Online Learning Is Not All It’s Cracked Up To Be

I will kvell about this perk of online learning: I can wear a ball gown or a ratty bathrobe while doing the assignments, and no one would know.

My 16-year-old daughter, meanwhile, had been online learning in her bedroom from 9 am to 3 pm since the lockdown began, and never once complained. She rolled out of bed at 8:59 am to attend her 9 am class, and she got to see classmates and teachers on her screen.

As for my son, while I never thought I’d need to use math as an adult (I still count on my fingers), here I am, attempting to help my son with math, which I’ll kvetch about too. Now my kids know how truly stupid I am.

Kvetch number two? Once the alphabet gets incorporated alongside numbers, I’m out!

I can’t even guesstimate the number of times I said, “Google it,” or, “Ask Siri,” which leads me back to being an adult taking an online course.

The word “adult,” is very important here, because after the teacher sent me a harsh email in week one saying that I was “discussing too much,” and my answers were “too long,” my immediate reaction was, “But it says right there: Discussion Board.” A “discussion board” apparently is where we are just supposed to post our completed homework. (See why I needed a course in online learning before taking an online course?)

I so wanted to kvetch to my 75-year-old mother that my teacher was picking on me, before remembering I’m an adult. This is where online learning, as adults, becomes tricky. Yes, I am the student and my instructor is the instructor.

This is unlike high school, where you couldn’t talk back to teachers. Although I did. Whenever a teacher told me to go to the principal’s office, I just walked out of the school to take an afternoon nap. I know! I’m such a bad ass!

But I still can’t talk back to my teacher. I’m not even sure if I get an online recess, or am allowed an online lunchtime. Let’s just say, it’s irksome to be reprimanded as an adult, by an adult instructor.

Even if you are right, as an adult student, you better keep yourself in check, because the one thing that hasn’t changed is the power dynamic.

Please, do not talk to me as if I’m a child, shaming me for doing too much work. It’s almost laughable, except it’s now my reality: the more you work as an adult student, the more work it puts on the instructor’s plate. Apparently, they do not like this. (They kvetch about this!)

Essentially, though, I think a lot of instructors need their own damn course on how to teach adults.