We’re about six months into this coronavirus crisis of unimaginable dimension. There is plenty we’ve all learned about things that went horribly wrong and things that were already horribly out of whack. On the flip side, what have we learned about doing things differently? What innovations or perspectives have either sprung from the crisis or have come into the spotlight because of the crisis?
Schooling is different from learning
Dr. Mathew Boulay from the National Summer Learning Association, author of a new book, “How to Keep Your Kids Learning When Schools are Closed”, makes a distinction between schooling and learning. We associate school with academic learning and traditional output. But schools go so far beyond that. They provide structure to children’s – and families’ – days. They provide invaluable lessons about living as a member of a community and how to make that work. And as was underscored in the economic collapse from the pandemic, schools are centers for physical sustenance. (How to Keep Your Kids Learning When School is Closed)
Where will that distinction lead us? That’s an open question, but we all have a much better and shared understanding about what schools mean to parents, teachers, children, and the broader community. Perhaps that leads to better funding or better and different measures of achievement or cements much closer relationships among all the stakeholders.
TV to the rescue
As television, internet, and gaming content – and the ways it is all available on demand — exploded over the last couple of decades, lots of attention focused on how much screen time is appropriate for children, from the very early years to teen years. And what harm screen addiction might cause.
Turns out, though, that television in the form of PBS Kids has come to the rescue in a big way in communities across the country, providing outstanding, inspiring lessons with no internet required. The “Digital Divide” has gotten a lot of attention because of the pandemic. School districts and non-profits worked heroically to deliver one-to-one parity of computer devices for children who didn’t own any and to build networks of hot spots where students could gain access to the internet. It made a difference, but no technology enjoys the saturation that television does: 96% of American households own a TV, while 74% of American households own either a desktop or laptop computer. The percentage of households with internet 81%.
PBS and its 330 member stations around the country mapped programming to state education standards, developed daily blocks of lessons for pre-K to Grade 12 students backed up with easy-to-use resources for teachers and parents. Studies are already underway to see what the impact such robust television offerings can have on remote learning. There could be a valuable lesson. PBS Education
How you say it. How you send it.
A school superintendent from a Florida district noted there has never been a moment when schools and teachers and parents have been so linked by common cause and communication as during this pandemic. The shift from homework to home learning has had a profound effect.
At the same time, the volume of information coming at parents (and teachers) has been overwhelming. Todd Rogers of Everyday Labs shared insight on easy ways to boost connection to families, in ordinary times as well as times like these.
One striking approach is to automatically enroll all families in school-to-home communications as the default; in other words, rather than asking parents to create an account, and log-in, etc., offer them only an “opt-out” option. Everyday Labs found this strategy moves parents’ continued enrollment in school communications programs from under 10% to 96%. Text messages are great for news alerts and very specific actionable items, while letters are really effective for important dates, for instance, because they are “physical artifacts” that get stuck on the fridge and kept top of mind. Mail addresses also tend to remain more stable than email and phone.
Whatever the format, personal and partnership oriented is always better than impersonal and penalty oriented. Everyday Labs found in one study that four letters a year showing parents in graph form how much their child was absent, how that compared to the class, and what real impact absenteeism has on the student’s learning reduced chronic absenteeism by 10%. It’s crucial, too, to keep the message simple and skimmable – always important but especially now when so much is in flux. (Family Toolkit)