I am always drawn to information about education.  I love clipping newspaper articles, printing things from the internet, and pulling articles out of magazines.  Sometimes all of that paper that is filled with words about education gets abandoned in a box for a while.  Sometimes it gets filed immediately.

As I go about my day, I am always picking up educational facts, data, information, and ideas.  I think of myself as a beachcomber.

When the pandemic hit in March, I started a new box for pandemic-related education news.  It is a good thing that I picked a very big box for my information.

I have spent the last few days sorting, reading, and thinking about my haul of education news in the age of Covid19.

I discovered that an overwhelming majority of the articles are about schools closing and schools opening….and closing again.  There are articles about local school districts and articles that made the national news.  Some of the things that made national and local news in April and May seem quaint and naïve from the perspective of what we know in December.

By comparison to the topic of schools and hybrid learning models, there are not that many articles about teachers.  There is an absence of what is really happening for teachers on a day-to-day basis.  There are more articles about what is happening to parents.  Many parent articles are about the dawn of awareness of what it takes to teach.

Early on, there was an annoying article that said that if teachers are only online with an entire class for four hours of direct instruction, then perhaps they should take a pay cut.  To me, that one article highlights the mess we are experiencing.  Education in a pandemic is a gigantic problem that is filled with lots of uncertainty and a lack of an overall direction.  It tells me that the person who wrote the article not only does not understand teaching and learning.  That person is unable to appreciate all of the work that goes into teaching in the middle of a pandemic.

An article in Forbes by Peter Greene was more accurate in depicting the reality of the situation for teachers.  Greene likened it to running a business in a basement that is overwhelmed by a flood.  There is standing water everywhere.  No one even talks about pumping the basement dry and getting back to work the way they used to do things.  Some people are told to continue working in the standing water.  Some people are moved to the first floor, but they are forced to use unfamiliar equipment that they must start using on the fly.  They are expected to be immediate experts with the new, unfamiliar materials.

Greene reminds us that we are in the middle of a pandemic storm.  There is no data about how things are working.  No one knows for sure how teachers and students are holding up. Rarely does anyone actually address what resources teachers and schools need right now.

While not all teachers are hunkered down teaching classes of uninterested students who are huddled in front of ill-connected computers at home, most teachers understand the image.  It aligns with some of their frustrations from teaching during a pandemic.

From Greene’s article:

Please be prepared to teach online and in-person, simultaneously, on a moving train, while juggling, in a burning building, under the sea, during a wrestling match with a T-Rex, as a hologram, and riding a unicorn.  Also: be safe, and we value you.

Teachers not only understand that image, they truly appreciate that some people have empathy for their impossible task….but, teachers show up every day to teach because they believe in the kids, and they believe in education.

Teaching this way in a pandemic is not sustainable.

 

John Dewey said:

Education is a social process….

Education is growth….

Education is not a preparation for life;

Education is life itself.

 

Today, the pandemic is our life.  Teachers are rolling up their sleeves and trying to make the best of it.