Lessons Learned… What Did the Pandemic Reveal About K-12 Educational Systems?
Since March 2020, educators, school administrators, students, and parents all over the world have been struggling to cope with the new normal in teaching due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Along with all the unfortunate consequences, this pandemic has exposed numerous gaps in K-12 educational systems. Looking at those gaps positively, one can extract many challenges for the future. As a former teacher and a current researcher in curriculum studies, I will (subjectively) outline the major learned lessons from this pandemic in relation to the school systems from various perspectives.
1) Student agency is possible. “Search for this”, “complete this on your own and send it back…”. These instructions are being frequently overheard in online classes. Teachers around the globe have explored how students are capable of doing the work on their own. It is surprising how we shifted from “do what I ask you to do” to “do it yourself”! Yet, many teachers are complaining about their students’ lack of accountability and self- conscientiousness. Unfortunately, the sought student agency should have been reinforced and practiced in the classrooms for months and years before it became an obligation. This is hence an opportunity to rethink student autonomy and involvement in the classroom in the future. Classes must be student-centered under normal circumstances so that students exhibit the responsibility for their own learning when the teacher isn’t near their desk checking on their progress. In this model, students will still need their teachers for guidance and mentorship rather than instructions and lectures. Thus, a critical diagnosis of school curricula is needed to evaluate the role of the teacher and the student. It is also worth noting that student agency shall not be restricted to superficial and logistic tasks only, but must entail involving students in the deep teaching and learning process.
2) Students don’t need the whole written curriculum and systems can reconsider standardized assessments. One of the positive consequences of online teaching during the pandemic was that several countries had to shrink the curriculum and keep what they consider “more important”. If decision makers believe that 50% or so of a certain subject content is all what is needed and that a lot of concepts will be needlessly repeated in the year that follows, then why do students and teachers need to go back to the 100% after the pandemic?! Why don’t we stick to what really matters in terms of curriculum content and focus instead on the skills that students need after or even before they graduate? Correspondingly, most national and international programs cancelled their official and standardized assessments and replaced them with other forms of assessment. If this substitution is possible once, why doesn’t it persist? Researchers and practitioners continuously discuss the disconnect between what the market or real life requires and what students are actually learning in their schools. This is hence the perfect time to bridge this disconnect and focus on what is really relevant. It is also the time to devise new and innovative ways of assessment that reconsider what have been in use for decades.
3) Unfair grading and plagiarism. If you ask teachers from different countries about the drawbacks of online teaching, most of them will reply: “plagiarism” and “unfair grades”. The fact that many students ask others to do their tasks if no one is watching or that they take their assignments seriously only if these are graded, sheds the light on the problem of students’ attitudes toward and perceptions of their learning. One can fairly claim that many educational systems have failed in making kids believe that learning is important in its essence; and that having them personally do the work is what matters for their future. It seems that the tests and the marks are needed to intimidate the students and force them to study, instead of actually assessing their abilities and providing them with meaningful feedback on their progress. This is a call to curriculum designers to start rethinking the assessment practices, and a shoutout to teachers as well to convince their students about the value of their knowledge. Lecturing students about academic honesty is not the only solution. What would really matter is delivering a valuable curriculum that makes those students acknowledge its importance and relevance to their real lives.
4) Students’ attitudes and social-emotional wellbeing really matter. Parents and educators experienced how students’ mental wellness and social-emotional wellbeing make a difference in their learning. Teachers noticed how students can’t fully function without being in groups discussing, playing, and arguing; and how those interactions are crucial to students’ academic achievement. Additionally, educators recognized how students’ attitudes toward learning affect their motivation and engagement in their studies. Thus, students’ wellness and positive attitudes aren’t a state of luxury and can’t be ignored after the pandemic. We can’t unleash students’ potentials if they are not experiencing positive environments at their homes, neighbourhoods, and classes.
5) 21st century life skills are what students need. In the era of “Google” and “YouTube”, students don’t need their teachers for information. Students can find the best lecture and the most explanatory audio-visual online. While some students knew that before, many students got to explore it recently by practice. Accordingly, the role of educators is to be the facilitators of this knowledge acquisition. Students need to be taught how to search for the information and how to develop the critical thinking that enables them to differentiate between the credible and the fake. Our societies need creative problem solvers and resilient citizens. Our communities need more collaborators and communicators… If the time spent in classes on transmitting already-available information to students is replaced by time to teach them relevant life skills, their futures will be definitely brighter.
6) Equity Concerns. The pandemic has highlighted the huge disparities among students in the same city and the inequities among different schools in the same country. For instance, many families don’t have an electronic device or proper internet access at their homes. Many kids have much less support and resources at their disposal than others. Governments must prioritize students in the underprivileged and under-represented communities, the rural places, and the low-income families. Those people are the ones who actually need the support for a higher quality of education on a hope that this would provide them with a better quality of life…
7) Slow and dated structures. The pandemic showed us how educational systems in most countries are slow and outdated compared to the technological pace in other sectors. Despite the presence of few high-tech educational practices, the majority of schools struggled to adopt online teaching solutions, and thereby rushed to subscribe with learning management systems and teaching resources’ applications. Governments and policy makers should have given more attention to the education sector to integrate advanced technological tools so that it doesn’t get done in a hassle. The schooling infrastructures need to be more dynamic in embracing change and ready for future disasters. Technology has to be used as a transformation tool to provide the desired quality of education for our future generations.
8) Teacher preparation and sharing of expertise. Teachers were struggling to learn new skills they should have learned years earlier. The teachers are definitely not to be blamed here. Dealing with a pandemic and rushing millions of students to online and new learning environments are not easy tasks. Yet, this transition could have been smoother if teachers had been at least exposed to these prerequisite skills if not fully ready to use them. On a positive note, the pandemic witnessed a first-of-its kind support among teachers themselves through expertise and resource sharing utilizing social media and other platforms. These communities shall persist after the pandemic, and would be more effective if institutionalized and done through global initiatives.
9) Teachers are frontline workers. With all the efforts they have been exerting preparing their lessons, teaching, mentoring, and caring for their students along with all their personal circumstances, we need to admit that teachers are all-the-time frontline workers. Now that everyone knows how hard their job is, and acknowledging that the future of our generations is within their hands, teachers deserve higher societal status, better compensation, and to be properly invested in. Such investment can happen through enhanced support and high quality professional development programs.
10) More parent involvement is expected. Forced to take part in teaching, many parents discovered that they know very little about their kids’ academic progress, gaps, needs, and achievements. The pandemic helped those parents explore some curriculum objectives and follow-up on their children more carefully. Parents need to be further involved through consistent follow-up, reflection, planning, and working with their children on any area of improvement. Acknowledging that there’s nothing more rewarding than investing in our kids’ education, parents need to step up and collaborate with teachers toward this noble goal.
This pandemic has made us a favor revealing many gaps that have been there for so long. Many of these gaps went unnoticed or were documented with no further action taken. COVID-19 has already changed many routines and practices that were previously taken for granted, and has forced us to reconsider many assumptions. How many pandemics will it take to convince us that our educational systems are going in the wrong direction and that we need to take quick actions?! Our kids deserve better, and we can definitely do better…
Feel free to leave your comments and what you think is an additional lesson...
