Those who believe that all children are resilient and submerging them in the normalcy of school will cure the significant direct and indirect losses they suffered during our pandemic education are looking for coins under their pillow left by the tooth fairy. Their losses will not be made whole without a clear understanding of pandemic effects and explicit actions taken to remedy those effects. Anything less will create a bruised generation of young adults we could and should have treated better.
I look at children getting off the morning bus at school and see children who look like any children of any pre-pandemic year. Part of my observation, I know, is that I want to see children who are wholesome and happy and well in every sense of the word. Then, I listen to teacher observations and examine the data of students’ returned-to-school learning and I see children who are not what they should be. They exhibit attitudes and dispositions that are getting in the way of their successful school experiences. They have gaps in their school skills and knowledge and culture that cause them undeserved yet solvable problems.
It is inaccurate to ascribe these observations to all children. However, it is accurate to ascribe one or more of these to each child. And, that is where our necessary work begins. Our pandemic mitigations were school- and grade-wide. We closed school for all children, attempted to provide remote instruction to all children, quarantined classes and grade levels after their return to school, and restricted access to school life and its activities for the better parts of two years. I attempt no fault finding; the work is not backwards but forwards. How do we help all children now?
Primary strategy: Personalized Education Plan
The primary strategy for making all children educationally whole and sound from their pandemic effects needs to be an educational and developmental assessment of each child and from that assessment individualized, small group, and whole group remedial treatments.
Begin the strategy with PEPs for all 4K-5 children, those whose dispositional and learning are most foundational and for whom small group and large group remediation will be most efficient and effective. Assess and know the extent of learning and dispositional gaps for each child.
- 5K and grade 1 children lacked 4k and 5K experiences to socialize them to school success.
- 4K-grade 5 children lack educational stamina; remote ed taught them turn off and disengage when assignments and experiences required more than they wanted to commit. Or, when school failed to engage with them.
- 4-grade 5 children learned to isolate from their pandemic experience; screen time provided their socialization and remains their go to escape when in-personal interactions are required.
- 4K through grade 3 lacked explicit instruction in phonemic development, structured language and vocabulary acquisition, and progression in reading fluency.
- Grade 3-5 children display gaps in numeracy arithmetic skills, especially in concepts and automaticity of multiplication, division, and conceptualization of fractions.
- 4K-grade children lost second language development, musical literacy, and cooperative teaming in physical education.
Creating a PEP for each child demonstrates a school’s commitment to post-pandemic education. I am not calling out schools who do not take such explicit actions, but I do place them in the tooth fairy believers category. A PEP requires time and expense to develop, time and expense to implement, collaboration among educators and parents, and a mutual understanding that without explicit strategies children will not overcome the ill effects of their pandemic education. A PEP is a statement regarding school commitment each child’s worth and well-being.
School-wide Post-Pandemic Plans
Parallel to PEPs for all 4K-5 is the need for school-wide implementation of student dispositional remediation, social-emotional and mental health servicing, and trauma-sensitivity training.
On their return to school, middle level children advanced grade levels without developing the social and dispositional skills required for middle level and high school success. Children who were in 5th grade in 2019-20 were 7th graders in 2021-22. They leap-frogged from smaller, self-contained groupings of students, elementary-trained teachers, pre-adolescent social settings into a secondary schedule of changing classes, subject-trained teachers, academic-oriented instruction, and the milieu of middle level adolescence and puberty. They went from Earth to Mars without climate orientation. And, their current school work shows this ill-effect of the pandemic.
Secondary children, especially, demonstrate a turn-it-off disposition in their return to school regarding school procedures and classroom requirements. Their
- rates of tardiness and absenteeism,
- defiance toward cell phone rules,
- lack of assignment completion, and
- non-compliance with teacher direction
are off the chart compared with pre-pandemic secondary children. These are pandemic effects and must be treated as effects that can and must be remediated. Children were largely non-directed and independent while in remote education. They learned habits that are not serving them now.
Administrators and teachers must carve the time and resources from the already packed school calendar and school budgets for individual, small group, and large group treatments. We will not achieve social and emotional wellness without making new school-wide, annual processes and systems for teaching all children these dispositions. And, creating improved systems for identifying children who are S-E stressed and mentally unhealthy.
Schools do not have and are not authorized to have full mental health services. Yet, in rural school communities, especially, distances between homes and services make school new mental health centers. We need collaboration with county health services and private mental health providers if we are to create necessary post-pandemic treatments for children.
Imagine how these children will fare in their post-secondary world if they persist in behaviors caused by the ill effects of the pandemic. They and our community deserve our commitment to remediating the ill effects of their pandemic education or our community and nation will be feeling these ill-effects for decades to come.
What to do?
Start with PEPs for each 4k-5 child. Start with individual, small group, and large group strategies of remediate the pandemic effects that your assessments reveal. Start with a commitment and investment in direct and explicit actions that will make all children educationally and developmentally better. Start with whole school training so that all faculty and staff are attuned to how today’s children are different than yesterday’s. Do not believe tooth fairies will make all your wishes come true.