FCPS Needs To Be Reminded What Education Is

Before we plan to teach any child, we must plan first how to reach that child. This is one important piece in education yet Fairfax County administrators especially its superintendent have seem to have forgotten what education entails. Learning packets were sent. We now have three weeks worth of lessons. Yet, Fairfax county is failing miserably in connecting teachers with students. My daughter and ten other children were waiting this morning to see their teacher. Children are in need of communication. What their parents get instead is a note from the superintendent talking about retaining a law firm and appointing yet another bureaucratic council of businessmen to help the county in its distance learning. These are not educators. These are not teachers who really feel the yearning for learning from their students. We are wasting time, energy and money on things that do not really matter. What we need is to first reach the children. Children are reaching out.

Children are waiting eagerly to see and talk with their teachers.

Since we already have lesson plans, both children and parents need the communication with teachers. What are the children supposed to do? No one has a clue unless a child's parent knows a thing or two regarding what the purpose of these lesson plans is. Everyone who is given a task needs to know what is there at the end. Teachers need to know what their students are doing with these lesson plans. Otherwise, we are simply killing trees and supporting the post office, which may not be a bad thing during these times. But wasting paper certainly is bad.

Teachers have tools to reach their students. We should let all the teachers teach. We should let the teachers reach their pupils. If the learning packets cannot be obtained online because of an unstable platform, there is really no problem if we already have the learning packets as hard copies. There are enough lessons in these packets. What is missing is feedback. What is missing is the two-way communication between teachers and their students. We do not need to retain a law firm. We do not need a group of businessmen. We simply need to allow teachers to reach their students. We need to be as flexible as possible.