Transcript
Dija: COVID is actually one of the reasons why I got more into wanting to be a special education major. I had to help my brother. He's a regular functioning child. He's done everything, you know, he knows all the things, he knows how to maneuver a game system and all of that good stuff. He didn't know jack nothing on that computer.
Jennifer: Right.
Dija: Didn't know jack nothing. Having to supervise him while my mom was out doing stuff. Sitting next to him, a lot of the students that had their cameras on, they were sleep. They were not engaged.
Jennifer: And he was in first grade?
Dija: I think it was first. This is his first real year in school.
Jennifer: And they're sleeping.
Dija: So cute. Such a cute thing. But it's like, I would watch the teachers put them in breakout rooms. And it would be a different teacher with each group of the students. So I say all of the first grade classes together.
They would have three breakout rooms. The okay kids who are doing good who their parents are making sure they're doing everything. The okay kids who are, you know, they're kind of doing good, but you know, some of that grades are, and then it's the ones that's really falling.
They're still in that kindergarten mind. They're still babies. So watching that whole thing pan out, it was like, I need to get in here. I need to help. Let me do something. So now I'm one-to-one with students who are on the spectrum of autism and different disabilities.
Going back and rewinding and thinking about when my brother was in that pre k class, it was really first grade, but I felt like it was pre k.That pre k class, it just felt so invasive. It felt like the students didn't have anything. And I felt so bad.
Jennifer: Like, so how many kids were in the class ─
Dija: I’d say five to six.
A couple of them had like three students or like they would have some students just sit in a breakout room waiting for a teacher and that was like the students who which my brother ended up falling into the students who were below. They would give those students what they needed then move on to the next group. Give those students what they needed, move on to the next group and then that last group which would be the students who needed more help they would stay and They would like Let's say, for example, read a book. They stay, she read a book, they go on, um, what's it called, iReady. They go on iReady. You know the students have to do iReady by themselves, but the teachers would, like, walk them through different examples of the iReady. A first grader don't know what a damn example is,
Jennifer: They were completely confused.
Dija: You had to be your own one to one to your students. As a parent, you had to be your own one to one to a student. As a guardian, as an older sibling, I had to be my brother's own one to one. I had to explain this to him. He's going to first grade, so he's just learning how to read vocab Like, to the point where I have to read him. What is da da da da? He has to, you know, whatever, and it's like, full circle moment, because this is what I did in COVID, when it was with my little brother. So, yeah. Sat and helped him with assignments and sat and tried to understand what the teacher was teaching because I'm not in your class and Now I'm doing that same thing with students who have disabilities, so it's like if we give students this much support as we're giving the students that I work with now if we gave them that during covid they would thrive.
Jennifer: Right, Most kids will thrive, if you give them what they need. Like, so, so I'm confused, so when you helped him, and you were doing the one on one thing, were you supposed to be in your own classes?
Dija: yes, but you know,
It was to a point where I could text my friend. Hey, can you screenshot this? I need to help my brother. I would get the screenshot. I had the whole lesson.
Jennifer: Right, the whole lesson in a screenshot, that's how useless it was.
Dija: Most of them classes mute turn that camera off help my little brother.
Jennifer: Right,
Dija: I can hear you. I'm okay with just hearing you.
Jennifer: When you really think about that we did this for a year and a half, like, it's insane. These six year olds in their house, and then you're a teenager doing your class, but you have to help them because they can't, that's absurd to put these six year olds in a Zoom breakout room and tell them to do something.
Dija: , like, I didn't think about it this little ones. I thought it was crazy with you guys, but like, that's really crazy. Oh, When I seen what those little kids were going through, I said, it's not, no way.
And then I started thinking about, what about those kids that get pulled out of class? What about those kids that need a little extra help?
Wait a minute! And
Jennifer: I'm glad it inspired you, but these kids, man. And they wonder why they're not where that's the thing is when they came back, it was like, why don't you know this? Well, why? Like, as if, oh, you didn't do it during virtual? No, of course. Why couldn't we have just at the very least to just take some accountability and say, it didn't work and start like,
But like to come back and to then be like, What's wrong with these kids? Well, what do you mean what's wrong with these kids?
Dija: Let me tell you what's wrong with these kids. There's a generation of kids out here. One specifically that I know I'm pretty, I'm a little too familiar with them, but they know the game.
They got used to not going to school or sick days and asynchronous work or not having to go to school, but still getting the work, So it's a big gap for these kids and my little brother is a part of this sadly, but that's what they were used to. That's , when they first started school, this is what they had.
Yeah. It's been what, a year and a half, two years.
Jennifer: but that's like when your brain develops, the thing is they didn't try to rewire the brain. Like you wired a brain a certain way, and then you came back and expected them as if they were there that like, that's like,
Dija: grade.
Jennifer: Right, like, they just, oh, let's just, now it's second grade and we're just gonna pretend that they had school for first grade.
They didn't have school for first grade. These years are actually kind of arbitrary, you know, in, in Finland, which has one of the best, schooling, like, they have the, one of the best school systems. Do you know they don't start school until they're seven?
They play outside until then. So there's no, it doesn't have to be that you start,
Like when he came back in second grade, they should have done first grade work instead of pretending they had gotten it. And so the problem was they pretended they got it.
now they're still confused because they don't have any foundation. Like, it didn't matter. That's the part where I don't get it. Like, why did we have to pretend that virtual school worked? It didn't work. And I think that the idea that we decided to just blame individual students instead of an actual emergency system that we set up that didn't work, um, is the biggest problem.
Dija: less, it's a lot less of individuality when it's a group, That's not just one's fault. If it's a whole group, we can't blame every one student.
No,
Jennifer: Right. That's how I feel like, if you had a product that you were selling and it broke for half the kids you wouldn't be like, they used it wrong, they didn't try hard. They didn't listen, read the directions.
The product sucked. Like the directions, like that many kids didn't do it. It failed. Like not the kids, you failed, like the product.
Dija: it didn't work. It
Jennifer: Right. And we know that with everything else.
Dija: And I feel like adults not the now adults, , because we're the adults now, unfortunately, you know, but the older adults, like our teachers and our teacher teachers, they believed that they were always right.
I'm the adult, you're the child. I talk, you listen, I'm right, you're wrong. It was always that. But, as an adult, take some accountability because being 18 in high school that was when I realized and it clicked for me like, we're both adults here.
You're not gonna sit right here and not take accountability or not accept what I'm telling you because I'm being honest with you. And I will argue a teacher down right now. I will argue a teacher down about anything because at the end of the day, even though being online kind of made me a little bit lazy, you know, it took away from a lot of my social life.
But one thing it did teach me is to advocate for myself. I can say that. One thing it did teach me is to be by myself and to learn myself. And that's something that, you have to learn when you get to college. And you do a lot of things by yourself. It's sad, but it's true.
It's very sad, but it's true. And online schooling, that's what I can say. It did benefit me in that way to show me my independency, show me my self advocacy, show me how I can show up for myself instead of depending on a lot of other people who might not have my best interests at heart.
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