Once again our social media feeds are filled with talk of school.
Three months ago videos, memes, and posts, both funny and serious, praising teachers for their overlooked hard work occupied lots of newsfeed space as parents battled the challenges of remote learning.
Now fears, questions, and arguments about returning to school are streaming in too quickly to keep up. Each newly suggested method for getting children into the school building becomes more convoluted than the next as another issue arises.
How will classrooms be socially distanced?
How will bus-riding children be kept apart?
Where will they eat?
How will we prevent contamination from Specials teachers who see every student in the building?
Where will sick kids go while they wait to be picked up?
...and many, many more.
And over all the tactics rings the voice from higher up: Kids need to be back in school. Kids need to be learning again*.
I’ve taught Kindergarten, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades in my 15 years of teaching.
I want to make one thing very clear: the return to the school building -under social distancing guidelines- will not be a return to learning.
Not learning as it was.
Not learning that teachers work hard to craft.
Not learning as we (teachers, students, or parents) want it to be.
Our learning classrooms are places of singing and movement, side-by-side and group communication and collaboration, sharing and helping others, laughter and facial expressions, hugging and holding hands.
If your mental picture of a classroom resembles the school scene in A Christmas Story, returning to school in-person may seem feasible. It may seem downright easy. Stick ‘em in their chairs and deliver the lesson from the front of the room. Done.
Guys, that is precisely what made remote learning so hard for so many of us. That’s not how we teach. And we know it’s not how students learn.
I don’t have an answer about returning to in-person schooling. The problem is complex and multifaceted. And I worry equally about the safety of our children, teachers, and families whether students return to the building or continue to stay home. I worry about the health risks. I worry about the economic and personal challenges.
But I do want to be sure we are making educated decisions. We need to be educated about the realities of the coronavirus and how to be safe.
We need to understand that a safety-regulated, socially-distant school experience is not “back to normal”.
*Note: I reject the idea that kids stopped learning during remote instruction, but that would lead me down a whole other path. Maybe next week.
