“Oh, wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, that has such people in ‘t!”
Photo from Pixaby
As we have been in isolated during this pandemic, I have been (like everybody) thinking and rethinking what we do, how we do and why we do. My mind has often wandered to life after this isolation. Much like Miranda in The Tempest, I imagine that we will emerge and be inhabiting a brave new world—a brave new educational world.
I remember on December 31, 1999, we were all embracing the dawn of the 21st century. There was a lot of talk prior to the dawn of 2000 about how our world was going to change. Newsfeed were filled with rumors of computers crashing, cars stopping in the middle of the road, and the world becoming a sea of silence. At 11:59:59 on December 31, 1999, I remember bracing myself to emerge into a dystopian world where everything had stopped. Of course, and thankfully, that did not happen. As an educator (I was still in the classroom), I was also thinking about how this new century would usher in changes to education, and it did. Of course, there were lots of systemic changes where technology continued to be enhanced and made data gathering and communication easier. I began changing the way that I use technology in learning and looked for ways to harness the ever-changing technology resources that were available to teachers and students.
In 2005, I became an assistant principal, and began visiting classrooms from all disciplines. As you would imagine, as educators, we were all over the continuum of thinking about how education evolves and adapts with technological and human changes. There were many teachers grappling with how to be more intentional with both new technologies and changing human behavior because of changing technologies; there were teachers who could not or would not change, particularly in classroom structures, planning and delivery. I remember saying as a quixotic administrator that is all OK. And it was. I also vividly remember saying that part of what I see myself as a leader doing is helping support those changes along the continuum, and thinking that in 5 years or 10 years we would have made significant changes overall. And there were some significant changes, but not systemic. To me when I visited classrooms in 2015, some were rolling right along, and others had done some changing (using an LCD v an overhead projector, having kids create a PowerPoint), but there were still classrooms that made me think that I was still in my high school classroom in 1988: Little inquiry, teacher dominant, worksheets, sitting in rows, etc. My intention here is not to criticize because I know how hard teachers work and I know the demands that teachers face everyday.
Now, we enter the 2020 Pandemic that has swept the globe, and as pandemics do, they have forced us to change our behaviors, our thought patterns, and our philosophies. As I was scrolling through some free reading, I came across an article entitled, “How Epidemics of the Past Changed the Way Americans Lived” from Smithsonian Magazine. I was intrigued by the article. For example, earlier epidemics prompted builders to start building porches and windows in houses for ventilation because doctors began to tout the benefits of fresh air to combating disease. The Iditarod was founded in Alaska as a response to a diphtheria outbreak in the early 20th century. Modern-day sanitation systems were born out of a need to remove garbage and waste from the streets to curb the rampage of tuberculosis, cholera and typhoid.
Education is a cornerstone of society, and I believe in the power of learning. I believe in the value of teachers! All of us in education became educators because we wanted to influence others and to help shape and mold young minds.
Now, we are having to rethink how we do school around the world, and there are some struggles. I argue that schools having to pivot to transition to remote learning is not easy at all. So much of our educational system is rooted in human contact, and this is a good thing. I hope there is never a revolution that moves us from gathering together to learn and play with ideas. I also acknowledge the very real problems of remote learning that are rooted in access to technology and internet for some families and food insecurity, which are all paramount problems. What I am addressing is the gap between educator preparedness for remote learning and student readiness, and I believe there is a chasm here. I also want to recognize the incredible work that teachers and educators have done to move, adjust, rethink, and deploy a different way of thinking to make sure that students have access to learning while we are not able to gather. This is the revolution. So, my deepest hope is that when we, like Miranda, emerge we will be in awe of ourselves and others, and this revolution will change our structures in education.
Here are some ways that I hope we can have widespread changes in our systems.
Engaging students: Having to teach remotely and to think of the essence of learning, should pull us closer to thinking about what is worth learning. With state assessments being stripped away and in some cases grades being abandoned, we are having to think about the act of learning and engaging students for the sake of learning and not for grading. That is a very different purpose for learning. I hope that when we emerge we will begin to rethink what we put in front of students, how we present learning, and how we assess learning.
Digital Communications: This is a biggy, and seems inconsequential, but it is a biggy. One of the battles I always fought as a building administrator is a teacher’s digital presence for communication. Having a digital presence for communication is paramount. My hope that when we emerge, we will have all stepped up our efforts to harness a digital platform to communicate with parents and students and ensure that those platforms are dynamic and up-to-date. As a parent, I have been frustrated by broken links or old information on web sites that are meant to be a means of communication. Our digital presence for parents and students as a communication tool should be robust, dynamic, useful, and informative, and a parent and student need to be able to depend on up-to-date communications from all their teachers with a click of a button.
Blended Learning: I think this is one of the places where the revolution has the most promise. My hope is that we start to move away from some of the traditional ways of learning and imagine how learning can be blended for all students. In our digital age, as educators we should be using digital tools to have students access our lessons and examples. Students should be able to access the teacher and his or her information via a video, for example, to reinforce learning. Students should not have to rely only on what the teacher said earlier in the day during the math or English block. Our students should be able to review a lesson or concept while they are working through homework or reviewing. My hope is that classrooms will adjust, where appropriate, to a blended model. As we struggle with differentiation in learning, a blended model could help with delivering instruction at varying levels with flexible groups. I certainly value the classroom environment, but in what ways might we think about how the digital ecosystems we are now forced to create be able to allow flexibility in our classrooms when we emerge?
Classroom Interaction: As educators, we are all scrambling to think about how we engage students in a virtual world when we cannot see student interaction or read the room when we are all together learning. When you think about it, this is not a problem to solve just in the virtual world; our classrooms are scattered with students who are disengaged and sometimes bored from all end of the spectrums from students bored because they are struggling learners or because they are motivated learners and we are not meeting their needs. As we are designing virtual experiences, at the front of our thinking should be how do we engage our students to want to learn. When we emerge, I hope that we will begin to think about how we are asking students to interact. How are we engaging students through inquiry? How are we making learning meaningful to students? How are we designing interactive classrooms where students understand intentional interaction and learn from interaction? How are we making sure that student voice is filling our classrooms? How are we giving students an opportunity, where appropriate, to have choices?
Teacher Collaboration: One of the biggest shifts that I have seen during this adjustment period is the power of teacher collaboration. In many ways, this isolation has required us to rely on our teams to problem-solve and plan. One of the biggest struggles that I had as an administrator was getting people to authentically collaborate. Now as we move into remote learning and virtual teaching, we are beginning to see the value of alignment and the power of collaboration because we are faced with a problem that is likely unsolvable by ourselves. More and more, educators need each other to adapt their learning, to bounce around ideas, and to design learning so as not to be so overwhelmed. This is the work of Professional Learning Communities, and I am hoping that when we emerge from this and pull back the curtain, we remember the value of our teams both professionally and personally. My wish is that teacher collaboration, going forward, will be much more robust and meaningful to those who have not been able to find value in it.
Education is a cornerstone of society, and I believe in the power of learning. I believe in the value of teachers! All of us in education became educators because we wanted to influence others and to help shape and mold young minds. Educating is still one of the most noble professions in the world; however, if this pandemic isolation has not shed a light on some of our practices and rendered them archaic and unhelpful, then what has it done? Like Miranda, I want to peer out from behind this curtain and see a beauteous new world!