Flies On the wall

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By: Aliya Granger, Staff Writer (CSU Intern)—The Drive Student Blog

E-learning has not only created an opportunity for children to connect virtually to their classrooms, but it has also created an opportunity for teachers to have virtual access into children’s homes. As COVID-19 continues to run its course throughout our country and across the world, tension rises in the homes of many — homes where work or school was an escape for some and possibly the only thing keeping some alive.

Due to the technology in place, it is now possible for teachers to be flies on the walls of their students’ homes. Teachers have the new ability to either hear or see physical or even sexual abuse directly impact their students or their students’ parents. It’s one thing to see a bruise on a child after a weekend away and needing to report it to authorities; it’s another thing to witness a child being abused on camera along with the other students.

There have been a myriad of cases reported so far, and the numbers are only expected to rise: the case in Chicago where an 18-year-old man was seen molesting a 7-year-old girl on a zoom call, the case in North Carolina where a father was witnessed choking his 13-year-old daughter and then striking her in the head, and the case in Florida where a mother of six was murdered by her boyfriend during her 10-year-old daughters zoom class, to name few, have all caught school’s across the country by surprise.

At the beginning of this virtual learning ordeal, the numbers of reported abuse were dropping (not abuse as a whole, just the amount of reports) and only expected to decline further due to the inability to physically witness children’s distress in the classroom. Nobody anticipated or even prepared for abuse to be witnessed on the E-learning platform. Teachers now must have the strength to witness abuse, the wisdom to know when to mute mics, the strategy to distract the other students from seeing what’s going on, and the heroism to contact authorities as swiftly as possible. Teachers must be teachers, social workers, counselors, parents, tech support, and so much more without the proper training or even warning.

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Is this the sacrifice teachers must make during this e-learning situation? Is the sacrifice worth it? Sure, the 7-year-old was rescued from her molester, the 13-year-old was saved from the chokeholds of her father, and the 10-year-old wasn’t murdered along with her mother, but at the cost of the witnesses, teachers, and students, never being the same. Seeing a bruise on a child, or seeing an inadequately dressed child, or hearing a child confess the abuse they’re enduring still allows for a level of distance between the teacher and the situation. Now, though there is more proof, there is less distance. The teacher and students are now living the abuse with the abused. Is this the cost of being a fly on the wall?

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Remote Learning: Is Your Kid Really That Bad?

By: Aliya Granger, Staff Writer (CSU Intern)—The Drive Student Blog

I’ve seen many posts on social media that reveal the teacher wasn’t lying in parent-teacher conferences when the teacher said that little Johnny was the spawn of Satan himself and I have laughed every single time. I have worked in childcare for five full years, and I can attest to times when the parent believed their child over me. They often have the shocked “my child would NEVER do that” response as if their child is some cyborg whose settings stay permanently set to “angel” mode.

I have encountered lying children, fighting children, cussing children, screaming children, biting children, and the list goes on. Sometimes I get the parents that are ready to spank their child right then and there. Sometimes I get the parents who will “handle it at home”, and they may or may NOT handle it at home. A few times I get the parents who are about ready to fight me for informing them that their “king” is acting every kind of way but “kingly.”

Out of all of these encounters, however, I never thought in a million years that I’d discover that in fact, some teachers DO LIE!!! Remote learning is ripping off the veil and uncovering how horrible and uncertified some of these teachers truly are.

Currently, all Chicago Public Schools are on the virtual platform. Due to the change, my job opened an E-Learning Lab to help students in need and to provide a place for parents who have to work to send their children during the day. Though I have seen all kinds of things, this may have been the craziest.

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One day, our staff got an urgent message from a distressed parent saying that their 7th-grade child needs to stop goofing off, needs to log in to class, and must keep his camera on at all times. When this message came, all of the staff was baffled because we’ve been eyeing this kid all day and he never once seemed out of line.

Then another message came in… “His teacher is telling me that he missed the entire last class and only logged in for the last ten minutes and that he’s not in the class he’s supposed to be in right now.” At this point, my boss was fully involved. She checked on the boy and calls the mother. “Are you sure the teacher has the right child?” She asked. “Can you ask the teacher if she knows she’s talking to Ray’s[name changed for privacy] mother? I’m sorry, but I am staring at his screen and he is clearly logged in. She must be confusing him with another child.”

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About 30 minutes prior to this whole thing, Ray’s laptop shut off even though it was on 80% battery. Ray, who was simultaneously face-timing one of his classmates at the time, asked his classmate to let the teacher know that the computer crashed. The friend did so immediately while I listened to the entire conversation. When the friend informed the teacher, the teacher responded, “seriously? His computer just turned off? Tuh, yeah right, I don’t believe that.” Again, I was a witness to the WHOLE THING!

Because the computers CPS gave all of the students are refurbished Chromebooks that often don’t work, it took ten minutes just for Ray’s computer to reboot and reload. The moment it did, he logged back on. So… he “only logged on for the last ten minutes”? No. He was gone for ten minutes because of circumstances beyond his control.

We explained everything to his mother (one of the parents that would’ve whooped him right there) who believed the teacher but after hearing from us, contacted the principal instead. The teacher knew the mother wasn’t around but didn’t know that other adults were and thought she would get away with her lie.

I wonder what would’ve happened had we not been there.

I wonder how many teachers are lying to parents just like this teacher lied.

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