全世界家长的共同劫难：怎样带娃上好网课？

For the adults in the house, trying to do their own jobs while helping children with class work has become one of the most trying aspects of the pandemic.

对于家里的大人来说，疫情期间最头疼的事情莫过于在工作的同时还要帮孩子们上网课。

It has been challenging for Casey Schaeffer and Daniel Levin to manage the schooling of their children, Ramona and Linus.

对凯西·谢弗（Casey Schaeffer）和丹尼尔·莱文（Daniel Levin）来说，管理他们的孩子拉蒙娜（Ramona）和利纳斯（Linus）的上学教育之路一直充满挑战。

Daniel Levin’s son, Linus, 7, was supposed to be doing math. Instead, he pretended to take a shower in the living room, rubbing a dry eraser under his arms like a bar of soap, which upset his 5-year-old sister, distracting her from her coloring.

丹尼尔·莱文七岁的儿子利纳斯原本应该在做数学题。然而，他假装在客厅里洗澡，把干橡皮当做肥皂一样擦着腋下，搞得他五岁的妹妹心烦意乱，分散了她画画的注意力。

As much as he tried, Mr. Levin, who lives in Brooklyn, could not get Linus to finish the math. His hopes for the reading assignment were not high, either.

“He’s supposed to map out a whole character trait sheet today,” Mr. Levin said one day last week. “Honestly, if he writes the name and the age of the character, I’ll consider that a victory.”

家在布鲁克林的莱文用尽了各种办法，还是没能让利纳斯完成这道数学题。他对阅读作业的期望也没那么高了。

上周的某天，莱文说：“他今天应该画出一张完整的人物特征表。但说实话，只要他能写下个人物的名字和年龄，我就要谢天谢地了。”

A triumph: Linus Levin, 7, and Ramona Levin, 5, doing math on their iPads.

胜利成果：7岁的莱纳斯·莱文和5岁的雷蒙娜·莱文正在他们的iPad上做数学。

Ciarra Kohn’s third-grade son uses five different apps for school. Her 4-year-old’s teacher sends lesson plans, but Ms. Kohn has no time to do them.

西亚拉·科恩三年级的儿子为了上课使用了五种不同的应用程序。她另一个4岁孩子的老师给她发了教学计划，但科恩女士没有时间做。

Her oldest, a sixth-grader, has eight subjects and eight teachers and each has their own method. Sometimes when Ms. Kohn does a lesson with him, she’ll ask if he understood it — because she didn’t.

她家老大上六年级，有八门科目和八个老师，每个老师都有各自的教学方法。有时，科恩陪孩子上课的时候会问孩子听没听懂，因为她没听懂。

“I’m assuming you don’t, but maybe you do,” said Ms. Kohn, of Bloomington, Ill., referring to her son. “Then we’ll get into an argument, like, ‘No, mom! She doesn’t mean that, she means this!’”

家住伊利诺伊州布鲁明顿的科恩女士对她的儿子说：“我觉得你没懂，但是你也可能懂了。”她说：“在那之后我们就会开始争论，比如，‘不！妈妈！她不是那个意思，她应该是这个意思！’”

Parental engagement has long been seen as critical to student achievement, as much as class size, curriculum and teacher quality. That has never been more true than now, and all across the country, moms and dads pressed into emergency service are finding it one of the most exasperating parts of the pandemic.

长期以来，家长的参与和班级规模、课程设置和师资素质一并被视为孩子成绩好坏的关键。这一点在疫情下尤为真实。在全国各地，被迫承担这种紧急辅导任务的父母发现，这才是疫情期间最可怕的煎熬。

With teachers relegated to computer screens, parents have to play teacher’s aide, hall monitor, counselor and cafeteria worker — all while trying to do their own jobs under extraordinary circumstances. Essential workers are in perhaps the toughest spot, especially if they are away from home during school hours, leaving just one parent, or no one at all, at home when students need them most.

老师退居电脑屏幕背后授课，父母们不得不扮演老师的助手，课堂监督员，辅导员和食堂工作者，同时还要在特殊情况下做好自己的本职工作。职工家庭可能是最难的，尤其是当孩子上课期间他们不在家的情况下，在学生最需要他们的时候，只有一位家长或根本没有父母在家。

Kindergartners need help logging into Zoom. Seventh-graders need help with algebra, last used by dad circa 1992. “School” often ends by lunchtime, leaving parents from Long Island to Dallas to Los Angeles asking themselves the same question: How bad am I if my child plays Fortnite for the next eight hours?

幼儿园的孩子们需要帮助登录ZOOM。七年级的学生需要帮助学习代数，而爸爸最后一次使用代数是在1992年左右。通常午饭过后就“放学”了，从长岛到达拉斯再到洛杉矶的父母都在问一个同样的问题：如果我家孩子在接下来的八个小时都在玩堡垒之夜的网络游戏，我该是个多糟糕的家长啊？

Yarlin Matos of the Bronx, whose husband still goes to work as a manager at a McDonald’s, has seven children, ages 3 to 13, to keep on track. She spent part of her stimulus check on five Amazon Fire tablets because the devices promised by the city’s Education Department had not arrived.

布朗克斯区的亚林·马托斯有7个孩子，年龄在3岁-13岁之间，她的丈夫作为麦当劳的经理，现在依然要上班。她需要维持这几个孩子生活的正常运转。由于市教育部门承诺的学习设备还没到货，她用一部分政府补贴的支票买了五个亚马逊的平板电脑。

Ms. Matos, a psychology major at Bronx Community College, said she must stay up late, sometimes until 3 a.m., trying to get her own work done.

马托斯夫人是布朗克斯社区大学心理学专业的学生，为了做好自己的工作，她每天都必须要熬夜，有的时候甚至凌晨3点才能睡觉，

“I had a breaking moment where I had to lock myself in the bathroom and cry,” she said. “It was just too much.”

她说：“我有过十分崩溃的瞬间，那个时候我把自己锁在浴室里，一个人大哭，实在是太难了！”

Laura Landgreen, a teacher in Denver, always thought it strange that she sent her two sons, Callam Hugo, 4, and Landon Hugo, 7, off to school rather than home schooling them herself.

劳拉·兰德格林是丹佛的一位老师，以前她总是觉得奇怪，为什么要把两个儿子，4岁的卡拉姆·雨果和7岁的兰登·雨果送去上学，而不是自己在家教育他们。

She doesn’t find it strange anymore. “My first grader — we would kill each other,” she said. “He’s fine at school, but here he has a meltdown every three seconds.”

现在，她一点都不觉得奇怪了。她说：“我家那位一年级的小孩，要是我在家教育他的话，我们会逼疯彼此。他在学校还好好的，但是在家里他每3秒就会崩溃一次！”

“I need to teach other children,” she said.

她说：“我还是去教别人家的孩子吧。”

little corner of Laura Landgreen’s home in Denver is now a classroom. Ms. Landgreen, a teacher, said it can be easier to teach a room full of students than one’s own children.

劳拉·兰德格林住在丹佛，她的家里有一个角落现在是教室。她是一名老师，说教一个满屋子的学生比教自己的孩子容易。

There is widespread concern that even with remote learning in place, many students will return to school behind where they would have been if they’d been in the classroom. (President Trump said on Monday that governors should consider reopening schools before the end of the school year.) Teachers had little time to prepare for remote learning, and many children had inadequate or no computer access.

“人们普遍担心，虽然能远程上网课，但是这样上课的进度可能会比正常在教室里上课要慢。”（特朗普总统周一表示，州长们应该考虑在学年结束前重新开学。）老师们几乎没有时间准备远程课程，许多孩子没有可以满足上课需要的电脑或网络。

For students without close parental guidance, the outcome could turn out even worse.

对于没有父母密切指导的学生来说，结果可能会更糟。

Ronda McIntyre, a fifth-grade teacher in Columbus, Ohio, said that of her 25 students, only six were participating consistently, generally the ones whose parents were already in regular communication with their teacher.

隆达·麦金泰尔是俄亥俄州哥伦布市的一名五年级教师，她说，在她的25名学生中，只有6名学生坚持参加远程课程，一般来说，他们的父母已经在和老师定期进行交流了。

Other families have reached out to Ms. McIntyre to say that they are too overwhelmed with their own work to help with the lessons at home. And some have told her they are trying, but that their children won’t cooperate.

其他一些家长已经联系到麦金泰尔女士，说他们的工作太忙了，无法在家里帮助上课。有些人告诉她他们正在努力，但他们的孩子不配合。

“She gets frustrated every time we start,” one mother emailed her last week, “and then I get irritated and she gets irritated and it usually ends in me saying we should take a break and then the cycle repeats. One or both of us typically ends up in tears by the time it’s all said and done and no work is completed.”

上周，一位母亲给她发邮件说：“每次我们开始学习的时候，她都会很沮丧，然后我就很生气，她也会很生气，最后我总是说我们应该冷静一下，如此循环往复。每次都是这样，什么都说了，什么都做了，但什么都没有完成。最终不是她哭就是我哭，或者我俩一起哭。”

Even parents who describe running tight ships at home say they are anxious about what months away from classrooms will mean for their children. They are also finding it hard to accept that 25-minute Zoom classes or lessons sent by email is what school has been reduced to.

即使是那些在家里要求严格的家长也很担心离校数月对孩子学习的影响。他们还很难接受学校的课程已经被简化成二十五分钟的zoom会议或通过邮件发送的课程。

The litmus tweet of the moment came from Sarah Parcak, an archaeologist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

目前最具代表性的推文来自伯明翰阿拉巴马大学的考古学家莎拉·帕卡克。

“I told our son’s (lovely, kind, caring) teacher that, no, we will not be participating in her ‘virtual classroom,’ and that he was done with the 1st grade,” she wrote on Twitter in early April. “We cannot cope with this insanity. Survival and protecting his well being come first.”

“我告诉我们儿子可爱、善良、有爱心的老师，不，我们不会参加她的‘虚拟教室’，他的一年级生活已经结束了。”四月初她在推特上写道:“我们无法应对这种疯狂。我们优先考虑的是他能健康幸福地活着。”

Her post brought thousands of responses on Twitter and Facebook.

“In terms of the online reaction, I would say on Twitter, probably 95 percent of the reaction has been positive,” she said in an interview. On Facebook, which has more favor among the pre-millennial crowd, the reaction was more mixed. Many people praised her decision, while others criticized her as dismissing the hard work of teachers and doing a disservice to her child. “On Facebook, the mommy wars have come,” she said, “and I’m the hill people are willing to die on from both sides.”

她的帖子在推特和脸书上得到数千条回复。

“就网上的反应而言，我想说在推特上，大概95%的反馈都是正面的，”她在一次采访中说。在更受千禧一代之前人群欢迎的脸书上，人们的反应则更为复杂。许多人赞扬了她的决定，但也有人批评她不重视老师辛苦的工作，对孩子造成了伤害。“在脸书上，‘妈妈大战’已经开始了，”她说，“我就是双方誓死争夺捍卫的阵地。”

Education experts advise that making a schedule can help children treat the current setup more like school, as can being clear about when it’s work time and when it’s play time, using a timer, for example, to delineate when they are in “school.” Creating a dedicated space for them to work can also be helpful.

教育专家建议孩子们制定一个时间表，这样有助于孩子们用在学校学习的态度对待当前的安排。用这种方法，孩子们可以清楚地知道什么时候是学习时间，什么时候是娱乐时间。比如用计时器来划分他们什么时候在“学校”。为他们创造一个专门的学习空间也是一种有效的方法。

And parents should take it easy on themselves on days when things don’t go as planned.

当事情没有按计划进行的时候，父母也不用给自己太大压力。

“Are your kids killing each other, or have you killed your child?” said Kathryn Hirsh-Pasek, an education researcher and a senior fellow at The Brookings Institution. “Is there anything they’re eating that resembles healthy food in between the chocolate and sugar? If the answer is yes, give yourself a break.”

“你的孩子们在互相残杀吗？你忍不住杀了自己孩子了吗?”布鲁金斯学会教育研究员、高级研究员凯西·赫什-帕塞克发问。“他们在吃巧克力和糖的间隙有没有补充一些健康食物？如果有的话，就别太自责了。”

As stressful as it can be, of course, it’s not a crisis for everyone. Behold Helen Williams-Morris, a mother of three children and a cafeteria worker at a school in Memphis.

尽管边工作边带娃让人很有压力，但对于有些人来说，这算不上危机。看看海伦·威廉姆斯-莫里斯，她是三个孩子的母亲，也是孟菲斯一所学校食堂的员工。

She said that all of her children are fairly self sufficient. Her son is in college, and her middle child, a ninth grader named Camille, has been taking care of her work on her own. She attends Crosstown High, a charter high school that uses a lot of technology in normal times.

她说她所有的孩子都能把自己管好。她的大儿子在上大学，她的二女儿卡米尔是一名九年级学生，她一直都能独立地完成自己的学业。卡米尔就读于Crosstown高中，这所特许高中①在日常教学中会使用大量科技设备。

①特许学校是经由州政府立法通过，特别允许教师、家长、教育专业团体或其它非营利机构等私人经营公家负担经费的学校，不受例行性教育行政规定约束。

Ms. Williams-Morris also has a 6-year-old, Calyah, but she said that if she plops her at the dining room table, she can make a meatloaf or some grits in their open kitchen while the child does her work. Ms. Williams-Morris just peeks over now and again to help with any questions, and to make sure Calyah hasn’t switched the screen over to Minecraft.

威廉姆斯·莫里斯女士还有一个六岁的孩子，卡利亚，但她说，如果她把卡利亚放在餐桌上，孩子就能自己做自己的事情，而她就可以在家里的开放式厨房里做一块肉卷或一些玉米粉。威廉姆斯·莫里斯只要不时地看一眼，以帮助解决可能遇到的问题，以及确保卡利亚没有将屏幕切换到《我的世界》。

“But I wouldn’t say this is easy for me,” Ms. Williams-Morris said. “I like talking to other adults.”

威廉姆斯·莫里斯说：“但我不会说这对我来说很容易，我还是喜欢和其他成年人对话。”

Kim Pinckney-Lewis of Mechanicsburg, Pa., would also seem to be well-prepared.

宾夕法尼亚州梅卡尼科斯堡的金·平克尼·刘易斯似乎也做好了充分的准备。

Kim Pinckney-Lewis of Mechanicsburg, Pa., lays out her son’s schedule every morning on color-coded paper.

宾夕法尼亚州梅卡尼科斯堡的金·平克尼·刘易斯每天早上都在彩色的纸上列出儿子的日程表。

A former teacher, Ms. Pinckney-Lewis lays out the schedule for her son, Gavin, a first-grader with special needs, every morning on colored pieces of construction paper. Red is English, orange is math, blue are his breaks. She previews his video lessons to make sure they aren’t too long and makes notes about when to end them herself if necessary.

平克尼·刘易斯以前是一名教师，每天早上，她都会在彩色的卡纸上为儿子加文（一个有特殊需要的一年级学生）安排日程。红色代表英语，橙色代表数学，蓝色则是他的休息时间。她预习了他的视频课程，以确保不会太长，并在必要时记下结束的时间。

And yet despite her background in education, she said, “I have complete and total anxiety.”

尽管有教学的经验，但她说，“我感到特别的焦虑。”

“Some days," she said, “I am so tired by 4 p.m. that it would be really nice for us to play a game right now, but I’m just going to lay on this couch.”

“有时候”，她说，“到了下午四点我就累得不行了。这时候最好应该玩个亲子游戏什么的，但我只想躺在沙发上歇一会儿。”

Here’s how to create a space and habits that keep kids engaged with schoolwork at home.

如何创造空间和习惯，让孩子们能在家里专心学习呢？

A person or location often gets paired with a specific behavior.

一个人或一个地点经常与一种特定的行为配对。

“A child may know to be quiet in the library but be loud on the playground,” said Jessica Leichtweisz, a behavior analyst and certified child development specialist in Hackensack, N.J. “Traditionally, a child views home as a place to relax and play, and school as a place to do work.”

新泽西州哈肯萨克市行为分析师、儿童发展认证专家杰西卡·莱赫特维斯说：“一个孩子可能知道在图书馆里要安静，但是在操场上可以大声喧哗。传统上，孩子把家看作是一个放松和玩耍的地方，而学校则是学习的地方。”

In order for a child to listen to their parents teach, the parents must establish home as the new place to do schoolwork.

为了让孩子听父母的话，父母必须把家当作新的学习场所。

Designate one area for schoolwork, and if possible, the area should not be the same place where the child typically plays.

让孩子在一个指定的区域做作业，如果可能的话，这个区域最好不要是孩子平常玩耍的地方。

“Getting a new table or desk that is similar to what a child would sit on in school can also be very beneficial” in creating a new association in the space, Ms. Leichtweisz said.

莱赫特维斯说：“买一张新桌子或书桌，就像孩子在学校坐的桌子一样，非常有助于孩子把新空间和学习行为联系起来。”

Schools stick with a strict schedule, and teachers regularly tell children what’s expected of them — along with consequences if they don’t stick with the schedule, said Dr. Ron Stolberg, Ph.D, a California-based clinical psychologist, family therapist and co-author of “Teaching Kids to Think.” Schedules are typically displayed in the room and are mentioned multiple times per day.

加利福尼亚临床心理学家、家庭治疗师、《教孩子思考》一书的合著者罗恩·斯托伯格博士说到，学校要求孩子们严格遵守计划表，教师们也会时常提醒他们应该完成的结果，以及不按计划行事的后果。教室里通常都会张贴时间表，老师们每天会多次提醒学生。

Transitions are planned and discussed often. For example, Dr. Stolberg said, a teacher might say, “OK, kids, in five minutes, we are going to clean up the art supplies so we can start story time. The quicker we clean up, the more time we have for the story.”

老师们常常会计划、探讨教学内容的过渡环节。斯托伯格博士举例说，一位老师可能会讲，“好了，孩子们，我们需要在五分钟内清理美术用品，随后我们就可以开始讲故事了。我们清理的越快，留给故事的时间就越多。”

But even with a schedule and reminders, it’s likely that at first the teachers still had to show the students that the rules and schedule weren’t just recommendations, he said. If children didn’t follow through, they would face a consequence, such as sitting out of art or being sent to the office. Parents may create their own consequences.

斯托伯格博士说，就算制定了计划表并不断加以提醒，老师们最初可能还是得向学生说明清楚，这些并不仅仅只是建议。如果孩子们不遵守的话，他们就会受到惩罚，例如禁止接触艺术品，抑或被请到办公室谈话。父母也可以制定自家的惩罚规则。

The schedule you make can fit around your work responsibilities, Dr. Stolberg said. Schoolwork can be done in the evenings and on the weekends as long as your child knows the schedule.

斯托伯格博士表示，你可以使孩子的学习计划表适应你的自己的工作职责。只要孩子了解计划，他们也可以在网上、周末完成学业。

“We get to create the new normal,” he said.

“我们要创造一种新常态。”他说。

When children were infants, they learned that crying led to feeding, diaper changes and stimulation. Although young children do learn more adaptive behaviors — like talking — they still cry and whine and throw tantrums because these are leftover behaviors from infancy, said Dr. Kimberly Berens, Ph.D., a behavioral scientist and founder of Fit Learning.

行为学家，同时也是健康学习的创始人金伯利·贝伦斯博士说，当孩子们还是婴儿的时候，家长们就学会了在他们啼哭时哺乳，换尿布，激励的种种技能。尽管年幼的孩子学会了更多适应性的技能（比如交谈），他们依旧会因婴儿期遗留行为而哭泣、哀嚎，以及发脾气。

But teachers don’t have this long history with your children; and peers, along with social contingencies, will help students avoid behaving in ways that may be ridiculed.

但老师与孩子们并没有这么多相处的时间；同龄人，还有社会影响，都会促使学生们避免做出这种可笑的行为。

Parents can curb the whining, the crying and the complaining throughout the school day by not giving in when it happens. “If a child complains about completing a task or assignment, and a parent lets them avoid or escape completing that assignment, then that complaining has just been reinforced and is now more likely to occur again when the child is presented with something they don’t want to do,” Dr. Berens said.

如果家长们不在孩子在教学时间抱怨、哭闹时妥协，就能有效控制这种现象的出现。“如果孩子为完成任务或作业而抱怨时，家长就允许他们不做了，那么这种抱怨就会更为变本加厉，孩子遇到不愿做的事情时更可能会如法炮制。”贝伦斯博士说。

Positive attention from parents, access to electronic devices, free time, allowance or preferred items are all things that children may be continually accruing throughout the day.

家长的积极关注、电子设备的使用、空闲时间、零花钱以及想要的东西，都可以是孩子们日积月累才能获得的奖励。

“Unfortunately, most kids have unlimited access to what they want, and lose that access when a behavior occurs,” Dr. Berens said.

“不幸的是，大部分孩子平时可以无限制地得到他们想要的东西，但一旦他们出现某种错误行为，就会失去这种权力。”贝伦斯博士说。

Behavioral science indicates that this practice should be flipped: Children should be earning privileges throughout the day when they help around the house or do their work without complaining, she said.

她说，行为科学表明，应该将这种惩罚机制变成奖励机制：当孩子们在家里帮忙或毫无怨言地学习时，他们可以得到一定的奖励特权。

One of the most detrimental things for children is gray time, when it’s unclear if they should be working, staring into space, doodling or something else, Dr. Berens said. Work time needs to be clearly distinguished from break time, and a timer is the most effective way to do this. When your child needs to work on a school assignment, set a timer and watch how long it typically takes for your child to get off task.

贝伦斯博士说，对孩子们来说，最有害的事情之一是灰色时间，他们不清楚该不该学习、放空、涂鸦或做其他事。学习时间需要与休息时间明确区分开来，计时器是最有效的方法。当你的孩子需要完成学校的作业时，设置一个计时器，观察孩子完成作业通常需要多长时间。

“This period may be as short as three minutes for some kids,” Dr. Berens said. “It is important to initially select a timing period that your child can reasonably achieve.”

贝伦斯博士说：“对一些孩子来说，这段时间可能只有三分钟，一开始选择你家孩子能够合理完成作业的时间段是很重要的。”

Your child should work continuously throughout that timing period, and if you have to remind them to get back on track, you should reset the timer. Once they complete a work period without a reminder, reward them with enthusiastic praise and access to a preferred free-time activity.

你的孩子应该在设定的时间段内持续学习，如果你必须提醒他们回到正轨，你应该重置计时器。一旦他们在没有提醒的情况下完成了一个学习周期，你可以用热情的表扬和一个他们喜欢的自由活动来奖励他们。

Continue training this way, and as your child successfully completes several intervals in a row, gradually increase the length of the work until they’re working independently for 30 minutes.

坚持这样的训练，当你的孩子成功地完成连续几个周期时，逐渐增加他们写作业的时长，直到他们独立学习30分钟。

Education happens in many places, especially right now, said Karen Gross, an author and educator based in Washington D.C. Cooking is learning, so are art projects, puzzles and games. Parents can adjust their classroom to fit their needs, Gross said.

华盛顿特区的一位作家兼教育家凯伦·格罗斯说，生活处处是教育，尤其是现在。烹饪可以是一门学课，艺术项目、谜题和游戏也是如此。家长可以根据自己的需要调整教室。

One of the reasons children behave in school is because they’re surrounded by their peers. If you want your child to act like they’re in school, pretend that you’re in school.

孩子们在学校表现得体的原因之一是因为他们周围都是同龄人。如果你想让你的孩子表现得像在上学，就假装你也在上学。

“Get out the stuffed animals and pretend they are part of the class,” said Julia Swaigen, a therapist with Attuned Families in Toronto. “When I first took my daughter out of day care, I would pretend that we were at day care and I would say, ‘OK friends, let’s all sit down at the table together for lunch — I’m looking to see all of my friends sitting nicely at the table.’”

She also suggested letting your child have a turn being the teacher, giving them choices about what they want to teach.

多伦多和谐家庭的心理医生朱莉娅·斯威根说：“把动物公仔拿出来，假装它们是班上的同学。当我第一次带女儿离开日托所时，我会假装我们还在日托所，我会说：‘好的朋友们，让我们一起坐在桌边吃午饭吧——我希望看到我所有的朋友都很乖地坐在桌边。’”她还建议，给你的孩子一个当老师的机会，让他们决定自己想教什么。