Communities of Practice
Over the last few years, I’ve talked with so many amazing professors, teachers, and school leaders about what they’re doing to create learning environments for their students to support academic success and personal development. I’d like this web site to be a place where all of us can share that wisdom and experience so we can learn new ways to affirm and support students and help them thrive at school. Please use the CONTACT page to contribute your ideas and I’ll post them on this page under College/University or Pre-K-12 (or maybe both?).
PRE-K-12
Schools in the pandemic
Opening schools (or not) for the Fall term has been the big question in most districts in the US. School leaders and government decision-makers weigh the risks of COVID-19 spread against the known downsides of school closure for children and youth, especially those from low-income, non-majority families, and those with disabilities. The American Academy of Pediatrics issued guidelines for returning to school; they emphasize how the isolation resulting from school closures has made it “…difficult for schools to identify and address important learning deficits as well as child and adolescent physical or sexual abuse, substance use, depression, and suicidal ideation.” They also point out the negative effects on food security and physical activity for children who cannot go to school. The AAP has pointed out what teachers and school leaders have known forever, that schools provide both critical academic learning for students and, in addition, form a critical social safety net for the children and youth who need it the most. The pandemic has merely brought the situation into the light for many people whose life experience had allowed them to not see it.
In a side-discussion at a meeting of community college academic leaders, one person said that she had recently been a school superintendent. When her schools closed in March, she and other teachers and school leaders had volunteered to deliver food to the homes of students in the district. She told how the home visits were eye-opening experiences for the volunteers, who knew, theoretically, that some of their students came from low-income homes, but until then had no real idea of the impoverished environments in which they lived. This is just one example of the realities that have been revealed through this public health crisis. Can we use these revelations going forward to recognize the bandwidth costs of poverty and social marginalization and truly transform schools into places where all students can get what they need to learn and develop?
Just before it went to press, I was able to add some reflections on the pandemic to my new book, Bandwidth Recovery for Schools: Helping Pre-K-12 Students Regain Cognitive Resources Lost to Poverty, Trauma, Racism and Social Marginalization. I suggest the following as principles for the future in public education (Copyright © 2020 by Stylus Publishing, LLC):
Recognize and act on the fact that in educating children and youth in public school, more resources (not fewer) are required to buttress the well-being and academic achievement of students who live in poor and near poor families and who belong to marginalized groups.
Eliminate the digital divide: We could decide, as a country, that access to computer technology – and the required internet connection – are public utilities, like water, gas, and electricity, and make them available to everyone.
Acknowledge that food insecurity negatively affects learning and implement healthy nutrition programs in all public schools for all children (as they did in Houston after Hurricane Harvey).
In some cases, as teaching moved online, the voices of some children were finally heard that had not been heard in the classroom, and others were even more seriously silenced. After the pandemic, we need to create ways to assure that all voices are part of the conversation so we can learn from each other and everyone’s brain has a chance to grow. On Zoom, teachers might do a roll call to see that everyone was there; the same idea could be implemented in a classroom with a policy of “every voice every day.” And it is important to remember that voices can be heard in writing and art and song and story, not just in the more common forms of recitation and discussion.
Find out what “funds of knowledge” are tapped by children and youth and their parents during these trying times and leverage those to help everyone thrive at school in the new normal. Work with students and their families to systematically gather and record these funds so we all recognize their importance in skill-building and not just write them off as “We just did what needed to be done and now that’s over.” I’m thinking about mutual support in neighborhoods, extended family assistance with child care and schooling, intentional relationships developed between children and their teachers as both tried to stay connected, teaching innovations that were figured out from necessity that turned out to be very effective, and the many ways children, youth, and adults stepped up to uphold each other day-to-day.
Fall school opening varies widely across locations based on the realities of COVID-19 spread or containment. Those decisions are in the hands of public health and school leaders. What we have learned about the centrality of school for both academic and social support for children is incontrovertible and we need to provide - through schools or other mechanisms - essential services and supports for students and their parents so children and youth have the bandwidth they need to survive and thrive in school (however and wherever it is happening).
COLLEGE/UNIVERSITY
Check out these blogs I wrote for the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) - They are part of a series of excellent pieces that help us think about education in these trying times.
“The Bandwidth Cost of ‘Not OK’”
“A Hard Look at America: Confronting Our Problems through the Learning Zone”
BANDWIDTH
Look at this piece by my friend and co-bandwidth evangelist, Dr. Tina Bhargava, from Kent State.
“How Many Thinks Does it Take to Get to the End of a Pandemic?”