As the classroom has become an instructional studio, the place where each child does her schoolwork remotely has become an at-home learning workshop. This is not Grampa’s workshop with a thick-topped wooden workbench and wall of hanging hand tools. A school child’s workshop is a table top where a pad of paper and pencil, or laptop, chromebook or tablet lay. Some days, it is a child’s lap as she sits on the sofa or is propped on her bed. Every at-home learner has a learning workshop place. This is a COVID-effect. It is a reality that we need to understand, support, enhance, and appreciate.
New concept: Every remote learner has an at-home place or places for doing schoolwork and these places are her learning workshop. Think about a writer’s workshop that is a place for thinking, writing, editing, and rewriting. A writer’s workshop is about the writing process not the place. A learning workshop is the place where an at-home learner engages in the processes of learning.
Remote education put an end to classroom fussiness about how a student sits at a desk during class time. A teacher who once harped “Now, sit up straight”, no longer has a concern for posture. An at-home learner will not hear “Both feet on the floor, please”. And, about those neatnik comments. A teacher who frowned at a student’s desk that was a mess and dissed a child saying, “No wonder you can’t find your assignment!”, need not be concerned. A child’s at-home desk or schoolwork area is that child’s domain. And, no one need say, “No hats in this classroom, please”. At-home children set their own standards for how and where they work and how they sit and what they wear while doing schoolwork. “Clothing, please, when on camera” is all we ask.
“Oh, and be kind to and respectful of each other”. Cannot forget this in our on-line environment.
This is great! It says for a first time that all we are interested in during class time today is what a child thinks, says, learns, can show in writing or media, and how she feels about her learning. The absence of school-centered demands allows us to shift most appropriately to learning demands.
“Show me or talk to me about your work and let me see your smile.” And, I will show you my smile as we talk about your learning.
This is the essence of a remote education connection called “class”. This statement tells us that we are approaching a real performance-based education. All the other insignificant yet enforced regimens of classroom behavior are suspended for at-home learners.
In-school teaching can enhance a child’s at-home workshop. As we provide children with digital devices and Internet hook-ups, we cannot forget all the other provisions a learner needs no matter her location. She still needs books and workbooks in print form, pencils and pens and paper, and art and mechanical supplies that would not be available in kitchen drawers in most homes. A paint brush for home walls and halls will not do for a child’s watercolor painting. Advanced math learners need their upper-end calculators. Chemistry and other science students need “safe” materials for home-based lab work. We will not be sending band saws, drill presses, and lathes home for tech learners, however. As we push at-home learners further and further into a full school curriculum, we must supply at-home learners with required materials for their at-home workshops.
High quality teaching and learning continue throughout the pandemic. This is what we are called to do. Our new understanding of a child’s at-home learning workshop helps us to foresee and prepare all children to be successful learners in the Time of COVID.