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Corona and schools: "I'm really afraid of January" - five minutes

2020-12-19T19:19:42.773Z


Most schools were recently closed and the children should study at home. It could continue like this in early 2021 - which is causing mixed feelings. Two mothers, two teachers and one student report.


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Family in homeschooling (symbol picture): Some fear that this will continue in January - others prefer learning at home to teaching in schools

Photo: vgajic / Getty Images

The new deadline for all those whose life revolves heavily around daycare centers and schools is January 10th.

Until then, the facilities should remain closed nationwide.

How it will continue after that is still in the fog.

However, some political voices are already promising: Classroom lessons with full classrooms and the usual timetable will not work.

Bavaria's Prime Minister Markus Söder said, for example, that he could not imagine "that everything will continue normally afterwards."

The virus doesn't know any data.

Countries like Lower Saxony have already determined that at least for a few years it will probably result in the changeover model.

Schleswig-Holstein designed different models depending on the infection process.

Accordingly, if the number of infections is high, distance teaching could continue from January 11th.

This is not only true in the north.

After the experiences of the past few days, some people look at this scenario with very mixed feelings.

What some long for creates great worry for others.

Two mothers, two teachers and a schoolgirl told SPIEGEL about their very personal experiences in the second school shutdown on the phone - and about their sometimes serious worries with a view to the end of the Christmas holidays.

"I'm really afraid of January"

Beatrix Hellwig

Photo: 

Private

Beatrix Hellwig, 40, four children, 5, 6, 8 and 10 years old, from Frankfurt am Main

“It was almost everything like it was in spring again.

Since Monday I have been sitting at the dining table with my three children, who are in 1st, 2nd and 4th grade, and have done homework with them for around two hours a day.

The two younger ones needed one hundred percent accompaniment.

I had to read the assignments to the first grader so she could do them at all.

I was able to keep my fourth child, five years old, busy with coloring pages for a while, but it's difficult when the little one gets so little attention.

Every now and then tears flowed, the children and I were tense.  

At the same time, I actually had to work in the home office as a consultant for a foundation.

Out of necessity, I did it in the morning from 5 a.m. to 7 a.m. and then somehow in between.

It's totally exhausting, also physically.

The fact that politicians assume that I can work at home and school my children at the same time is completely alien to life.

When I'm studying with the kids, I actually can't even go down to the basement to turn on the washing machine because they immediately quarrel or jump over the sofa.

Children need school in order to learn properly.  

The two younger ones at least had a video conference last week and had contact with classmates and teachers.

The eldest was supposed to log into a video conference every day at nine o'clock, but when schools across the country closed on Wednesday and switched to distance teaching, nothing went on at nine o'clock.

He didn't come in.

Later it worked again, but only with sound - without a picture.

It is difficult for younger children to focus on.  

I think it's good that these digital contacts now exist at all.

But the fact that politics in schools have failed in the past nine months is rather sobering.

A letter from the authorities said that schooling was still compulsory.

At the same time, it was said that I could only take my children to daycare and school in absolute emergencies.

I felt that was a huge emotional pressure.

At first I only brought her to the after-school care center in the afternoon, but there were no other children on Wednesday.

Just mine

I had to justify myself and didn't send them anymore.  

But does that mean I have to make sure that my children attend school at home?

The state cannot pass this task on to the parents.

My husband helps out, but because he works full-time and I work part-time, most of it sticks to me - as is the case with many women.

I feel let down by politics, especially when some promises shouldn't apply to parents in the home office.

I'm really scared of January.

If daycare centers and schools are to remain closed for longer, I don't know whether I can continue to provide care alongside work, whether I can do all of this or have to hire help.

I feel lonely.

I try to ignore the thought of January. "  

"I fear that politics will uphold the primacy of face-to-face teaching again"

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Ventilate and wear a mask (symbol image)

Photo: Daniel Bockwoldt / dpa

Teacher and mother from Baden-Württemberg, would like to remain anonymous:

»I look into January with a stomach ache because I fear that politics will then uphold the primacy of face-to-face teaching again.

As if the right to education could only be granted in a full classroom, in which children wear masks for hours and freeze because the window has to be constantly opened - in the absence of alternative concepts for health protection.

Students can't learn like that.

I teach English, but when we all wear masks I can barely hear the students and they can't understand me.

I then yell through my FFP2 mask.

We laugh, but I actually don't think it's funny.

I recently wanted to start a BBC report from the Internet so that the students could hear native speakers.

It's just stupid that we don't have a stable network at the school.

Recently, I have often been very worried about going to school because I am afraid of being infected there and carrying the virus into my family.

My children, 10 and 14 years old, are at risk.

The younger one has therefore been cared for at home by my mother, who is over 70, for weeks.

This is possible because the compulsory attendance was lifted a long time ago in Baden-Württemberg - except for me as a teacher, of course.

That's how I trained children in the classroom and at home.

I want to do this well, I don't email worksheets.

But that is a complete baiting.

You never do justice to everyone.

I don't know how long I can hold out.

At our school, we have a very good concept for distance teaching that works at least for older students.

Shortly before the first shutdown in March, we worked for two days and nights and, with the help of the administrator, set up a digital room for each class, in compliance with data protection regulations.

What just frustrated me terribly: We weren't allowed to use this model for everyone after the summer vacation because classroom instruction had to be given.

I did it anyway for students who were at home.

When the schools had to close after a long political procrastination and hanging game, it came as a surprise to us in the staff.

From then on, my lessons were completely based on this model.

I sat at home, and so did the students, and so we saw each other in video conferences at fixed times every day, as part of school hours.

When the students wanted to do something secret, they would turn me off every now and then.

That worked out very well.

One colleague even taught 'out of the box' while she was waiting for the result of her corona test. "

"The 'Digital Learning' project has unfortunately completely failed"

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Mother with child (symbol image)

Photo: MARIA ALEJANDRA CARDONA / REUTERS

Mother from Hessen, 45, would like to remain anonymous:

“My second grade daughter was given some worksheets to work on.

It is not really school, rather employment.

My son is in sixth grade at high school.

In the past few days, the school wanted to test what lessons can look like at a distance, because it does not assume that normal operations will resume in January.

But the 'digital learning' project has unfortunately completely failed.   

For example, my son was supposed to take part in the English meeting, but was kicked out after two minutes, probably because too many registered at the same time.

The teacher has invited to a Zoom conference for the next day, but it is questionable whether this is data protection compliant.

I am really annoyed that the schools are not better prepared and that the crisis management is so miserable.   

I work for a large authority that also had difficulties with video conferencing and digital work in the spring, but we have invested heavily and solved the problem.

Why was it overslept at the schools?

And why have they closed now, but not some authorities?

It's no more dangerous in the classroom than in the citizens' office!  

In addition, digitization is not enough.

A second grader cannot take part in video meetings at home alone and the twelve-year-old is not an IT crack either.

He's excited and needs help when he's thrown out of the system.

So everything stays with us parents again.

My husband and I work full time and now take turns.

He goes to the office in the morning, I in the afternoon.   

With three days before the Christmas holidays, I don't want to complain.

But if this continues in January, I'll be mad.

Because then it becomes difficult - for us parents and for the children.

They miss their friends very much.

My son is always on the phone and so keeps in touch.

After all, he discovered reading books for himself. " 

"I want my students to go to school once a day"

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Schoolchildren in Unterhaching (archive)

Photo: Sven Hoppe / DPA

Ruth Brenner, 61, special needs teacher at a primary and secondary school in Bavaria, staff councilor and active in the education and science union (GEW): 

“In Bavaria there was recently a bit of confusion as to whether we should now offer distance learning, i.e. digital learning via video switching, or distance learning, i.e. school-guided learning via worksheets at home.

There were contradicting announcements from politics - perhaps also because digital learning is not possible at some schools due to a lack of technical requirements.

We do have new laptops at our school, which we have now distributed to students in need in the second shutdown.

But these are not sufficient for all pupils in all schools.

Many students have a private device at home, but some have to share it with two or three siblings.

Still others don't have stable internet at home.

Therefore, as teachers, we cannot reach all students digitally at home.

They had to be telephoned after the Christmas break even now.

You can also hear from youth welfare offices that the corona crisis, and especially at Christmas, can lead to tense situations and even violence in families.

I haven't heard anything like this from 'my students', but things like that go through your head and you worry.

I very much hope that from January 11th we can at least teach in an alternating model.

For some students it would make sense to go to school at least once a day for two hours.

Many children need encouragement, the feeling that someone is there for them, sitting next to them, looking after them and knowing their problems.

Especially when parents can't help with learning.

You also have to consider that not all families speak German well.

Many children have only partially made up for the setbacks from the school closings in the spring.

One can imagine how difficult it is when first graders are repeatedly interrupted in the reading learning process.

We did have 'bridge offers', i.e. additional support hours, but many children were promptly catapulted out of the quarantine.

If the schools remain closed in the new year, there must be emergency groups for these particularly vulnerable children - regardless of the parents' occupation.

In addition, we finally need useful concepts for health protection in schools, for example enough FFP2 masks made available free of charge for pupils and teachers.

It's outrageous that the schools were fully operational for weeks - and we didn't even get the appropriate masks! "

"Big worries about upcoming exams"

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Joanna Kesicka

Photo: private

Jonna Kesicka, 19, student from Görlitz and chairwoman of the Saxony State School Council:

“The schools in Saxony have been closed since Monday.

Many teachers had this scenario in mind all along and provided us with assignments to review and consolidate material.

Unfortunately, that's not the norm.

Now I'm learning math one day, German the next, and so on.

I have to complete the tasks by a certain deadline and send them to the teacher.

It's similar to spring.

In addition, there should now actually be video conferences via the LernSax learning platform, but that didn't work at all.   

There were problems, among other things, because of a hacker attack.

The page could not be reached or only after a long wait.

Like many other students, I didn't have a single video switch.

In order to exchange ideas with classmates, I communicate a lot with them via messages.

I keep in touch with teachers by email.  

Compared to many other students, I'm still in good shape: I have my own laptop - and a reasonably stable internet.

This is exactly what many students in rural areas do not have.

At best, they can set up hotspots via their cell phones, and that can be expensive.

I know of students who couldn't even download a worksheet as a PDF.

Nobody can learn properly like this.  

In Saxony, the holidays would actually have ended on January 4th, now the local lessons will start again on January 10th at the earliest, possibly even later.

That means: even longer distance or alternating lessons.

As a result, many students are very concerned about their upcoming final exams this year.

For me, it's about graduation.

After the weeks of school closings in the spring, lessons in Corona mode and now the renewed shutdown, I fear that we are going to the exams at a disadvantage.

We urgently need compensation for the disadvantages and security of how things will continue and what we have to be prepared for.

We're excited about the Abitur anyway, the school closings are creating even more pressure. "  

Icon: The mirror

Source: spiegel

All life articles on 2020-12-19

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