When the students and teachers return to school after the pandemic and we reach another level of the “new normal,” we’ll reflect about the teaching and learning that took place during the school closures. This is a watershed event in American education. We’ve been rapidly advancing through a digital education landscape for the past decade as laptops became affordable and more and more digital tools were added to our toolkit. Before COVID-19, it’s like we had reached the edge of a Canyon of Change and were looking over it and wondering how far technology could take teaching and learning.
Then the school closures pushed us over the edge and into the canyon. Digital learning became the norm. The question has not been, “How do we get devices into the hands of the majority of students?” Instead we’ve frantically asked, “How we do get more devices into the hands of the few students who don’t have them?” A decade ago, this heavy technology usage would have been the exception; today we’re trying to bridge the digital divide to ensure everyone can use it.
What long term impact will this tumultuous period have on our schools? While the dust is a long way from settling over our school rooftops, we can already see several outcomes emerging.
1. Parents and the rest of society will have a renewed respect for the jobs teachers and principals do on a daily basis. Mr. Rolando Diaz, a great principal in Texas, summed it up well when he told me we had gone back to the days of the Little Red Schoolhouse as parents tried to help their kids do their schoolwork around their kitchen tables. Stories are in the press of stressed out parents grappling with Gen Z attention spans, personalities, and academic content they don’t understand. The students and teachers will be happy to see the school doors open again - but the parents might be happiest of all.
2. An even greater debate will take place about the role of technology in education: technology in this period has been both a weakness and a strength. Everyone has said that kids of any generation need human interaction, that they can’t be tethered to a device all day. This has been borne out with stories of students who are missing their teachers and their friends in this school closure. On the other hand, we can’t dismiss how technology has provided bright spots in this dark period. I’m hearing stories of the power of virtual field trips, online activities of teachers who are doing it right, and how learning platforms have effectively extended the classroom into student homes. Just imagine how this period might look if we didn’t have the technology we have today.
So, we know the students still need us, and their experiences at home with education technology might vary based upon their age, their personality, and the expertise of the teacher. In areas where students have access to the internet, a gap has been exposed between the teachers who can use technology effectively and those who can’t —- which means there is often a gap in student learning between those who have teachers who can use technology effectively, and those who can’t. Student technology usage is an important part of classroom teaching, but technology usage is imperative if we’re to make the most of school closures.
When school leaders plan their professional development next August, a huge part of the agenda should be dedicated to immersing all teachers into the digital tools and strategies that worked during the school closures. We’re in a race against pandemic time; we need more teachers doing it right in case our schools shut down again next year.