand to a colleague who has no clue, and the act of explaining and the colleagues questions give you more insight.

With distance or hybrid learning every pupil is on his/her own. Alone in the bedroom, in front of a laptop without the constant feedback of teacher and classmates.

Motivation? You're on your own, kiddo. No peers to do the homework with.

Why tech wides the educational divide, imho, is the reliance on tech, and not the existence of it.

Agree, it's not the tech itself that widens the gap, it's all the ancillary stuff around it. But you can't isolate the tech from the capability to use it. And schools can't just assume that if students have laptops they can do the work.

You need good broadband, power, dedicated space/room +desk. To do it properly, students also would benefit from external keyboard / mouse / screen. Also, you got to have all students on camera, and a giant screen /s on the teacher side so they can see all the students.

All of which is much more accessible to students from richer families

Teachers also need to be accountable as well. During home learning I saw some absolutely terrible "lessons" delivered - which were nothing more than a PowerPoint and a few questions.

Some of the older teachers, who refused to even look at more modern teaching methods and the use of SharePoint & Teams long before lockdown, seemed to deliver lacklustre lessons - pretty much the same as the ones they'd have done if they were in school, whereas the younger teachers and NQTs delivered something more engaging and refreshing making the most of the technology.

> During home learning I saw some absolutely terrible "lessons" delivered - which were nothing more than a PowerPoint and a few questions.

You can't describe those lessons as terrible without knowing the learning objectives behind them. And you can't infer those from the PowerPoint(s) you saw (unless you are already an experienced teacher in which case you wouldn't be here making the point).

If the learning objective was “how to cope with business meetings, it was probably spot on!

As a kid in school I used Home Learning Packs - distance learning meant that I had to ride the bus to the town library to get four or five Home Learning Packs every week 60 years ago. Computers and technology are very useful for researching things which can lead to "education" but do not guarantee education. Reading books is a major factor because it takes a lot of effort and checks to get a book written, published, and proposed as part of the terms' lesson plans - so reading a book is far more educational then reading a post on the Internet at some social media site.

Getting the students to think is far more important - reading makes you think, tapping a keyboard pushes everyone in a different direction.

Reading. Oh yes.

And kids that have not been read stories when they were little, whose parents did not have the time (or ... well, whatever reasons) to do that, or to sit down and look at how letters form words, and show that wonderful world of literature, those kids have a harder start in school, are less likely to read for simple enjoyment, and will have a harder time to learn things that others just pick up because they read books, about nature, science, adventures, or just the instruction manual of the new oven, because "hey, it is a wirtten thing, I must read everything written, might be interesting".

And then there are actually parents who do not want their kids to take part in programs that promote reading, who do not want to spend the fiver on a cheap kids book (but have a five packs a day smoking habit), or just don't see the point in going to the town's library with their kids. Inequality in the education system starts early.

I used to smoke 5 packs per day. Today, that would cost ~$200/month. do you know how many books you can buy for $200/month??? More than any extremely motivated child could read.

In my own personal opinion, inequality in education systems only had to last one generation for it to impact everyone until the end of time...unless the victims take it upon themselves to rectify the situation and as long as ignorance isn't fatal, this isn't likely to be a strived-for outcome.

Kids who don't complete Home Learning Packs lack a role model at home that ensures these assignments get done. I did a stint upgrading teachers' desktop PCs at a high school a few years back before the pandemic. The students who had the most difficulty behavior wise and grade wise also had parents who wouldn't reply to emails or letters sent home requesting to meet with them. It's almost as if once they breed them they expect the school to raise their kids for them. Bad home life equals bad school life.

It might well be faulty parents. However, working out who to blame doesn't solve the actual problem at hand (and the subsequent difficulties, that affect both the pupil and society, that follow in later years).

The real question should be -- How do we *fix* the educational divide?

> The real question should be -- How do we *fix* the educational divide?

Do you have a month or so to type the list while I dictate?

In two dimensions

1. help parents to cope with life ("faulty" parents are often struggling to cope, because they were not prepared by their own parents)

2. help kids to find a productive outlet that suits them, and also coach them in coping with life

I'm deliberately using the word "coach" here because it is way different to academic learning - it's very relationship-based.

Some years ago I had the opportunity to help a little charity called CHEXS with website matters, and the above 2 points are nicked from their approach.

CHECKS was started by a teacher trying to prevent kids from getting excluded from school. They found that about half the time it was the kids who had issues, half the time it was the parent's issues that were messing up the kids.

So their strategy is to help with parents manage finances & not get stressed out by life. For the kids they run activities that develop a sense of self-worth and achievement (adventure stuff, etc.).

Although their reach is small - only kids at risk of exclusion - and it takes a lot of time to help these youngsters, the principle could be extended to other kids who are not doing well at school.

Mandatory pre-school for the parents (both of them together, even if they are divorced) where they learn how to best guide their sprog through school and what will be expected of THEM by the school during every year of their growth. Preferably to be completed before their sprog has their first real school day. With a refresher coarse every year. (again, mandatory).

And if you can't afford to spend that many days, well, don't have kids!

but what were the better alternatives during lockdown?

Not locking down the schools: see Denmark, Sweden, et al. for data on this.

Of our kids, one is at a grammar and the other at a comp.

The comp. had a program to provide laptops for the kids, the grammar didn't.

Either way, both our kids had 3 year old laptops and they sat side by side at the table (the one where we normally eat).

Quality of lessons was similar and both kids learned pretty well under the circumstances.

At the end of the day there is a result outcome between grammar and comp, which is simply that only kids in the top 30% academically get to go the grammar - so no surprise, grammar results are higher than those of the comp. And of course expectations are higher at the grammar - more "push" for the grades.

IMO the bottom line here is that without direct supervision, teachers are much less able to carry the dis-interested kids along with the online lessons. That is not necessarily an artifact of technology, just absence of face-to-face contact (would the the same for education by correspondence). Especially for the kids who are motivated by personal contact.

>. And of course expectations are higher at the grammar - more "push" for the grades.

At the local girls' Catholic grammar school they insisted that the students wore school uniform during the school day while working from home. And after a few weeks they had a random "Girls, please stand up" just to make sure it was full uniform. :-)

And if the child had been wearing nothing more than the shirt? Would everyone on the video call been prosecuted as a sex offender?

Problems on both sides, it was a huge rushed job, some teachers and students go on OK others did not. Some kids can be left to so stuff on their own and some not.

My daughter was one of a handful who loved being home, being left alone to just get on with the work without a load of noise and classroom racket, some days I didn't even know she was home or out as it was so quite upstairs! So many kids she knew didn't bother to hand it in, the school had to have sessions to herd all the kids and parents to tell them that there were X number of assignments that needed to be finished. My daughter said that most saw it as an extra long holiday, sit up until 3am playing games or binging Netflix, sleep through the online lessions with the camera off, put in the minimum work that afternoon, just enough to get by without getting caught.

A think a whole generation is going to be in a bit of a state after all this and the effect it had on their education, especially if they were lined up for exams during all this.

Rather than the uneager being less inclined, perhaps the more eager are also getting better

I know when I was at school at least half of every lesson was the teacher fighting with those who thought it was cool to not know anything and be disruptive, who in my school were the loud majority. Sometimes we had to sit and read a book or something while the teacher caught up some of my peers who just didn't get the beginner concept of something even though they may have tried.

Without all of this distraction, if a lesson was pre-planned and interactive and i didn't necessarily need to wait for the teacher I could see myself being better off while the teacher gave other students time they needed

Been teaching for 10 years. Trying to teach online sucks big time. Because cameras were off, you could not see the puzzled look, or that light bulb moment when a student was either confused , or got it so you could adjust. Because for my sins I teach IT, and trying to teach programming remotely was even more difficult given we were doing the paper, phone laptop shuffle as well.

Because in our case everything was rushed, yes some dreadful lessons went out at first, and it would have been nice to teach the kids a lesson on how to submit work on Google classroom or MS teams, or even do something as mundane as zipping a file so they could attach it to their assignment

Remote schooling is terrible, but this is not a technological problem. Or, rather, it is a technological problem only in the sense that "where is my fission-powered flying car?" is a technological problem. The real problem is that you are not requesting tech, you are requesting magic.

Current tech is just not capable of effectively replacing large meetings (such as a classroom). It's not even close. It should not be asked to attempt it. It only appears to sort-of work for business environments because nobody really expects large business meetings to be productive anyway.

Now, circumstances are sadly exceptional, and we have had to make do with remote schooling. But that only made sense because there was no alternative; it's damage mitigation.

Meanwhile the Open University has reported record student numbers and very little disruption to their courses - but they've been teaching remotely for 50 years and charge less for a degree (£6000ish).

So it can be done, but you can't just do it at the drop of a pandemic.

...There are no Technology solutions to People problems.

I know the feeling. I have been at my job for almost a year and half and have never been inside the building and have only met two of my coworkers face-to-face.

I think also the attitude of schools/teachers to what could be done in the situation also had an impact.

I remember last May we had a local "socially distanced" street "party" on the VE day 50th anniversary and I heard the son of our neighbours complaining - he was in GCSE year but his teachers at the local state school (who are probably the top ranking state school in the city) had basically told him "school is sending everyone home, you'll have no exams so you've got a 6 month holiday - aren't you lucky!". He was angry befause he had friends who went to a local private school and were still being taught so that they could both finish and master all the GCSE syllabus + get a head start on A-levels. He basically saw this as being unfair and that he was being left behind because his teachers had basically abandoned him.

Meanwhile, as a further contrast, we know someone who teaches in a private boarding school here which is another level up in the school rankings ... not only were they doing the full teaching program on-line but they were also often doing lessons twice to cope with the large number of overseas students that had gone home with a morning lesson for UK, European and Asian puplis and a late afternoon repeat for pupils in the Americas.