September 2020

September 3, 2020 - 7 minutes read

Coaching Tip of the Month

“A thing long expected takes the form of the unexpected when at last it comes” wisely says Mark Twain. Should we have expected school closures?

Dana Goldstein, a national correspondent, writes that many educators spent their summers planning the safe re-opening of schools rather than thinking and planning for the possibility of schools continuing in a remote or semi-remote venue (Lost Summer: How Schools Missed a Chance to Fix Remote Learning, NY Times, August 2020). Was it fear, hopeful thinking, or a refusal to accept the reality of the world still being possessed by the virulent demon called the pandemic? Did educators waste precious time flipping back and forth between a face to face school opening and a remote one? Did school administrators delay making a decision because of politics, economics, public health, or mental health issues? If they did, we certainly understand why.

In a flash of an eye, teachers were tasked with the burden of emergency teaching and transforming their comfortable classrooms into a world of new tech tools, limited access to Wi-Fi, insurmountable equity issues, and their own inexperience with 21^st century teaching and learning. Should we have been more prepared?

Did we recognize prior to the pandemic that teaching and learning needed to shift into the 21^st century with new technologies and literacy learning skills for all students? Did we know that teachers needed to shed their dinosaur tails and embrace a different kind of learning? Did we anticipate that our pre-service teachers would need to learn and prepare in different ways to accommodate this new generation of learners? I don’t think we thought about it much. I don’t think we thought something of this pandemic caliber could happen, at least not on our watch.

As schools closed, we watched as remote learning widened the gaps in schools; we watched as teachers struggled to engage their students and calm their anxieties. Teachers had to do double and triple duty… work with their own students, their own families, and in many ways, explore these new tools they were expected to use without support. They had to miraculously provide instruction, focus on student engagement, and assess their students for growth. But, a national study indicates that only one in three districts expected teachers to do all this and that “many districts left learning to chance” (CPRE.org, June 2020). This brief goes on to say that 85% of the districts received packets, assignments, and some guidance for their work but that wasn’t enough…so much more is needed beyond delivering these packets. The conversation about the work is critical to helping students understand the content. That conversation was missing.

We know that personalized learning, for both the students and their teachers, makes a difference. High expectations yield high results. And, in times of remote or hybrid learning, those personal connections can make the difference in effective instructional delivery, especially in areas challenged by low income/access issues, special needs populations, and English language learners.

These issues were not caused by the pandemic; these issues were exposed in greater numbers and details because of the pandemic.  Should we have been thinking about changing our instruction to meet a more diverse population? Yes. Should we have thought about ensuring that all students were tech savvy and computer literate? Absolutely. Should we have planned for the flood, the loss of electricity, lack of running water, transportation strikes – to name a few? Of course. But, we didn’t and we are clearly paying the price.

Having said all that, do we hang up our headphones and run? Oh no… we pull up our bootstraps and plan for the future. We reassess what we have learned from our spring crisis teaching and build on that. We re-evaluate our resources and identify ones that meet the needs of our learners. We look at what we do in a face to face environment and recognize that we can do so much of the same in a remote or hybrid environment as long as we discuss the needs, plan our actions, collaborate with our colleagues, reflect on what worked, and re-adjust our thinking and instruction. We need to set boundaries for our students, their parents, and ourselves.

We need to minimize all risks and design a framework that works for all stakeholders. We need contingency plans and “what if” scenarios. That’s why we have insurance! And, if something doesn’t work, we need a plan to modify our thinking. We need to make decisions and define strategies to make those decisions a reality. We need to adopt and adapt what works and empower the school communities to take responsibility and be accountable. We cannot leave our students on “automatic pilot” and expect them to thrive. We need to do what Sean T. Hannah from the Chief Executive Group says, “To be so adaptable, organizations need to enact “possibilistic” thinking, analyzing the potential need to change ahead of time and have developed, socialized and rehearsed a responsive contingency plan across the organization (chiefexecutive.net, August 2020).