Digital Divide vs. Accountability

Ok, there is a digital divide. Yes. I get that. It’s real. Black & Brown families are having a tough time. I get it. I’ve seen it. I witness it daily as an educator in an urban, low socioeconomic school district. But... Accountability. We can’t just blame remote learning entirely on the digital divide. I have students whose parents allow them to stay up until 2-3am & sleep through most classes during the day. That has nothing to do with the digital divide. I have students who are using their new computers & hotspots to play online, bandwidth sucking games, & rocking YouTube, TicToc, etc. Households with more than one child often have one playing online games on platforms like ps4, Xbox, using a shit ton of bandwidth while the other is trying to zoom but gets kicked off or has “bad reception.” I’ve had students breaking multiple laptops & tablets (obviously not being used for school purposes). Hell, I have one student that has gone through 7 devices, breaking them all. 7 fucking computers & tablets. I have several students whose parents don’t do shit & are actively not looking for jobs, etc. I have students are are wizzes at TicToc, making YouTube videos, this this & that, but apparently don’t know how to turn on the video to a zoom, or unmute themselves (which is obviously complete bullshit). I know there’s a lot more to the story & I’m not right about everything and am missing valid aspects. My point though is that there needs to be some accountability & its bullshit to just blame remote learning on the digital divide. This falls on parents & in some, if not many cases, secondary students themselves. Rant over.

Submitted January 24, 2021 at 07:37PM by gilbeythebeast https://ift.tt/2KIVM15