Public Education Cracked Open
I lived in New York during September 11th. For many of my generation, it was a life altering event that shifted our perspective and worldview. As papers fell from the sky into my Brooklyn neighborhood and the acrid smell of fire pierced normal life in the days right after the Trade Center fell, we were completely shattered - all mental models undone. As those first days passed, we were imprinted more deeply - we cringed getting on the subway, we fearfully looked skyward with each plane that droned high above Midtown and we eyed everyone suspiciously on the streets, despite knowing better. Irrational fear and insecurity was our new normal. But, as humans do, we adapted to both new psychoses and newfound structures. The US reeled, and with that came the possibility of real shift. Conversations conjured the opportunities that this experience could create - the impact on our values, our structures and our culture. We were uncertain of the specifics, but the promise of something fundamentally different was palpable. Those hopes closed within a few short weeks, as we stumbled down a familiar path; bombs fell on Afghanistan within weeks and Iraq soon after. Aside from new security measures at home, our society snapped back from the stupor of opportunity to the status quo.
There are eerie similarities between September 11, 2001 and this Spring of 2020 - the al Qaeda of these moments is a faceless virus spreading like wildfire through our communities, disrupting life as we knew it and tearing us from the moorings of institutions and familiar bonds. Schools are among the institutions that have been formally halted, with learning shifting from in-person to virtual. I am an educator and a parent of four (a preschooler and 4th, 8th and 10th graders). I support districts around the country through my work at 2Revolutions and partner with a wide range of professional development providers, universities and education foundations. Through these many different lenses, I have seen the mess of the unexpected calamity. No one had planned for anything like this stoppage, and this was not what these systems knew how to do. Everyone was accustomed to the model that they knew. School was a box with classrooms, teachers, books, lectures and learners. It had bells, periods, desks, rows and learning most commonly passed from adults to students. While real shifts had occurred, it still looked a lot like that in most places.
And, with the final bells tolling on March 3, March 13, or March 17 in different parts of the nation, the school year for many students ended. Schools were shifting to remote learning. Innovative school models, while grappling with this shift, also had some of the core building blocks in place. Some districts held professional development for a few days before putting learning resources online; others tried to hold school remotely through Google Hangout or Zoom and still others told learners to read books and write in journals. While woefully unprepared, the possibilities of this moment were not lost on many educators.
Here are some snippets of conversations with colleagues across the country from the past few weeks:
A district leader in Hawai’i said, “This will allow us to see and understand parents as an untapped knowledge source”. In a system like HIDOE that has used the HA framework to encourage a shift to greater collaboration with the community, there is opportunity to deepen that work.
A New Hampshire district leader exclaimed, “On September 1, move on ready is going to be right there, in our faces; our educators are finally going to understand the power and opportunity of competency-based learning to better meet the really different needs of learners”. The difference between having competencies and being competency-based is a chasm. COVID-19 creates the opportunity to build real demand among educators to shift how they teach, structure assessments and meet the needs of unique learners in new and different ways.
A Kentucky state leader shared, “With no standardized tests, a move away from content coverage and learners scattered, the game changed fundamentally. My phone is ringing off the hook; they all have permission to teach as a passion rather than a compliance exercise”.KY is one of 8 states which had a robust non-traditional instruction policy in place prior to COVID. This structure is supporting KY districts in creative ways. Look for elements of this policy and structure to become the norm nationwide.
An Arkansas state leader said, “Our public television stations have stepped into an unprecedented partnership with public education, showing the potential for nontraditional opportunities for learning”. Learn more about Arkansas and PBS’s unique collaboration.
The wide open moments of possibility that I felt following September 11th are alive and well today in public education. What was possible on February 28, 2020, and what might be newly possible on September 28, 2020?
Is this a watershed moment for public education in America that can positively shift a paradigm for teachers and learners? How do we keep our foot in the doorway of public education and leave open the possibility of real shift? Might this be a learning experience from which to do school differently for all learners, putting them more in charge of their learning, moving away from content coverage to content depth, appreciating the opportunity and necessity of training educators for “move on when ready”? Might this be an opportunity to shift from assessments happening to learners to assessments providing opportunities for coaching and support?
That is the work of the coming months. As we move from crisis to stable, lots of educators will be processing this experience. Here are four questions that educators and systems leaders should be asking:
What did I and we do during the crisis?
What did I learn from it?
What did it make us think and feel about learning?
Based on that, where might we go from here?
All states now have an opportunity to fundamentally redesign their model of learning. The courageous educators want to grab hold of this opportunity to support learners more fully. We need to be able to hold both spaces right now - responding to the crisis at hand while concurrently planning for recovery.
