Corny as it reads, “You don’t know the value of something until you lose it”. School in the Time of COVID is more than school.
When our school closed its campus last March and shifted to at-home teaching and at-home learning, we experienced the short-lived excitement of sudden change. Teachers and children alike spent the first days of remote schooling not going to school. In a nutshell, that was exciting. Everyone working and learning at home was concept that had long been discussed as a potentiality but never attempted on a large scale. Suddenly, potential was our real. It took a school a few days to arrange its initial logistics. Then, at 8:00 a.m. one the first remote Monday, teachers said “good morning” to their students virtually and teaching and learning was without school.
Looking backward, the “I miss …” statements began immediately. Every statement was factual in pointing to something a teacher or child felt as absent from their teaching and learning. For too many, it was the immediate and cold fact that their Internet connection would not support teaching from home or learning at home. Without beating up a list, almost every teacher found that teaching at-home could not be made the same as teaching at-school and almost every child found learning at-home could not be made similar to learning at-school. Of the hundred thousand teachers and millions of children, at-home worked successfully, equitably, and with equality for a few. For the vast, vast majority, what is missing for the teacher or the child’s individually is making remote education unsuccessful. Any other statement ignores reality.
This is not to say that children are not learning in their status as at-home or hybrid at-home and at-school learners. They are learning. But, when we hold up the screens of high quality academic success, equitable and equal education, and the totality of what school provides to children and a community, and we apply these screens to all children, we also should say “I miss school”.
“I miss school.” Who would have thought that this statement would be said by so many? Every June in every school in every community, the last day of a school year is a break out day. No school tomorrow!! Children and teachers alike looked forward to summer recess and no school tomorrow. However, no child and no teacher contemplated not going to school for the next five months and perhaps longer.
“I miss school” is more than missing a physical presence in a classroom. Consider each of the following statements and talk to yourself. Fill in the rest of the story that follows from these short leads. Your words are better than mine.
- School is our community.
- School is a sub-culture within the fuller culture I live within.
- School is our local identity. It is our neighborhood or out town,
- School provides continuity in childhood.
- School is the place and substance of my career.
- School is a child’s stepping stone into adult life.
- School is where children are fed.
- School is sports, theater, and the arts – it is life expanded.
- School is where children grow up, families grow together and teachers become lifelong memories.
- School is a way of life.
When we remove any or all of the above from our daily life, we remove chunks of significance in the lives of our children, our adults, our families, our school staff, and our community.
School in the Time of COVID is what it always was – more than school.