HOW do people not know this yet???

[tututastic]

DD6 is in year 1, class of 25 children. In each lockdown the school has had 2 live lessons a week on Teams and the rest is self taught.

Without fail, there are 5 + kids whose parents refuse to mute their mics. Why??? The poor teacher has posted messages and asks spends most of the lesson asking kids to all mute whilst she’s speaking but the same handful ignore her constantly. I just can’t understand why? Their kids interrupt constantly, there are younger kids and pets making noise in the background, and the feedback makes the call awful for everyone else. I know from a private chat that one of DD’s friends with SEN who is sensitive to lots of conflicting voices has been driven off the call. DD really struggles to follow through the noise as well.

AIBu to not understand people who don’t mute themselves as a courtesy in large online meetings?

The teacher can 'mute all' it's very easy. I am amazed that a teacher using zoom for this long wouldn't have known that by now.

@Annabell80

Must be really irratating for children and the teacher. However I'm surprised other children struggle to hear, aren't they used to the extra noise from the classroom?

No, some children struggle to separate noises and block some out and focus on others. It can be difficult in a noisy classroom to process what you're supposed to be working on and block out random bedlam, so some children don't cope/learn well in chaotic lessons.

My DS has had to take his TA and classwork and go sit in the inclusion pod in order to concentrate properly. Disruptive kids are a common feature of classrooms, even at KS3.

Because this should not be left to a bunch of 5/6yo to manage. Many would have parents working and need to leave them to it. Instead of complaining about kids not muting, instead complain about the teacher asking kids that age to do it and not taking charge, managing the situation correctly and muting the line as host where appropriate.

Did someone say they complained because a child asked how to spell a simple word ?

Someone I know was teaching a lesson and one of the kids not on mute was called a 'lying c*' by their mother. They were being read a picture book. I feel sorry for teachers now having to deal so much with parents' behaviour as well as the children. And obv feel sorry for the child and their classmates in this particular scenario.

I thought of this thread on Twitter by a teacher with a few tips for teachers
.twitter.com/MissHudsonHist/status/1345139609697738752

I meant the inane questions on a completely different tangent as if the child has been living in a little world in their head and then come back and realised they were supposed to be doing something! Which is cute, but I'm always so impressed how patiently the teacher deals with it grin. I think if you've chosen to teach young children you can probably cope but I found that even ks2 teachers couldn't. I loved the quirky craziness of the children but not the micromanagement and target setting culture.

The thing is there will be some parents who don't give a fuck, some who are techno phobes and don't know how it works, some who popped out and the kid turned it back on, some who think their kid shouldn't be silenced, some who thought they'd done it but hadn't etc etc

My heart goes out to the teachers. Young kids are bloody painful on zoom/Google

Trust me teachers and parents of teens have the exact opposite problem

I had to text a school mum friend to tell her that her son needed to mute his mic. I didn't tell her that he was refusing to despite the teacher and all the kids telling him because his was making a deafening racket with loud blaring music, shouting people, a washer on spin and all sorts.. No one could hear the teacher at all. The kid was just smirking with his camera on (also not allowed)
I don't know why the teacher couldn't do it herself, as she was using the same platform as the other teachers and they can mute the whole class.

My 6yo's Teams calls always seem to clash with mine, so once he is connected he will mute and unmute as required on his own. The teacher spent the first call getting the class to practise muting and unmuting, and using the "hand up" flag.

They still put their hands up to interrupt with pointless stories ("I lost a tooth", "my dog is called spot") - which, IMO is fine because they are only 6, and the main point of live teaching at that age is just to keep them connected with each other, surely?

Not familiar with teams but I do zooms with kids (for an after school activity that can't take place normally currently).
TBH i learnt very quickly that basically I hate to have all the kids unmuted almost the whole of the time except for hellos and goodbyes .And then manually unmute individuals every now and then.
Really surprised that the teacher hasn't figured it out. You always get one noisy one, or more likely one in the kitchen with their mum clattering around int he background and is impossible to hear everyone.

to clarify - I mute them myself I would never expect them to mute themselves! I don't know if this is different on teams

@Annabell80 very different from a classroom where your ears can filter out the background noise. On zoom, every time someone makes a noise it stops others from talking, so it's much more disruptive.

They are just children though of course they are going to ask questions etc

@Adrastia
The only problem with that, is that (as far as I know anyway) the first person into a google meet is not always the one who has organised or is running it.

You can mute people in google meets-I do-often! Though for me it’s kids not talking at all that’s the problem, it’s like talking into a void.

@bumblingbovine49

@Adrastia
The only problem with that, is that (as far as I know anyway) the first person into a google meet is not always the one who has organised or is running it.

In that case there is something wrong with the school protocol and safeguarding procedures.

@bumblingbovine49 The Meet link shouldn't be shared with the pupils until the responsible adult is present - there are two different ways of achieving this. If your school isn't using one of them they are very remiss.

If a pupil is in first not only can they mute people they can also remove them from the meeting and they have ownership of any recordings of the meeting which will sit in their google drive