Charles Ungerleider, Professor
Emeritus, The University of British Columbia
[permission to reproduce granted if
authorship is acknowledged]
Many of those eager to see schools reopen talk about “returning
to the new normal.” Leaving aside the contradiction between ‘returning’ and
‘new normal,’ I expect that those who use the term ‘new normal’ recognize that It
is neither practical nor feasible to return to the conditions that prevailed
before COVID-19. Those conditions were pretty good, but not without their shortcomings.
I doubt that the parents of students with special needs, Indigenous students,
students for whom the promise of schooling is not fully realized, and students
seeking a more challenging educational experience wish to return to those prior
conditions.
Suggestions about how the school system should transition
from COVID, and what schooling will look like after COVID-19 are numerous. Many
seem attractive. Commentators recognize the importance of caution and nuance. Many
suggest a gradual approach to “opening” schools from the present state of
partial closure (some provinces are providing an on-site education to the
children of essential service workers) to schools that are completely open. The
provincial health officers will likely authorize regions, boards, and communities
to reopen according to different schedules.
An important consideration is the ordering of the categories
of students permitted to come to school. As mentioned, some children of
essential service workers are already in schools. Students with special needs -
for whom the absence of the support of teachers and educational assistants is a
significant impediment to their learning and well-being - might be next.
Similar sequencing could occur by grade level. Grade 12 students first, grade
11 next, etc. On the other hand, some have suggested that after grade 12
students return, the next group should be primary school students who are the
least adept at managing online learning.
It has been suggested that staging the re-entry of students
would enable teachers whose students have yet to return to assist those whose
students are re-entering. This would allow for some structural social
distancing to occur during the initial period of phasing in but would obviously
diminish as successive waves of students arrived.
A related idea is the phase-in of certain subject areas. What
we called “solids" in my youth (English, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies)
might be first, followed by Art, Music, Physical Education, etc. Another
consideration is the timing. It would be prudent to develop a set of
contingency plans phased from the worst-case scenario (for example, schools not
opening until November), and working back from there to the best-case scenario.
Some have suggested that special consideration needs to be
given to early childhood learning and the transition to school for the cohort
of children entering school for the first time. Inequality among children in
terms of their readiness is a factor that is important to consider.
There are suggestions about facility-usage and cleaning, the
possibility of periodic closure should the virus manifest itself in ways the
Provincial Health Officer deems to be harmful. Dividing class/cohort groupings in
two and alternating the days they attend is one suggestion about maintaining physical
distance between students. Another is having half the cohort/class attend in
the morning and the other in the afternoon. Attention would need to be given to
how to use the time of a reduced day; simply transferring a lesson for 25
students to a group of 12-13 would not be the optimum approach. A group of 12-13 would however offer an
opportunity to students and teachers to combine more group work with teacher-led
instruction, and for the teacher to closely observe and coach during the group
learning.
Concern has been frequently expressed that virtual learning
is exacerbating inequities among students that must be addressed. Some have
suggested dividing the cohorts/classes would allow teachers more scope for
assessing and working with those students who have fallen behind because of virtual
learning.
Whatever form the transition may take, a return to school
could be short-lived if the winter flu season causes Covid19 to revive. With
that in mind, some suggest that resources should be devoted to developing a
more robust and standardize provincial capability for the provision of blended
learning, a combination of online education with face-to-face learning.
Active communication between schools and families (not just
newsletters or web announcements, but conversations) must be sustained. The
transition is likely to continue to be fluid and varied, necessitating common
understanding and commitment to new approaches.
Each of the suggestions – and others not mentioned here –
are plausible. Each has benefits and deficiencies. On their own, however, they
fail to capitalize on the opportunity the post-COVID transition provides for rethinking
and addressing the imperfections that impede a good system from being a great
system – especially by addressing the needs of the students about whom I wrote
in the introductory paragraph.
As readers of this blog know, I have my ideas and
suggestions for system improvement. You likely have yours. What we need are
principles to guide us in the post-COVID transition so that we do not simply
replicate an imperfect system.
The post-COVID transition and the conditions to which the
transition leads should ensure:
Safety: the health and
safety of students, employees, and their families
Success: improvement in
student academic success and well being
Equity: gaps in student
learning and inequities among students diminish over time
Evidence: decisions are
informed by the accumulated evidence
Respect: respect for Human
Rights and democratic participation/voice
Confidence: the public’s
confidence in its public schools will be enhanced
Without a set of principles to guide
the transition, we do not have a way of making distinctions among the many
ideas being discussed and about the conditions we wish to prevail following the
transition. Moreover, thinking first about principles forces us to consider
what we value and the relative priorities among what we value.