This'll be my last Coronavirus entry, as we in America certainly seem to be moving towards a new phase. My heart goes out to India and their struggles, but it looks like America is once again poised to help the world and itself, so perhaps we will be able to contain and reverse the troubling trend in that area.
Anyway, some thoughts on what schooling has been like during the past fourteen months.
As I said in the last entry, I did not believe hybrid or blended learning would work, and I have both good and bad news on that front. The bad news is that it failed to provide any significant, universal change in student engagement or performance from my perspective. Oh, I don't doubt that someone, somewhere got better as a result of this massive undertaking, but from where I stand, and from every other educator to whom I have spoken, it did not change anything significant for the better.
The good news is the reason that it didn't work. That needs explanation, so here goes.
No one's coming to class in person. I say "no one," but of course I am exaggerating a little. Last week, I had around 2-3 students physically in class per session. Some sessions had as many as 5, while other sessions had zero. Most had 1 or 2.
Let me repeat that.
On any given day in any given period, I may have as many as FIVE students physically present, but I have had--several times--ZERO.
That's what I mean by, "no one's coming to class in person." I suppose, then, this could mean that the hybrid/blended model neither failed nor succeeded, since it was essentially NEVER USED. At its best, we continued on with the same kind of system we had before--as one of my bright colleagues in the Union said, "it's still Distance Learning, but with a few kids in the room."
(Mind you, I am speaking for high school right now. I understand that the junior high schools have a slightly different reporting rate.)
Many, many parents were clamoring for a return to school, but it sure seems like they didn't follow through and actually bring their children to the schools once they got their way. I have one parent who was very, very passionate about opening up schools (even going so far as to lie and slander me about said opening) but whose child has still never actually attended in person.
Parents may say that if teachers aren't going to make in-person learning different from Distance Learning, then what's the point of going? My rebuttal to that would be that I have personally witnessed teachers interacting very differently with the students in the room as opposed to the ones online; that I, myself, interact differently and more immediately with my in-person students, few though they may be; and that with over ninety percent of my students learning online it would be a disservice to a huge number of them to favor the in-person kids.
It's just frustrating in the extreme to be working so hard, to have changes coming at us quite frequently, to be cowed by parent pressure that never even takes advantage of the changes they forced, and on top of all of it to be called a lazy, useless, shiftless grifter who doesn't care about kids. Oh, and unions are evil. That too.
I was telling a friend and colleague* that I think we're exhausted because we pour ourselves into our students, and they re-energize us by their expressions, their humor, their realization that they've learned something--all the daily interactions we have with them keep us going. And those daily interactions are almost completely muted now by the barrier of Distance Learning. We are pouring ourselves out and not being re-energized.
I, for one, am looking very much forward to being back in an overcrowded classroom with students.
Be seeing you!
*Be on the lookout for an announcement about a possible upcoming weekly podcast with this friend and colleague!
Anyway, some thoughts on what schooling has been like during the past fourteen months.
As I said in the last entry, I did not believe hybrid or blended learning would work, and I have both good and bad news on that front. The bad news is that it failed to provide any significant, universal change in student engagement or performance from my perspective. Oh, I don't doubt that someone, somewhere got better as a result of this massive undertaking, but from where I stand, and from every other educator to whom I have spoken, it did not change anything significant for the better.
The good news is the reason that it didn't work. That needs explanation, so here goes.
No one's coming to class in person. I say "no one," but of course I am exaggerating a little. Last week, I had around 2-3 students physically in class per session. Some sessions had as many as 5, while other sessions had zero. Most had 1 or 2.
Let me repeat that.
On any given day in any given period, I may have as many as FIVE students physically present, but I have had--several times--ZERO.
That's what I mean by, "no one's coming to class in person." I suppose, then, this could mean that the hybrid/blended model neither failed nor succeeded, since it was essentially NEVER USED. At its best, we continued on with the same kind of system we had before--as one of my bright colleagues in the Union said, "it's still Distance Learning, but with a few kids in the room."
(Mind you, I am speaking for high school right now. I understand that the junior high schools have a slightly different reporting rate.)
Many, many parents were clamoring for a return to school, but it sure seems like they didn't follow through and actually bring their children to the schools once they got their way. I have one parent who was very, very passionate about opening up schools (even going so far as to lie and slander me about said opening) but whose child has still never actually attended in person.
Parents may say that if teachers aren't going to make in-person learning different from Distance Learning, then what's the point of going? My rebuttal to that would be that I have personally witnessed teachers interacting very differently with the students in the room as opposed to the ones online; that I, myself, interact differently and more immediately with my in-person students, few though they may be; and that with over ninety percent of my students learning online it would be a disservice to a huge number of them to favor the in-person kids.
It's just frustrating in the extreme to be working so hard, to have changes coming at us quite frequently, to be cowed by parent pressure that never even takes advantage of the changes they forced, and on top of all of it to be called a lazy, useless, shiftless grifter who doesn't care about kids. Oh, and unions are evil. That too.
I was telling a friend and colleague* that I think we're exhausted because we pour ourselves into our students, and they re-energize us by their expressions, their humor, their realization that they've learned something--all the daily interactions we have with them keep us going. And those daily interactions are almost completely muted now by the barrier of Distance Learning. We are pouring ourselves out and not being re-energized.
I, for one, am looking very much forward to being back in an overcrowded classroom with students.
Be seeing you!
*Be on the lookout for an announcement about a possible upcoming weekly podcast with this friend and colleague!
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