from MM 877
What Will Change When We’re Back To Regular School?
In this interview with Suzanne Bouffard and Elizabeth Foster in The Learning Professional, Jal Mehta (Harvard University) says the disruption of the pandemic has spurred new thinking about schooling – for example, teachers using “flipped” instruction, with students listening to recorded mini-lectures at night and having lively synchronous discussions about them the next day. As schools return to in-person instruction, says Mehta, “it might be a really positive opportunity to incorporate what’s working and let go of what’s not working.” To jump-start that process, he suggests asking questions like these:
What have you learned about your students and their families this year?
How could that shape the way you connect with families and students next year?
What has worked well this year, and how could you amplify those things as you transition out of emergency education mode?
What are you not looking forward to about going back to “regular” school?
During remote schooling, educators have really missed the informal connections with colleagues in hallways and lunchrooms but appreciated the slower pace of life, not commuting, and having more time with family. Mehta says we need to allow for a period of “hospicing” as we let go of things that have been important to us but now seem less helpful.
Gearing up for a “new normal,” timing is important. “Teachers are not going to have the bandwidth for significant reimagining during the school year,” says Mehta. This June and July, during paid professional time, will be the best opportunity for teachers and administrators to brainstorm about what worked well and do some initial planning for the school year ahead. “Then, in August,” he says, “when there is fresh energy, a lot of schools have at least a few days of professional learning time, and that would be a natural time to talk about what will be different in the coming school year.”
School and district leaders have a vital role in orchestrating these conversations. The research points to four tasks:
Naming practices that have worked well during the pandemic, like better connections with families;
Nourishing practices that are starting to take root and helping them grow;
Connecting educators with similar instincts and interests so they can think things through, which means scheduling common time and using remote connections;
Growing expertise by drawing on the best thinking inside and outside the school.
“But overall,” says Mehta, “we don’t currently have the time we need for adults in schools, and that’s a huge barrier to everything else we’re trying to do. That needs to be addressed.”
In that regard, he describes how educators in Chelsea, Massachusetts negotiated an extra 10 days for professional learning at the beginning of the school year. After reflecting on their own experiences as students, teachers conducted “trust visits” with families on sidewalks outside students’ homes, elsewhere outside the school buildings, and on Zoom. Then the district convened nine “working tables” in which teachers, educators, and families across different schools focused on an issue (with parents doing most of the sharing and educators most of the listening) and made recommendations for the upcoming year.
Mehta closes with a question: “What’s the equivalent of the chat box when we go back to in-person learning? I don’t have a good answer yet, but I’m hoping some teachers will have a good answer.”
“Crisis Creates Opportunity. Will We Seize It?” Jal Mehta interviewed by Suzanne Bouffard and Elizabeth Foster in The Learning Professional, February 2021 (Vol. 42, #1, pp. 32-35); Mehta is at jal_mehta@gse.harvard.edu, Bouffard at suzanne.bouffard@learningforward.org, and Foster at elizabeth.foster@learningforward.org.
