"I absolutely do not support this plan," said Tartu Mart Reinik School principal Enn Ööpik, who has previously taught physics online to students at small schools.

"A TV screen doesn't teach," he emphasized. "When we're talking about the first through third stages of education, you really need a teacher there. A TV screen won't maintain order."

Ööpik said that anyone can conduct an experiment. "Watch some TV, then afterward summarize how much of what you watched you remember," he said.

According to the principal, virtual teaching methods work well for highly self-directed learners. "High schools to a limited extent and universities can utilize this distance education, but earlier school stages..." he said.

It could prove an extremely costly method as well, he pointed out, requiring proctors in classrooms to supervise students.

"If a student has a question, the screen won't answer it," Ööpik said. "If three people are talking at once in the same room, you can tell who's talking; that's impossible to distinguish online."

Asked how the country could get more math teachers in its schools, he replied, "If I had the answer to that, I'd be a millionaire."

The Tartu school principal emphasized that learning math requires targeted and consistent effort, but today's world is one filled with three-second distractions, and that makes teachers' jobs more challenging.

"Everything has to be incredibly interesting all the time – but it isn't possible to teach everything through spectacle alone all the time," Ööpik said, discussing why math teachers are scarce and don't often last long in the role.

"There's a certain element of society and parents who say that the kids aren't learning because there's no spectacle involved," he noted. "This puts teachers in a bind, because they can't always be entertaining. Then they have the chance to choose another profession."

Students facing challenges may fall further behind

In an appearance on Vikerraadio's "Uudis+," Hele Kiisel, head of the School Mathematics Association (KMÜ) of the Estonian Mathematical Society (EMS), warned that virtual teaching could lead to very different outcomes for various students.

"During the [COVID-19] pandemic, I managed to accidentally teach an entire lesson to completely unfamiliar students," Kiisel recalled.

"In my experience, this method works for motivated students, but not for those who could use constant direction and direct guidance of their work," she said. "With this teaching method, students facing challenges will fall even further behind."

The math association chief pointed out that if there are ten classes participating at once in an online lesson, that's 240 students.

"It's like being at the movies or in a large theater," she acknowledged. "We all walk out of the theater with very different feelings too – some noticed everything, others only caught parts of it. Without a proficient teacher present in the classroom in the 7th or 8th grade, I don't really see this succeeding."

Experimenting with the 6th through 10th grades, all of whom have been taught by different teachers, a teacher teaching virtually wouldn't know how to make a lesson work for everyone either, Kiisel noted.

She also raised concerns about how students could ask questions if the teacher is managing ten different classrooms.

"Does the student have a microphone?" she asked. "Are they sitting separately at a computer? Who asks questions, and when will they get answers to their questions? Immediately?"

Ministry: Online method could be even better

"It's possible with such an initiative to differentiate pace, and virtual teaching provides the opportunity for multiple rewatches in the future," said Ülle Matsin, director of the General Education Policy Department at the Ministry of Education and Research.

"Students with learning gaps who fall behind in math exist even with the current traditional teaching methods," she pointed out. "To claim that online teaching would create an exceptionally bad situation for [these] students ignores the fact that learning difficulties in math already exist."

According to the department director, however, there is no need to group students based on ability; rather, this requires an individualized approach.

"We all learn effectively in different ways," Matsin acknowledged. "Digital teaching methods allow for greater flexibility in applying different methodologies."

The Tallinn Education Department is still recruiting teachers for its virtual teaching pilot project. Teachers to join it will be tasked with drawing up and implementing virtual courses in teams of up to five members each. According to the city department, there has been significant interest in the project.

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