::watches with interest for answers to msbelle's questions::

To brighten your day, baby panda!

Nomming on the sweet potato! Adorable.

From a teaching perspective truly going hybrid effectively means hiring more teachers. In a full remote setting there is the possibility for asynchronous teaching and not just lecture time over Zoom. That type of model becomes exponentially more complex when an portion of the class will be remote and a portion in person, and then again more complex when there is the possibility that the population of each of those sets can change in an uncontrolled and unpredictable manner, and then again more complex when the teacher could also be pushed to remote due to Covid exposure that causes a need for isolation. While hybrid sounds workable on paper, it's places an even larger burden on the teacher who has already had to completely re-design curriculum and teaching style on the fly. I live with a teach and I watch her work from 8 am to at least 8 PM every day, and that includes almost every weekend. In a hybrid situation the next thing she'll have to give up is sleep, and she will also be adding a commute back into the mix, and she's at a well supported private school. I completely see why teacher unions are pushing back HARD on this. To do remote/hybrid/changed classrooms and not grind teachers to dust school districts would need to double the number of teachers they have in their employ.

This is why teachers are frightened.

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And case in point, our 3rd/4th grade school just announced they are fully remote for the rest of the week due to staff shortages.

In a full remote setting there is the possibility for asynchronous teaching and not just lecture time over Zoom.

Yes for high school/college. Maaaaaaaaybe for middle schoolers with incredibly high executive function. Asynchronous for elementary students is somewhere on the spectrum from useless to actively terrible.

I am watching the inauguration today, or at least trying to. The YouTube thing I am watching started with 45 leaving on the plane and is now on a mostly empty stage with I am not sure what playing over the speakers.

I was listening to the news this morning and heard "yesterday the President" and reflexively braced myself for something awful ... then relaxed and realized it was something sane.

Yes for high school/college. Maaaaaaaaybe for middle schoolers with incredibly high executive function.

You are correct. I am tending to think more middle school and up because that is were more of my experience is. Lower grades get exponentially more difficult. Still at the core of it is the fact that to make any of this really happen we need more teachers, like we have for a long time even before the pandemic.

Y'know, it would be nice if they actually paid teachers enough. Just a thought ....