In Loco Parentis: In Place of Parents

During my years studying for my Education degree, the term “in loco parentis” is the only Latin term I came across. This means that teachers are taking the role of parents when students are in schools. They are the embodiment of the school as the “alma mater” or beloved mother.

In some sense, there is an intricate connection between the home and the school. The disruption brought about by COVID-19 pandemic challenges this relationship. The school is “hampered” from doing its role traditionally.

What the schools have taken upon will be re-imposed on the parents like closer supervision of the learning process. Admittedly, this will be an added burden for working parents.

Some Considerations on Distance Learning Modality

I would like to look into four crucial areas, namely: time of access and participation, the extent of the use of technology, degree of learning supervision, and lastly, added cost.

Let us discuss these elements:

1. Time of access and participation.

Are the students expected to access the materials at the same time (synchronous) or at their own convenient time (asynchronous)?

For example, are the students expected to watch the video at a specific time of the day together with the rest of the class, or the students can watch it anytime without having the entire class participate together?

Why is this important? Because synchronous (same time) access to an online learning platform can create so many financial and time management problems.

This is important because in a household that only has one laptop or limited access to the internet, how can you expect them to be online at the same time?

If the delivery is low-tech like the use of radio or television, if you have three children, do you need to have three radios or television if the access is at the same time?

If using social media, and the access is at the same time, and if you have three students in your house, does it meant that you would provide all of them with smartphones or laptops, even those children in the primary grades?

Practically, for those technologically and financially challenged schools, synchronous (at the same time) learning will only be done in a particular and limited manner. In contrast, the asynchronous (not at the same time) will be more feasible. It means that students in these schools will work most of the time independently using printed modules.

2. The extent of the use of technology

To what degree is the use of technology involved in the learning delivery process?

Another factor is that technology needs not to be “high-tech” since there are also other “low-tech” media that can be used, such as radio and TV.

Most of the available LMS in the market contains a dashboard where the parents or tutors can monitor the students’ progress. However, the problem of internet connectivity and gadget availability are factors that need to be discussed.

Of course, parents who can afford to install a faster internet connection and buy gadgets for their students, this is not a problem. Yet, how about those who are living in rural areas or poor, are they just left behind?

Once more, if this is the case, education becomes an issue of an economic divide when only those who can afford can access better materials than those who cannot afford it.

3. Degree of Learning Supervision

Whatever combination of face-to-face and online components a school will create; these would demand varying levels of learning supervision for the parents or guardians.

As I already alluded to the previous part of this series, working parents will surely find this problematic. It is most likely that parents who can afford to have tutors will download this learning supervision to the latter.

This will technically make tutors as the teachers of the students while the teachers in their reduced classroom interactions become “tutors” who gives outlines and pointers while the rest of the work is given to the students’ tutors.

I can just imagine tutors who will be flooded with workloads because their tutees will be spending more time with them.

In this situation, tutorial centers or houses of tutors will become the new classrooms.

Here I am talking about those families who can afford a tutor for each of their children.

How about those who families with working parents who cannot afford tutors? Who will supervise their learning process?

If the answer is, the teachers themselves, how would they do this? Does the school have a concrete plan for teachers who will follow up on the students who are working online or offline? Is this articulated and understood by the stakeholders?

TO BE CONTINUED

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