While every parent in the country seemed to be complaining about just how impossible distance learning was during lockdown, elementary school teacher Nataly Peleg sang a different tune. Zoom, together with other digital materials, was a boon for Peleg and her students — so much so that she believes it should be incorporated permanently into the education system. “I think we need to mix it up,” she said. “School should be for the social aspect and peer learning. Remote learning has a ton of other benefits.”
It helps, of course, that Peleg is a computer whizz who took to Zoom effortlessly, and she acknowledged that it wasn’t ideal for many of her colleagues who struggled with the technical aspects of running a remote classroom. She also admitted that the format greatly limited crucial aspects of communication like body language. But for that reason, she learned to speak in a much more animated way.
One of the main benefits was saving precious class time by not having to constantly battle disruptive students. “I’d have one boy tell another, ‘Dude, see you later on Fortnite?’ and instead of shouting over them and arguing with them to listen, I can just tell them, ‘Now’s not the time’ and press the ‘mute all’ button.” Peleg can’t praise the mute button highly enough. It enabled the quieter children to find their own voice and speak up without fear of being interrupted. The Zoom format in general made children much less susceptible to the peer pressure of “being cool and acting out,” she said. She also was able to divide the class into groups to work in virtual “breakout” rooms without all the noise and arguing about who is in which group that usually accompanies such an exercise; instead, the students just accepted Zoom’s randomized selection.
School should be for the social aspect and peer learning. Remote learning has a ton of other benefits.
Another major advantage Peleg said, was the lack of time limits. Students did classwork in their own time and sent it in via WhatsApp. This meant that for the first time, Peleg actually could go over their work thoroughly as opposed to giving a cursory glance over their shoulders as she would in school. She said it also proved beneficial to her students with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and others who struggle with deadlines. Peleg made it clear to her students that she was there for them to call or text whenever. For some of her students, including a pair of 10-year-old twins whose parents are both essential workers, her virtual presence was essential.
Zoom also offered a level of intimacy and closeness that the school confines never afforded, Peleg said. Occasionally, one of her own children or her dog would appear in the frame and delight the students. Parents also were given insight into how and what their children were taught. She received more thank-you’s from parents and students during lockdown than in her 15 years of teaching combined.
Peleg credits her school for being an early adopter in remote learning. “We were prepared for it long before COVID-19,” she said, “though we always imagined it would be for war, not this. School isn’t made for the kids of today,” she added. “It’s not interactive enough and doesn’t give each child what they need. [The coronavirus] taught us that children should be given more freedom to learn what interests them and to be autodidactic.”
