Two months into online learning, one thing is clear: for thousands of students the method does not work • Some do not connect to the zoom;
Others put the teacher on silence and play
Maya, the mother of a sixth-grader, has already given up.
"Several times I caught him in the middle of a lesson in front of an open computer, but instead of studying or listening, he put the teacher on silence and watched videos of actors playing 'Fortnight.' Other times I realized he was playing on a smartphone during class. I was very angry with him once. I told him. "He's underestimating the teacher's time and I thought he would stop, but he keeps coming back to games because they are in front of his eyes. It's like letting a cat keep the cream.
Computing infrastructures for distance learning and alternative learning spaces during the Corona period // From the YouTube channel of the State Comptroller and Ombudsman
Maya's story is far from unusual.
Computer games, YouTube, phone messages and fatigue have made learning from home ineffective.
Many students do not appear in front of the screen in the morning at all and in fact "breeze" from the lessons in zoom, and of those who do appear, many connect technically, but their head is in a different place at all.
The Ministry of Education does not have a clear answer to the number of students who take part in virtual lessons.
Such an estimate could have come from conducting samples in schools or classrooms, comprehensive and up-to-date questionnaires for students, teachers and parents on the extent of the phenomenon and an attempt to address it.
In a survey conducted before the start of the current school year among about 1,000 parents of children studying zoom, only about 22% reported that their children did not attend a single session or participated in a small part or about half of the sessions.
But these are data that referred to a less busy study period.
A source in the education system, who is familiar with the current situation, said this week: "There are also cases where only about 50% of the students in the class actually take part in the class. The rest do not connect or actually do not really learn but the computer is on - but no one is behind the screen."
Ineffective learning
Schools know the problem closely.
"There is learning, but it is not effective long-term learning for all students," says Daphne, an educator and teacher at a high school in the center of the country. "Attended the class but was not really in it. Alternatively, I see a student who constantly moves his head in a different direction and returns it to the screen and then it is very clear that the whole class he sends messages and corresponds on the phone - which in class he could not do."
Excuses are not lacking.
"I've heard it all before," says Dafna, "students who just don't have internet, a technician who comes to fix something in their house or who has an initiated power outage. Some students admit and say 'I didn't wake up', 'I'm upside down' and don't go into class."
At the same time, the obligation to attend creates quite a bit of tension in the class: "We have a teacher in the class who is not ready for a student to sit in front of the computer without an open camera, she really insists. One student decided to do it and prove he can play computer games during class. "Open but not listening to the word. There is a very big difference between hearing the teacher and listening to him and understanding him."
"Some are ashamed in their home"
Another aspect of the problem has nothing to do with discipline.
"There are students who do not want to open a camera because of real hardship, students who are ashamed of themselves or in their home, and we know how to address that. These are big kids, parents are also very hard to influence. In the end, students are hard too, that's why we found other ways to be "As active as possible even without the camera. The lesson should be made attractive and interactive."
Also fundamentally breezes
Alongside the aforesaid, the taps from the classes in Zoom are settling for an increase in unjustified absences from the classes in the last five years.
Data, collected from hundreds of thousands of students even before the corona, showed that in 2019, half of the high school students in the Jewish sector "breezed" or "cut" from classes for no justifiable reason.
The faucets for no reason are common to all age groups, 26% of middle school students (7-9) admitted that they "fauced" for no justifiable reason and even 10% of elementary students did so.
Absence rate
While the education system does not know how to keep students close to the screens, it seems that the faucet methods themselves are becoming more sophisticated.
"We have a private group where we cover or back each other up," says Guy (pseudonym), 11th grade student. "If the teacher checks names, we immediately write in the group or call and tell a friend to connect.
In general, there are all kinds of 'breeze' methods: you can go to class, put on 'mute', turn off a camera and go back to sleep.
It is also possible to enter the class and after checking attendance to leave it, because no one checks names even at the end.
You can also say that there is a fault and there is currently no internet or electricity. "
"Teachers do not get over it"
According to Guy, not all teachers put in the same effort to check that the student is indeed in class.
"There are teachers whose classes we can just play 'Fortnight' with each other, be in front of the screen with a camera and headphones, but completely disconnected from the class."
Orr, a tenth-grade student, points to another loophole: teachers' technological training.
"Not all teachers understand how zoom works. There is an option to create a virtual background, so what I got to do was shoot a video of me looking at the camera and listening, transferring it to a computer, blocking the camera and projecting the video so the teacher thinks she sees me and doing other things. Busy with class, teaching, she sees us in small windows, there is no chance she will get over it. "