Learning from home is going as Katharine Camarena of Burr Ridge expected.
“I knew it was going to be hard,” said Camarena, who has four children ages 2 to 8.
For her two oldest, a first- and third-grader at Gower West Elementary School, the transition from learning in a classroom with their peers to learning at home has not been easy.
In school, the children move through various activities, reading by themselves, then a group lesson, then go to the science/technology lab, Camarena said.
“They are never expected to sit in front of a computer at the kitchen table” for all their schoolwork, she said.
Keeping her children engaged and working on their lessons is the hardest part for Camarena, who works part-time as a nurse.
“Sixty to 70 percent of the time, they feel they need me to be there with them,” Camarena said. “I feel my function is primarily to keep them on task. If I walk away, they tend to stray away.”
In the classroom, they can see the other students listening to the teacher or doing an activity and follow suit.
At home, they are watching their 2- and 4-year-old sisters play games, watch TV, do puzzles and they don’t want to be engaged (with lessons), Camarena said. “It’s a little like herding kittens.”
Urszula Tanouye, who has a second-grader in Concord Elementary School in Darien, said a month into remote learning, “We are starting to hit our stride,” although her son Calvin’s interest in online learning is starting to wane a bit.
Calvin, 7, admits he would rather be in school because there are too many distractions at home.
“There’s snacks and my sister is playing, and my dad is doing work, and there are so many books in my room I can read,” Calvin said.
Tanouye and Camarena appreciate how well prepared their school districts were for learning from home.
Students in school districts, such as Cass 63, which includes Concorde school, and Gower District 62 have been using Chromebooks in their classrooms and at home for years. And the staff had developed online lessons and used them previously for emergency days off and other situations, Camarena said.
When schools across the state closed due to the coronavirus, District 63 students were sent home with books, printouts and other materials.
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“I got an entire grocery bag full,” Tanouye said. It took a little time to sort through all the worksheets, she said, but she applauds the teachers’ preparation.
Teachers are telling parents what the students should be doing and how long each assignment should take, Camarena said, although her children have been taking longer to finish work than predicted.
The teachers also try to break up the monotony of sitting in front of their Chromebooks.
“The teacher would say, ‘Do assignments A and B and C. Now it’s time for a brain break, so watch this video from Go Noodle,'” a website focused on movement, such as dancing and yoga for children, Camarena said. “It lets them get the wiggles out.”
Her husband, who manages family-owned businesses, works with the older kids from about 8:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., which gives Camarena time to do laundry and housework, and then he goes to work.
Camarena takes over anywhere from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m., depending on when they have lunch.
“I want to have them done by 2 p.m.,” Camarena said. That’s the schedule Monday through Thursday, as Gower District 102 is doing remote learning just four days a week.
Western Springs School District 101 uses remote learning five days a week, but the time spent is much less than if the children were in school, said Megan Joern, who has daughters in kindergarten, second and fourth grades at Laidlaw Elementary School.
Kindergarteners are expected to do schoolwork an hour a day, and the other children about two hours a day. The school posts a list of the assignments for the week and for the day, Joern said.
“Each day has must-do activities and may-do activities. Most of the must do is math and reading,” she said. Science activities and additional assignments are on the may do list.
Her daughters work at the dining room table, except when the older ones have to make a video of themselves, which they do in their bedrooms.
Her fourth-grade daughter, for example, had to dress up like someone famous who would be in a wax museum and record herself with her Chromebook. Livia chose to be Princess Diana and her mother found a black dress and vintage jewelry, including pearls, for her to wear. The students then posted their videos online where their teacher and classmates could see them.
Carrie Molinero, a second-grade teacher at Madison School in Hinsdale-Clarendon Hills Elementary District 181, said the technology part of online learning is more challenging for many of the younger students.
“Most of the older kids are pretty tech savvy, but it can be more of a struggle for the younger kids, so we have to be more flexible because they aren’t in their comfort zone.”
“There are challenges or everyone, but the older students are able to work more independently,” said David Moyer, superintendent of Elmhurst Unit District 205, which has students in early childhood through high school. Teachers in his district have been using Google Classroom and the Seesaw learning app, and are working on a plan for to use Zoom for interaction with students.
“A very big issue now is that for kids that struggle the most, those gaps will be exasperated,” Moyer said. “More kids will not be at grade level. We’ll have to get creative, but we don’t know, yet, what we’ll be able to do over the summer.”
Parents and children said what the kids miss most is interacting with their classmates in person.
Mira Joern, who is in second grade, said her favorite part of remote learning is the virtual chats when she can see her friends and teacher.
Mira has such online chats twice a week, Joern said, while her fourth-grader has daily online visits with his teachers and fellow students, and the kindergarteners have an online visit once a week.
Calvin Tanouye, 7, said, during his class’ online visits they sometimes discuss the technical problems they are having and the teacher tries to help them.
Second-graders at Madison School have an online group Zoom meeting for 30-60 minutes three days a week. Additional online video chats are scheduled as needed.
“It’s not just about the language arts or math,” Molinero said. “We’re doing daily feelings check-ins because some of them struggle emotionally.
“The confidence they get all the time from their teachers in the classroom, telling them they’ve done something well, isn’t there now, so we need to try to make them as confident as possible,” she said.
Many children are terrified of getting the coronavirus or that someone in their family will get it, Molinero said.
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It’s important for parents and teachers to remember that having children keep a schedule for online learning and otherwise is very beneficial for them, she said.
Hugh Ascher, a sixth-grader at Clarendon Hills Middle School in District 181, said he finds online learning to be a very different experience than being in the classroom, but believes both experiences lead to the same road.
“We’re still learning, just in a different way than we do at normal school,” he said. “I don’t think we’ll fall too far behind.”
“The best part of it is I get to work in a place I’m really comfortable, either in the basement or the dining room table,” he said. “The worst part is I don’t get to see my friends,” other than in online class meetings through Google Meet.
“Teachers have been really good about keeping in-touch with us and responding to emails when we send questions to them,” Hugh said.