The compelling push to return children to school assumes that the school they left is the school they return to. It is not. The push also assumes that school is the preferred place for children to be learners. This assumption also is not fully valid. Now, what? The answer is our understanding that the school that is now is not the school that was last March and the school that will be this spring and next fall must reflect what pandemic education is teaching us.
A school day last March was a lot like every school day for the years before. From every corner of the schoolhouse, one could hear voices of children and see active children. Singing and playing instruments in the music rooms. Running, jumping, throwing, and catching, and loud voices in the gym. Groups sitting and talking at tables in the media center and sitting and eating in the cafeteria. Children walking, mingling, talking, and laughing in the hallways. Children in classes receiving teacher-provided instruction. Children grouped everywhere. Only the first sentence in this paragraph about school last March lives in our school this January. The school our children are returning to is so much unlike the school they left.
So, what. In truth, there is a lot of “what”. Our pandemic schools provide parents the choice to have their children attend school or be at-home learners. The “what” is that almost 50% of children in our schools do NOT want to return to a school deep into pandemic protocols. The school that is today is not the school children left and children may not choose to be back until their school is like the school they want to attend.
It is more than a requirement that everyone must wear masks at school. Class desks are socially distanced. There is no small group work. A teacher will not come to your desk to give personal attention and help. Kids can’t use their lockers or see their friends in the hallway. Lunch is served in bags in classrooms. No choral singing, no plays on stage, and no band or orchestra concerts. No large groups at recess. To diminish contact between children and teachers, some classes that were 50 minutes are now three hours long and a child only attends two very long classes each day. No thanks, some children say.
A second understanding about then and now informs us that some children never were happy attending the school that was. Our historic model of school wants children to be extroverts, sharers, talkers, socializers, and willing to be around and with classmates five days a week for 180 school days. Our academic, activity, arts, and athletics life in school constantly requires children to be with other children. Collaboration and group participation are indirectly part of our educational evaluation processes. Children who do not mix well often did not prosper in the school that was. Consider a child you knew to be highly introverted and how well that child prospered in the school that was. Do you see that child today in the school that is? Not with pandemic choice. The option to be an at-home learner has become the schooling of choice for a significant number of children. They no longer are stressed by the demands to socialize and cooperate and collaborate. These children are prospering as at-home learning because they are happier at home than at school.
On the other hand, the need for personal and private time does not resonate with all children. Just as many children prefer and require the social life of school. Our new understanding is this: if our real interest is meeting the educational needs of all children, then at-home learning is how we should meet the needs of some children in the school that will be. Not all, but some require a choice of where to learn.
This should be no surprise to adults. Consider how many of us are now working from home. Note the use of words. Learning at home and working from home. Interesting. The office no longer is required for every kind of work and working from home is now and will continue to be a way of life in many businesses. The business model changed and adults learned to prosper in this way of doing their work. If it is good for some adults, why wouldn’t it be good for some students?
The school that will be should not be like the school that was. The pandemic has wrung out a number of our prior assumptions about schooling and beliefs of what is best schooling for all children. The school that we provide and ask children to attend today, the school that is, will and must further evolve into the school that will be. If that future school reflects all that we have learned in the Time of COVID, it will not be the school that was.