Rethinking School
By Albert B. Kelly
Every once in a while, a moment comes along that forces us to rethink how we do things. On the backend of this pandemic, I believe we have been presented with just such an opportunity as it relates to schools and how we do school. Whether we take it or not remains to be seen, but we do have a jumping off point if we want to take it.
I say that because the pandemic has prompted us to do things we never would have considered in “normal times”. The other thing the pandemic did was expose things that we sort of knew were there, but didn’t want to spend too much time thinking about. The most obvious thing pertaining to school during the pandemic was remote learning.
Prior to the pandemic, we talked about “distance learning” and there was a sense that it was an option, if not a bit of a luxury, reserved for specific circumstances, whether students at one college getting credit for completing classes at another college or older adults taking classes they otherwise wouldn’t be able to attend in person.
In March of 2020, “distance learning” became “desperate learning” as the pandemic hit and schools shut down along with almost everything else. This sudden switch, forced upon us by circumstance, exposed several things we hadn’t been prepared to address. The most glaring thing was the digital divide. When education was forced online, we were confronted with the fact that whole segments of our society did not have desktop computers, laptops, or tablets to access online education, though I think schools and governments have made serious strides in the past 2 years to close that gap.
Along with this dearth of devices, we also realized that entire neighborhoods and census tracts lacked internet access. In other instances the internet itself was the neighborhood, but households couldn’t afford the monthly bill to keep it on. So while students might have had a device courtesy of their school; they didn’t have the internet service needed to connect them with their teachers.
Another thing that got exposed was the lack of atmosphere for some and by that, I mean a lack of space, silence, and orderliness necessary to focus and learn. Struggle breeds chaos and families struggling to survive are often families in chaos. Where that exists, it makes it exceedingly difficult for students to learn. Sometimes the chaos was in the form of multiple children in a household trying to share the same device. Sometimes the chaos was simply a lack of space. Regardless, the pandemic made bigger and more obvious those factors outside the classroom that affect learning, factors we tend to not want to dwell on.
But we’re here now and there is value in thinking about how we might do remote learning or distance learning better. How much of it do we incorporate into the traditional classroom model? Some of the focus will necessarily be on the type and quantity of devices while others will focus on the infrastructure itself.
Is there anything to be done to mitigate chaos and provide a better atmosphere more conducive to learning? It is said that New Jersey’s schools are among the most segregated in the country. Does a remote or distance learning framework automatically make this worse, make it more hidden, or are there ways to use the technology to level the playing field?
We’ve been reminded during the pandemic of just how many students count on school for nutritious meals. Here I must give a lot of credit to so many dedicated teachers and others in school systems all over who made sure that the pandemic didn’t separate students from getting at least one nutritious meal. It would have been easy to let this fall between the cracks, but they didn’t. More evidence that schools have become for many a lifeline and the safety net and this too is worthy of rethinking how to do it better.
We also know if we didn’t know before, how vital school is for the socialization of students. Whether in the classroom, in the hallway between classes, in the cafeteria or on the playing field after school, this is where students of all ages learn how to be citizens.
The pandemic exposed some things and suggested others. We can’t get back the time, but I think we can redeem it if we take the opportunity to rethink how we do school in the future.