My experience of the current state of video-conferenced classrooms is quite literally at the kindergarten level with my 6 year old daughter. There’s zero doubt that in person interactions are infinitely preferable, but having some interaction is better than none.
How much of the educational experience, then, is about interaction with others?
It depends, right?
I’m hypothesizing that the level of beneficial social interaction in education starts off high and slopes down to some baseline level that varies by individual.
I’m also very skeptical about my ability to effect change at the earlier levels of education beyond homeschooling my children (which is to say, having wifey homeschool our children). Assuming that’s not entirely likely, the experience of my children in K-12 is largely going to be dictated by the local schools. Beyond those grades lies the realm of adulthood where old teenagers and young 20 somethings are encouraged to specialize and actually pay for education, and where the possibilities for education expand.
The social aspect of college is formative. That aspect of college is in peril in a pandemic. What do you do to substitute?