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Catastrophic events are stress
tests for the systems affected. COVID-19
has certainly tested many: health care capacity and delivery; public and
private care for the elderly; viability of large and small retail businesses;
the seemingly endless growth of real estate values; “just in time” supply
chains; and the development and testing of new drugs.
The final results of the COVID-19 stress
test will not be in for a long time, but it has already revealed the inhumanity
of an economy that depends on low-wage and contract labour and the immorality
of a trade-off that someone described as “dying for the Dow.”
COVID-19 has tested the elasticity
of contemporary public schooling. As I have argued, online
learning has proven to be a failed natural experiment for most students,
increasing inequalities between learners with advantages and those with
disadvantages. COVID-19 has reminded everyone – especially parents – of the
importance of the custodial function of schools.
It is not possible to know the
consequence of all stress-tests in advance of their occurrence. But it is a
certainty that the consequences will be devastating if you never ask (and
attempt to answer) a few key questions. What kind of stresses can the publicly
funded system withstand? For how long can the system withstand those stresses? What
action can we take to avoid the stress or to mitigate its impact of it occurs?
We have not explicitly asked “how
long can parents cope with an unplanned school closure?” But we know the answer.
Parents can cope during planned school closures precisely because they are
known in advance. They can arrange with other care-givers for the supervision
and care of their children during regularly occurring breaks in schooling. However,
when labour conflict disrupts schooling, even sympathetic parents find it
challenging after a few weeks.
COVID-19 has helped to answer the
question “how much instructional flexibility can reasonably be expected of
teachers?” “Fitting education to the needs of the learner” has been a slogan in
education for more than a century. Today, the notion is expressed as
personalized learning. Consider, for example, this passage about flexible learning
environments from the curriculum section of the British Columbia Ministry
of Education website:
Learning can take place anywhere, not just in
classrooms. Many schools and teachers create learning environments that explore
the use of time and space in creative ways. The integration of areas of
learning and technology also have opened the door for teachers and schools to
approach the use of time and space in creative ways – ways that adapt to
students’ needs and interests.
Although the learning standards are described within
areas of learning, there is no requirement for teachers to organize classrooms,
schools or instruction in this manner. In effect, the Ministry of Education
defines the “what” to teach but not the “how” to organize the time, space or
methods to teach it.
COVID-19 was a stress-test for
personalized, flexible learning. Some teachers “passed” the stress test
COVID-19 imposed, but not that many and certainly not all teachers. Many
teachers said they felt they were failing their kids and their families because
they were unprepared for the situation into which they were thrust. COID-19 was
catastrophic and, thus, unprecedented – at least in our lifetimes.
The fact that so few teachers believed
that they were prepared is a failure of the system that we should have known
about. Let me be clear: It was not a failure of the individual teachers; it
was a failure of the system. And, it was one we should have
anticipated.
We have known that “fitting
education to the needs of the learner” is the promise of individualization in
the context of a system of mass education. It is the promise that a system of
mass education can provide to each student with the instruction that was
provided to the children of the wealthy as individuals or in small groups by
masters or tutors. It was an educational slight-of-hand like promising farmers
higher prices for their crops while providing consumers with low-cost produce.
Does mass education mean that education
cannot be fitted to the needs of learners? No, it does not. The key questions
are: How much and what kind of difference in instruction can be accommodated?
What are the necessary pre-conditions to providing such instruction?
One part of the answer is that
teachers must have prior preparation in planning for as much individualization
as the conditions under which they work allow. The preparation and conditions
would need to be much different if our conception of ‘personalisation’ in our publicly-supported
system of mass-education is equivalent to the education that children of
wealthy parents could provide by hiring tutors or masters.
The conception of ‘personalization’
is not appropriate for public education. It suggests that the primary
beneficiaries of education are individuals, but that is not true. The primary
beneficiary of public education is the society. That is why we spend the taxes
we collect from everyone, whether they have children or not, on public schools
– to ensure that our society continues and improves. Of course, we ensure
society’s continuity by improving individuals but by emphasizing what they have
in common, not what distinguishes one from another.
Education has always been
personalized to some extent. Special needs students receive programs that consider
their needs. Elementary school students make limited choices that reflect their
interests. The courses offered at the secondary school level are evidence of the
wide variety of opportunities available to high school students to personalize
their learning.
The elasticity of all systems is
limited. We can and should consider learner needs and interests. But to do that
honestly, we must acknowledge the primary purpose of a public-funded system and
the limits that such a system imposes. The elasticity of public education does
not extend to personalizing students’ learning. We didn’t need a crisis to
grasp that.