Like stepping onto an old, dusty trail, COVID-19 and virtual learning has stirred up some of the discourses in education and children’s learning that had settled into well-worn paths. Conversations about roles and respect (or lack of) for teachers, purpose, and benefit (or harm) of standardized testing, and grade-level achievement are swirling in the air.
I have lots and lots of thoughts on all of these - but today I’d like to tackle the final item on the list.
Among teachers, parents, administration, and politicians the winds of social media carry shouts of:
“Because of virtual schooling students are behind.”
“My child will not be prepared for the grade level work next year.”
“Virtual schooling is failing our children because they are not meeting grade-level standards.”
Behind.
As Alfie Kohn has put it, our education system thrives on a “compulsion to compare”. Are we performing better, worse, or as good as other countries, states, counties, classrooms? Is my child better or worse than the rest?
And, of course, to do this, to compare universally and stack up our values side by side in a neat bar graph, we need a quick and easy, albeit expensive, tool to provide a number.
We must need standardized testing.
And if we have standardized tests, we need standardized teaching based on specific grade-level standards, lists of exactly what to teach. One list that defines what every child of a given age window should be able to learn. If she does, she’s “on track”. If she doesn’t, she’s behind.
This discourse has been widely accepted and decisions in education as a whole, in schools, counties, and classrooms, and for individual children in K-12 have been made based on this discourse as infallible truth.
It is not.
School building closures and virtual schooling in the wake of COVID19 has provided an opportunity to disrupt this discourse.
Beginning with the question: What do you mean: behind?
I can assume we don’t mean “the buttocks” but have to include it because I am an elementary teacher and enjoy the same humor as my students. And of course, one’s test score does not accurately depict progress, only status, so we cannot assume a child is behind due to “making less progress than”. Any teacher could tell you of a student who has made a great deal of progress in any number of valuable ways that is not reflected in a score marked as below grade level.
Instead, let’s apply the definition of “not keeping up with” in terms of grade-level expectations.
In this way, the discourse surrounding much of virtual learning in the wake of COVID19 is based on the concern that students will be behind grade-level standards, thus failing to be successful in upcoming years of school.
The word behind can only describe our students’ achievement in terms of their acquisition of the standards created for each grade level. But what about that discourse? What about the faults there?
Every child aged 5 can, should, and will learn the following list of items within the confines of one year of school.
The current discourse says: teach everyone based on the standards, then go back and reteach, review, and modify for those that don’t get it. In other words, give them something you already know is inappropriate and then give them extra work until they get it, if they ever do. And based on this format, they generally don’t. And all the damage that happens on the way is likely to make any progress moot.
Instead of thinking of the standards as a list of what to teach, I’m inviting us to reframe our thinking by appointing the standards instead as a list of goals to reach.
A subtle difference, but here is how it helps me:
Begin by learning each student as an individual, what she knows, what skills she has, and what she is ready to learn
Start there!
Work your way onward, one step at a time
As we move into plans for next year in a (hope, hope, hope) post-COVID world, or at least in one where school buildings are safely and consistently open, let’s disrupt the idea of anyone being “behind”.
We don’t have to move the finish line, lowering expectations or forcing failure.
We have to move the starting line.
And we have to give students the time, the support, and the confidence to reach achievable goals. We can’t expect all 1st graders to start the year at the same place.
Guys, we never should have been!
We can’t spend time forcing students to fail by delivering instruction directed to the same place and then scramble to undo the damage with the intervention plans, computerized practice, and pull-out or small group instruction for those who are behind and ahead.
And just as they won’t all start at the same place, they won’t all end at the same place either! I certainly don’t expect anyone to call it quits when we reach the “finish line” as defined by the standard. It is simply a mile marker along the way.
I have a vision of breaking all of the standards out of their grade level boxes and stringing them along a trail like the signs that punctuate a marathon:
“Keep going!”
“You are awesome!”
“You’re doing great!”
“We love you!”
We celebrate each spot along the journey as an achievement.
And we keep on running.
