William Occam taught us to to reduce our assumptions and that the simplest explanation is often the best explanation. As we evolve toward post-pandemic public education, we should not assume that our 2020-21 decisions will be the best decisions for 2021-22. It is time for Occam’s Razor.
Occam’s Razor is a good tool for sorting through confusion The Razor acts to reduce all the conversation to its essential questions and then to a unique answer. Life in the Time of COVID has been fraught with a new disease, roller-coasting daily news, fears and anxieties aplenty, and shotgunned solutions, some heroic and others pathetic. These words characterized pandemic public education also over the past year bringing us to our next big question: given what we have experienced and know, what is the best organization of daily teaching and learning to begin the 21-22 school year?
At the beginning of the 20-21 school year with increasing infection rates, climbing death statistics, and exploratory mitigation protocols, the Razor used best definitions of community safety to reduce the provision of public education to at-home teaching and at-home learning. Many cogent arguments were made for in-person schooling last fall but were set aside in the face of health statistics. The simplest and best explanation for the first semester of SY 20-21 was remote education. Then, conditions changed and with new conditions the best explanation of how to organize for teaching and learning moved toward parent option for either a-home learning or in-school learning. And, conditions continue to change.
Given the past year, there are scores of “what ifs?” and “I wants” in the conversation of how schooling should be delivered in September 2021. Respectfully, the discussion of educational delivery at school board meetings were very public and participatory early in the current school year. Public and participatory school board meetings are well established in WI statutes. Weighing all conditions and arguments, school boards directed their administrators to provide variations of remote, in-person, and hybrid strategies for the daily education of children. Fundamentally, parental choice of strategy was a common feature within most school districts in the 2020-21 school year.
Conditions continue to change. Vaccination was added to the protocols for masking, social distancing and hand-washing. The legislature ended statewide health emergency orders. Local infection rates declined. Most school employees can choose and have chosen to be vaccinated. In public, many in our communities are choosing to return to pre-pandemic social activities. In school, we have maintained masking, reduced distancing, and hand-washing standards.
This spring, many families have rechosen their school option. Elementary children are returning to in-person learning. In January, 40% of parents in our local school chose in-person learning and now 95% choose in-person learning. Secondary children have been slower to return to in-person learning. This is a matter of choice as the conditions of in-school learning are the same across all grades.
It is time to apply the Razor again; what is the best strategy for educating children in the fall of 2021?
Arguments still abound. Some arguments are couched in health concerns. Some retain political and economic points of view. Some are slanted toward personal and family convenience. Some want to retain the option to choose.
Occam tells us to focus on the essential question. There are many tangential questions that may attach, but they are not the heart of the question. In the absence a health emergency, the real question is how to best educate children within the 21-22 pandemic protocols. Repeat – the question is how to best educate children.
Health data tells us that vaccination plus masks plus social distancing plus hand-washing protocols are reducing infection, hospitalization, and death rates. Good news. In the absence of a statewide health emergency, these protocols allow teachers and children to be in-school.
Health data reminds school leaders to take care in planning large group gatherings, such as school sports events, concerts, and ceremonies.
Learning data tells us that at-home learning may have worked well for a few but did not work well for most. On-screen teaching and learning is dependent upon adequate Internet connectivity. The fact that too many children do not have such connectivity at home means that on-screen learning leaves too many children without consistent, quality, daily instruction. This is not acceptable within public education.
Teacher observational data reports that elementary children were more attentive during on-screen teaching and learning and secondary children because increasingly inattentive. Too many high school students simply clicked the “off” button. Daily active participation rates of less than 50% for secondary children is not acceptable within public education. While some may state that many secondary children are inattentive when seated at their school desks, the fact remains that they are at their desks. The “off” button moves a tune out decision to a drop out decision that we cannot abide.
Instructional observational data demonstrated that many teachers were “super teachers” in their efforts to teach children seated and in-person in classrooms AND children at-home simultaneously. When I personally watched teachers bobbling back and forth between students in the room and students on-screen, I was amazed at their professional dexterity. Watching them week after week left me in awe at their resilience. Considering them doing this in 21-22 causes, however causes me to set aside the ridiculousness of the ask. Simultaneous in-person and on-screen teaching is an emergency response; it is not a continuing response post-emergency. Continued simultaneous teaching is a pathway for teacher burn-out, acknowledged secondary student disengagement, and lower than acceptable educational outcomes.
Occam then tells us to review our assumptionsand set aside those that do not apply to the question at hand. A major assumption is the status of remote and at-home learning.
At-home learning is not a mandated parental option within public education. At-home learning is an emergency option for school districts to meet their statutory requirements for educating children. Health conditions in the early pandemic allowed school districts to extend this option during the health emergency. The absence of a health emergency should withdraw the emergency educational option.
Home school enrollment is an option for parental choice. School Choice in an option that allows parents to choose different school districts. These are real options.
Teaching and learning have not changed. We cause children to learn best when teachers and children can focus on daily instruction with physical and personal proximity.
Remote education has a proven place in public education, but it is a conditional place not an optional place. Children whose individual and personal medical and learning needs require isolation will be taught within the educational modifications presented by remote education. Remote education as a modified educational program is a conditional response to student needs.
Teachers are able to sustain simultaneous in-personal and on-screen teaching in an emergency but not as standard, daily work. Teachers have proven their capacity to teach individual children remotely when the child’s personal needs require at-home learning.
Thank you, William Occam. As we plan instructional delivery for all children in 21-22, application of the Razor tells us that a best decision, absent all unnecessary assumptions, is for teaching and learning to be conducted in-person in school classrooms. Remote education should be conditional to student medical/learning needs; it is no longer a parent option.