COVID19 and Educational Change?

It is 8:00 on a Monday Morning. I am awake in a quiet house making a cup of tea. My husband is off to work as an essential employee. I check my emails and log on to Google classroom to post the upcoming week’s assignments for my 7th grade social studies students. In the last few quiet moments before I drag my own kids (5th and 7th grades) out of bed, I take a few moments to update the family calendar: A department meeting on Zoom for me, a lunch bunch meeting for my 5th grader, an algebra lesson for my 7th grader, virtual piano lessons for both….and the list goes on. This is my new reality as a teacher and a parent during the COVID19 crisis. It would seem that I have more time on my hands but that time is spent feeling busier than ever and yet not feeling very accomplished at the end of the day. It is maddening and exhausting. Yet there are moments in which I feel that there could potentially be some good to come out of this, mostly in the form of being a catalyst for change. As the future remains uncertain, it makes me wonder how this COVID19 situation is going to change education as we know around the world. 

COVID19 has forced schools to close their doors all over the world. By the end of March 2020, nearly 1.4 billion students worldwide were affected by school closures, according to UNESCO. With a staggering figure such as that, the question about how education will be affected is critical. In most cases, government and school officials have turned to online or virtual learning. In those cases, students and teachers are using various learning platforms and resources to interact and provide resources via the internet. This can be problematic, however, in countries and communities where the equity of access cannot be ensured or the infrastructure is not developed enough for everyone to have access to internet and hardware. In these cases, learning opportunities are being provided via television and radio. For more information, check out this list, compiled by UNESCO, regarding national learning platforms and tools being utilized in different countries around the world. 

I think that it is safe to say that no matter where you are in the world, the teaching and learning that has been taking place while schools are shut down is more of a crisis management situation, rather than a step toward changing schools for good. But, and this is a big but, what if we look at this as an opportunity to analyze the effectiveness of teaching and learning as a whole by allowing the crisis to identify areas on which educational policymakers should focus? After reading a bit about what experts and stakeholders have to say about how COVID19 could impact education around the world, the following are important take-aways. 

1. The strain of online teaching and learning has left many educators to focus on shorter lessons that zero in on essential content. There is less “lecture” style teaching and a greater focus on alternative methods and assignments to ensure learning. So the paring-down and innovative assignments that began as a way to simplify school during COVID19 may help educators shift the way they deliver content in the future. 
2. Teachers and students alike have realized just how important it is to be connected. The fear and anxiety over what is taking place has in many cases motivated teachers to be more responsive to how their students are coping. Perhaps the realization that feeling safe is just as important to learning as any curriculum will keep social and emotional learning at the forefront of educational policy makers’ minds. 
3. COVID19 has highlighted inequities both on a global scale and within nations. Some students not only have access to hardware and Internet, but also are already fluent with the technology. For example, my students were already used to navigating a digital textbook and online learning platform in addition to having district-provided laptops. This made the transition to virtual school a bit easier in that I could focus on just adapting content rather than teaching students how to access materials as well as the teaching of the material itself. On the other hand, there are many students in other communities who had to scramble to get devices in the hands of the students and then grapple with navigating the online tools for delivering the content. Now that these inequities have been brought to light, stakeholders can begin to address them more effectively. 
4. Learning outside of the classroom is likely bolstering the development of Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) in education. Very simply put, PPPs develop when public monies are used to pay private enterprises to provide services. In the case of education and the COVID19 crisis, companies all over the world have extended services to help schools with providing everything from software, to devices, to databases and resources, to actual lessons. In many ways these partnerships have allowed governments to fill in many of the gaps in services that may have been highlighted by the crisis. The extent to which these are effective in the long term remains to be seen. 

Teaching and learning during this time of crisis has been eye-opening. It has been stressful. It has left room for change. I am the type of person that sees change as an opportunity to change for the better and so I choose to be optimistic about the ways that COVID19 will affect education in the years to come. 

References: 

UNESCO (2020). National learning platforms and tools. https://en.unesco.org/covid19/educationresponse/nationalresponses#WESTERN%20EUROPE%20&%20NORTH%20AMERICA

Hughes, C. (2020). What lessons from the coronavirus pandemic will shape the future of education?. World Economic Forum. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/05/covid19-lockdown-future-education/

Li, C. & Lalani, F. (2020). The COVID-19 pandemic has changed education forever. This is how. World Economic Forum. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/coronavirus-education-global-covid19-online-digital-learning

Tam, G. & El-Azar, D. (2020). 3 ways the coronavirus pandemic could reshape education.World Economic Forum. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/03/3-ways-coronavirus-is-reshaping-education-and-what-changes-might-be-here-to-stay