Equity is a buzzword in education. We hear it used by staff, administrators, and presenters. Under regular circumstances the practical application of equity seems to fall short of the ideal. During a pandemic, ensuring equity for students when teaching digitally becomes an almost insurmountable challenge.
This school year my district stepped up to tackle this challenge with an innovative approach: an evening school option for elementary students.
Continue reading
Hopefulness is evident in celebrations all over the world. There is such hope that the New Year will bring a return to normal, a return to a less complicated time. Of course, we are more pragmatic than this. We know that the normal we once knew has changed, and we will take many of this year’s complications with us far into the future. That is the truth, and, well, that is how progress happens, too.
As educators, this is significant. Most teachers I speak to relate similar feelings. Their jobs have become so different, practically unrecognizable. “This isn’t what we signed up for,” is the common refrain. I’ve said it, too.
No, it is not what we expected, but it is what we have now. And it is a bit scary. There is a real danger of people leaving the education profession. However, change can be leveraged to solve problems. As educators, let’s unite to do this. Let’s make this next year the year we start a revolution in education.
REVOLUTION. Not renaissance, not pivot, not shift. Let’s flip this system.
This is not to be taken lightly. If we sit quietly and wait for normal, the entrepreneurs out there will convince the public that they can create products for online learning that are better than in-person teaching. They will market these miracles to the masses and this will be touted as ethical and equitable. Anyone with access to the internet can learn. Who needs teachers?
You may think, so what? Let them turn to online systems. But, if this year has taught us anything at all, it is the value of human connection. We teachers may be struggling to realize our value as purveyors of knowledge, but we know our true worth. It is obvious that we are invaluable when we are the ones coaching lonely youngsters through their studies, reminding them of their worth, laughing at their antics during Zoom meetings, and consoling them when their practices and games are canceled. That humanity is irreplaceable.
I treasure every moment of connection with my students these days. And I know that I am a better teacher for seeing the value of it. Because of this, there is no going back to normal for me. I don’t even want it to be the way it was. For me, the lifting of the veil revealed that all students need to feel safe, in control of their learning, and valued by their teachers and by the education system. That is the only way to move forward successfully.
For equity, for ethics, we need systems that honor the value of each individual. In light of this, I am reinventing my practice to put students clearly at the center, giving them more power in the process of choosing the learning they will do. I will involve them in the grading process, and I will work every day to ensure that they understand their worth.
I understand mine. And I know that every educator out there needs to see their worth, too. You are the connection. You are the humanity. You are irreplaceable.
Related Readings (Or, Why Is Lynne All Riled Up?):
Tell me about your goals. What were they before Covid-19? What are they now?
I’m guessing they are somewhat different. Our priorities have shifted. At home, this is good – more time with family and pets, and far less time on our hair!
However, my educator goals have suffered terribly. Prior to this year, I had clear and powerful goals for my classroom, my students, and myself. In fact, I had three areas that I was independently researching or promoting, and I was really fired up about them, too. I was building a toolbox of my own to be the best teacher I could be to my students.
Here are my goals, pre-Covid:
Continue readingMy district was one of the first in our region to go back to school face-to face this year. We began a “hybrid model” on September 14, with seniors and K-3 going four days a week, and all others going twice-a-week in cohorts (Monday/Thursday and Tuesday/Friday). On Wednesdays we delivered online material and caught up with our work, while reinventing it simultaneously. Some of our students opted for full-time distance learning, but the vast majority excitedly prepared for the first day of school.
Our neighbor districts were watching us intently. Would we pave the way for others to follow us, or would we cause an outbreak in our tiny town?
One week in, “it” happened. A student, who later tested positive for Covid-19, attended the first day of school. Dozens of staff members and students were subsequently quarantined due to contact with the student, and the decision was made to suspend school until the 14-day quarantine period was over, giving the health department time to do all of the necessary contact tracing. Our schools and buses were disinfected, and our teaching staff pivoted to all online learning, something we were told was likely to happen from the start.
Not an auspicious beginning, you might say. But let me elaborate.
As we ready ourselves to start a new school year unlike any other in our history, many districts in our state are once again embroiled in debates about teachers-as-workers and the rights and protections we deserve.
A sticking point in many places strikes me as fundamentally confusing: Whether instructional staff should conduct distance learning or virtual teaching from their physical classrooms or whether they should be permitted the flexibility to do so from off site.
I gotta be honest: This feels like a no-brainer. If students are learning remotely, why should teachers not have the flexibility to do their work from the environment they feel is best for their and their family’s health and safety? Personally, I have decided that I will probably be heading into my classroom unless I’m told I cannot. My preference, though, isn’t shared by others. And those others have valid reasons for not wanting to leave the relative safety of their homes…and even if we as a society seem to have forgotten that we are in the midst of a global pandemic, my colleagues’ valid concerns are literally matters of life-or-death.
My biggest problems with the debate have to do with the reasons being given as to why teachers should report to their classrooms for virtual teaching. None of these reasons, to me, outweigh the personal health and safety of a teacher or a teacher’s family: If our work can be done effectively from a safe environment, why not? (Sadly, local news sources like to stir the pot on this issue, with at least three local outlets in the Portland/Vancouver area doing the old “hey viewer, what do YOU think?” about where and how I and my colleagues ought to do our jobs.) From district leaders, policymakers, parents and the public, I’ve noticed four common arguments for requiring teachers to teach virtually from an empty classroom:
Common Reason #1 for Requiring Teachers to Report to School for Virtual Teaching: The employer has the right to verify that the work they are paying teachers to do is actually getting done. Okay, on the surface, I don’t disagree. How did this happen in face-to-face learning? Admin drop-ins and observations? Stacks of student work or student art on the walls? Student and parent feedback? These, or something analogous, can and will happen in a virtual setting. In fact, a virtual setting inherently creates mountains more potential artifacts that a teacher is “putting in the work.” From last spring, I have hours and hours of videos, mountains of virtual folders of work still in my Google Drive, and electronic data trails far more enduring than much of what was produced by my face-to-face teaching (where there would be whole class periods that might go by filled with interactions, discussions, probing questions, and coaching conversations: none of which necessarily produce any immediately tangible evidence that these ever even happened).
Common Reason #2 is closely related: Last spring there were many teachers working triple duty to do their job well, while others for whatever reason (lack of skill or lack of will) skated by doing much less. In theory, getting every teacher in the building will help with that, since supposedly the administration will have nothing else to do but diligently oversee everyone’s work (sarcasm). This is a classic case of creating policy for all in order to attempt to force the fringes toward different behavior. This is also, however, exceptionally poor leadership. Are there teachers not doing as much as they should? Such a population exists in every profession and also existed in teaching before the world flipped upside down. Rather than create policy that constricts the many, it makes more sense to exert instructional and managerial leadership to remediate the few. Just as it is a disservice to my ready learners for me to engage in sweeping classroom micromanagement to forcibly compel compliance from reluctant learners, it makes no sense to adopt blanket personnel policy for all when what really needs to happen are tough, uncomfortable supervisory conversations with the few who may be shirking their responsibilities.
Common Reason #3: It will make the transition to eventual hybrid or face to face learning easier. Okay: How? I’ve yet to hear a convincing follow-up answer to this. I am concerned about how I can facilitate my students’ eventual transition, but I can handle relocating my own work if needed. The small number of teachers who can’t handle that? Again, like above, that’s a small group and is a management/supervisory issue.
Common Reason #4, the least persuasive: It is bad optics to have teachers working from home. I get that we are public schools. I also understand that the public will have strong opinions about anything and everything teachers do. But again: How many people are we really talking about? No matter what teachers do, ever, there will always be a faction of the public outraged and ready to take it to the supe’s office. Now would be a great time for our leaders to smile and nod at those complainers, and then consider policy that serves the physical and mental health of the employees…those same employees being charged with scaffolding up the physical and mental health of our students. (It is perpetually disheartening to see, nationwide, school systems that refuse to treat employees with the same essential care and humanity they expect those employees to provide for students.)
As the s-word starts to bubble up for various reasons in school districts across the nation, when it comes to where we teach virtually from it feels like we (labor) are fighting a fight we should not have to. Has anyone out there heard valid, compelling reasons why teachers should not have the flexibility to teach from wherever they feel safest during distance learning? Despite what it might seem from this screed, I’m open to having my mind changed.
Normally, I could move through August a little bit on auto-pilot: get the room set up, check the rosters, re-tool and update the curriculum, plan to fold in the lessons learned from the previous year, maybe build a new unit or two based on my most recent reading or learning.
Like many schools in Washington, my district is starting up in September fully virtual/distance learning, a difficult decision and one I personally support both as an educator and as a parent. For that reason, auto-pilot is a no-go. This is hands-on navigation through a hurricane. In a mountain range. At night. With no GPS and glitchy radar. And there are murder hornets in the cockpit.
I cannot plan in a vacuum: the pandemic, the protests, the politics, these are all realities that I understand will impact what I do as the outside world pushes into my classroom unlike ever before. This August, I’m focusing on a few things I need to remember as I welcome students, virtually, into our learning environment:
I cannot begin to tell you how special my 2020 seniors are to me. I feel like writing them a mass letter of recommendation, pinning the hopes of the world on their amazing shoulders. They are the inspiration I need these days, because their cleverness, their resilience, their awareness, and their kindness are what we need to solve problems and hold each other up.
Last week I had one more online class with them to plan, and I had to make it matter. They have been my students since seventh grade. They’ve heard all my stories; they know all my opinions. I’ve presented them with hundreds of lessons on literature and composition. If I haven’t taught them a skill by now, it really is too late, right?
2020 Mossyrock Seniors in Junior High
Bell to bell. I like to fill my students’ time with learning, which makes me an exhausting, high-energy, way-too-intense teacher for some folks, but they know to expect my expectations. And we were going to learn on the last day, too.
What was the lesson they still needed? We had dedicated most of the last semester of their dual-credit composition class to “skills for success”. We brainstormed what successful adults had learned – outside of school. We compared that to their collective knowledge, and then they dug into some research to create projects to share with their peers to expand their knowledge in the homestretch. They created research papers, multimedia presentations, and blog posts (see them here), as individuals and groups. It was relevant, dynamic, timely, and successful. And, in the middle of it, the pandemic happened.
Some of the Girls (Photo Credit: Amy Fitzhugh)
So what was the lesson I still owed them? It is one I am working on myself, and one we all need, especially with the isolation and the unfamiliar challenges of distance learning. I announced that I (their least relaxed teacher of all time) was delving into mindfulness techniques to manage stress in these strange times. I have been reading about stress and mental health all year, and I had just attended our CSTP Happy Hour that focused on mindfulness with special guest Christy Anana. All of the signs led to this topic. This topic chose itself.
I let my vulnerability show, telling my seniors I knew my mindfulness skills were awful, and my “vibe” was not the sort that a mindfulness teacher would have, but I also knew that it was a skill for success that we had bypassed in our research. It was too important to leave out.
Some of the Boys (Photo Credit: Sage Pereira)
So, we watched some videos: an explainer on stress and the brain; some videos of a high school teacher who helps her students “arrive” through mindfulness; and a video that led us through a mindful minute. We discussed how we felt about it, how our conservative community would react if teachers started teaching mindfulness regularly, and how we could use it in our lives to stay grounded and present.
And, as usual, like every other time, these kids impressed me. They were amazing, and already better than me at mindfulness.
The Home Team (Photo Credit: Amy Fitzhugh)
So, at the end, I gave them instructions as to how to write their final reflection and submit their portfolios. There was an awkward pause. I struggled to find some witty way to say my final goodbye, and I failed.
I just said, “I’m going to let you go.”
Pause. Long pause.
“Are you going to cry Mrs. Olmos?”
“Yes.”
That was the last lesson, the last gift I had to give those students. But, next year’s students, no matter what next year looks like, are going to get a more mindful teacher from the get-go.
One More for the Road (Photo Credit: Amy Fitzhugh)
Resources:
How Our Brains React to Uncontrollable Stress
Harvard Researchers Study How Mindfulness May Change the Brain in Depressed Patients
For the vast majority of my students, distance learning has not been working.
Not just my classes, but the concept in general. Many report that their lives outside of school are often unstructured, unfettered, tumultuous, so the routine and predictability (and accountability) of school was what kept their footing. They miss being greeted by the principal and our awesome secretaries every single morning. They miss our one-hallway community where literally everyone knows your name. They even miss my bad dad-jokes. (I added that last one, because I’m just assuming…)
They share with me that it isn’t the content, or the tasks, or the obscure grading expectations, or the fact that they might spend hours staring at a chromebook. It is the loss of the structure of school, both literal and figurative.
While some are adrift, a handful are experiencing an academic transformation. The numbers are small, but there is something about this distance learning thing that is working for them. Let’s take one student, who I’ll call B*. Prior to March 13th, attendance was spotty. When present, B was physically present only. Despite constant attempts to connect, few of us on staff were able to claim we actually had a sustained conversation with them. In the weeks prior to the shutdown, I received two assignments from B. They weren’t defiant, and to be honest their skills (in my classes, at least) did not appear to be deficient in any significant way. B was, and is, an enigma we are continuing to work to unravel.
Transition to distance learning and this same student had nearly the highest rate of engagement of all my students. This is a student listed as homeless, with a history of bouncing from school to school, and with a outside-of-school life that instantly led to worry every time they missed school. When I asked B why distance learning seemed to work, I parsed out three trends in their (short) reply:
Continue reading
One silver lining: Sometimes it takes the unimaginable to jar loose our imaginations.
When we finally get back to face-to-face education with kids, I have a few changes I hope I’ll see. Some of these are based on my own personal experiences with distance learning, some are broader. I hope to see…
How about you? In what ways do you hope school looks different upon our eventual return?