Zoom School Didn’t Cause Social Problems. School Did.

For most of COVID, we've heard about the problems of online school for kids. In particular, how kids were suffering because they weren't socializing.

A question I've always asked, though...

Is Zoom the problem? Or is it the quality of the teaching on Zoom that's the problem? A lack of creativity in the virtual universe?

I was with a student, talking about school next month. When I asked why she didn't like online school, she said it was because she didn't get to interact with her friends.

I realized in that moment that I missed an aspect of this whole online/social thing.

She said that during lunch, when she would normally talk with friends, everyone just signed off to eat.

Light bulb moment.

For all of the hype on the news about children's social skills suffering. For all of the talk about creating a generation of anxious children. 

Why weren't the schools addressing it? Like...at all?

In other words, if children were missing out on social time, why wasn't school providing social time on Zoom? Even just during lunch.

The next question is, would that have made a difference? For most of us, I guess we'll never know.

Zoom isn't the same as being face to face. Nobody's questioning that. But, Zoom has made a good scapegoat for a lack of creativity in school and work.

Before we blame the situation, be it online learning or whatever, we must first ask ourselves:

Have we tried getting creative with it, first?