How Will Education Be Different After COVID?- Thoughts, opinions, etc.

I'm hoping that more teachers will embrace technology in the classroom after this. I firmly believe that technology offers so much for education and EVERY teacher should learn the basics. At this point our jobs depend on having some level of technological literacy, but I've met so many teachers who absolutely refuse to learn.

Kids need to interact with other humans - either teachers or peers - to learn, but technology adds a new level to learning that so many teachers just ignore or refuse to try. The fact is that we live in a world where digital tools are a daily necessity, and we are doing students a disservice to not give them the skills to navigate them effectively and wisely.

As hard as it is to not see my students, I'm secretly really excited that this is forcing a lot of teachers to finally learn some basic skills with technology that they absolutely would NOT have used otherwise.

 

That's all well and good to say most teachers do not try but are the schools giving them trainings on this new technology or are they expecting teachers to learn this all on their own time?

 

"...but I've met so many teachers who absolutely refuse to learn."
That isn't exactly leading by example. How can we expect from students what we are unwilling to do, as in learning new things.
There are a few factors at work here, though. In general, school districts are just like any other industry, likely more so, in that training expenses aren't the highest priority. Also, it isn't ever clear that the higher ups in an organization really know where to go. The boss is often more clueless than the workers on the line. If changes and training to execute can be made, discovery and proposals from the front lines are a good start.

 

While I do believe that schools should be providing training, we were all thrown into this. It is sink or swim time. Teachers also need to take initiative. I can sit and wait for someone to train me, or I can take initiative, test and try things out, and learn exponentially more than I would if I sit and wait for training to happen to me.

 

Excellent.

Many people still fear technology or they have no idea where to start. It almost sounds like many are just big version of little students who are overwhelmed by the subject so they avoid it and don't know where to start so they wait for someone else to help them. Could it be when they are on the other side of "the desk" they become what they complain about? Maybe when this is over some will walk away with a reminded understanding of what it is like to be the "student" again in a subject that is overwhelming to them.

 

A few years ago they chose several people from each building to take two Google training sessions, then take the test for level 1 certification. I was not chosen. I was, however, interested because I like incorporating technology into my lessons, and I knew my kids would be getting Chromebooks their freshman year, so I wanted them to have some experience with Google. I used laptops whenever I could get them. I chose to do the trainings on my own time at home. I took my test, and I was the first Google level 1 certified person in the district. I also took the level 2 test. Many of the people who took the training did not even take the test.

Many years ago, I was the first in our building to have a Smartboard. I had a couple of classroom laptops back when most teachers didn’t have a computer at all and internet was dial-up on one computer in the library.

There is plenty I don’t know about technology, but I’m not afraid of it. I just jump in and try it. I’ve heard a lot of talk about “old teachers” having trouble adapting, but plenty of our young teachers are super stressed and having trouble adapting. There is only one teacher who is older than I am. I’ve got my lessons planned through the end of the year. I adapted the lessons I was already planning on teaching, and I’m done. Now I monitor and do what I can to help the kids with minimal direct instruction. Fortunately, we are at a point where they have been taught the skills multiple times, so we are using those skills with new material. All my kids have worked with Chromebooks all year, so it’s almost business as usual. (All we are missing is bell work!)

The most difficult part has been maintaining contact with parents. Non-working phones. Full mailboxes. Phones not acccepting calls. No answers. No phones listed. Texts ignored. Emails ignored. Many excuses such as, “He told me he did all the work and turned it in”, “He says this is stupid, so he won’t do it,” and “I can’t get him out of bed. He sleeps all day and stays up all night when I can’t monitor the work.” I can help instructional issues and technology issues. I can’t fix parenting issues.

 

Right. There are factors we are in control of, and factors we are not in control of.

 

Since we're talking about technology.
I grew up in Hungary so our technology was basically a kitchen aid mixer , casette player and tv / radio. Didn't even have a phone or VCR. We had heard of video tapes, it was so foreign. Yet, some kids were taking BASIC coding in high school, it was kinda silly.

Fast forward to 1998, I bought my first computer. $600 with a printer and 2 gb of hard drive. Took it home, turn t on and had no clue what to do. I figured it all out.

Fast forward to 2007 I had made my website with many pages and all kinds of things included, with some very basic codes, it was actually pretty good.

Fast forward to 2013 when I got this job. I was one teacher out of the 6. I think one may have been using a projector. The teacher I replaced did not. I immediately requested a projector and Smart board which I got, although the rest of the Smart board components never followed (training, software, etc). For the longest time I was the only one who would use Powerpoint (i never went without) and there were teachers who would still have a small tv in their rooms and show videos.

Fast forward to this year. It's a bigger school now, lots of merging so now we have 13 teachers. One have been using Google Classroom very well. Other 3 teachers were MADE to use it so they figured it out on their own and on some level incorporated it in to their lesson. Some have been using it very creatively.

I kinda stumbled upon it, we were encouraged to use it. I conferred with a couple of teachers and decided to at least have my students do a weekly quickwrite activity. I see my students once a week (independent study). Started this in the beginning of the year. I figured it would at least get them used to Chromebooks and some basic level of technology, typing and writing.
From that point on I ventured out and explored all the possibilities. I shared with my P. I January I gave a PD about all the things teachers can do, type up 4 pages of instructions what to do if they choose any of the feature independent from the others, showed them what it would look like from the students' view, shared successes and struggles, etc.
The teachers thanked me and were very happy. This PD also included another 6 teachers from 2 other schools (small schools).
Then a directive was given that they must, on some level incorporate Google classroom in the daily instruction. I was given a sub and a day to train the teachers. It was just the ones that haven't been using it so it was 7 teachers. Out f them one was using it because I taught her mre and more and she completely embraced it. They were supposed to email me with a time slot when I could train them one on one. One got back to me that he knows what he's doing and another but saying she doesn't have time.

That was it. Most or none have been using Google Classroom. Deep down I hope we're going online so that they can now see that being lazy and arrogant really hurts their kids.
Any time I got a new student I asked them if they were familiar with Google Classroom they all were. So all other schools were up and running with it and we were lagging. I tried everything (as well as my principal) to get on that level but these teachers were simply put, lazy and arrogant. They didn't want to do any more for the same pay. They were comfortable and satisfied.
How horrible. If we decide to go online, I'd say out of the 13 teachers the 6 of us would be ok and very comfortable, maybe 2 would learn it on their own and the rest struggling or even resenting.

 

And...…….he does not meet the eligibility requirements...

 

We will need to hire an additional counselor. There will be a lot of mental health issues. Also, obesity issues. Kids are having chips, chocolate milk for breakfast - and sitting sitting sitting way too much.

 

I wonder if overcrowded classrooms will soon be considered a public health concern.....

 

Yep, school in general will be a concern until 2022 according to the scientists.

 

Not that I don’t believe you... I’m just curious to know more. Can you share your source?

 

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/14/health/social-distancing-research-coronavirus-2022-trnd/index.html

Without a vaccine, hopefully one will be available this year.

 

Would a vaccine be mandatory?
What about all the anti-vaxxers?

 

The best answer I could give is that governors and school administrators will be nervous to bring kids back to school without one, not saying they wouldn't, but..........

 

Some places already deny school attendance for unvaccinated children. I would guess this vaccine will become another requirement for entering brick and mortar schools.

 

Probably.
My neighbor was strongly against vaccinations so she sent her daughter to a private school that didn't require them. When they could no longer afford private school she had to rush to get all her vaccinations so she could go to public school.

 

Aren't they all moving to Idaho or something?

I honestly could see increased vaccine laws for public schools. I think my state still accepts certain waivers, and I could see that being tightened up.

 

I didn't hear about Idaho

 

Yup. Some anti-vaxxers were moving to Idaho from California because of different vaccine laws.

 

The issue with vaccines is the quick mutation of Covid-19, much like the regular flu virus. The flu vaccine each year is the best guess at what will be the most virulent strain for the season. I've gotten the flu after having the vaccine, but was hit with a different strain. Covid-19 has shown itself to mutate more quickly than the traditional flu.

 

It's such a health concern that I can definitely see all schools requiring the vaccine before a student can attend.

 

Yeah, that is a good point. I have known people who get the flu vaccine every year yet will get a different strain of it and be extremely ill from it.

 

" Facere de necessitate virtutem" is a latin sentence meaning that from a necessity or a difficulty can borns something of good. I apologyze if I made some mistakes writing in English.

 

I think it is too early to know what will happen. If what they are starting to see with testing is true, it may be that COVID has spread much faster and farther than anyone expected with fewer major illness and death. They are finding more and more people who have it that are asymptomatic. It may be that the high death count is not from the virus being particularly deadly but being novel. So, by the summer, we may have many people who have had the virus and are now immune lessening our problem with overcrowding in hospitals.

You can't eliminate all death from a virus like COVID-19 and every death or serious illness is tragic. But we may find that by the time August rolls around huge parts of our population is immune because they had it and didn't know it.

 

It's an interesting math question, and I haven't spent time educating myself on the details of the problem. Give me a few years . But I think looking at New York City is illustratrative. That's what happens when social distancing wasn't or couldn't be done soon enough. And I don't know if it's being done strictly enough even now. In any case, if we just did away with controls, I think the whole of the country could become NYC, especially the cities.

 

I want to be very clear, I was not advocating just doing away with controls. I used August as a timeline and that is many months away. Slowly opening will probably keep cases up a bit, but it will also most likely up the cases of asymptomatic people as well.

 

I’m very tech savvy, thankfully, and so our distance learning training helped others more than they helped me, but it was still SO much work setting everything up and doing practice runs and tests! We spent an entire week just going over everything before went live the week thereafter and it ran very smoothly. I actually like distance learning now, haha!

 

Are you still doing your tutoring? Just wondering if you have taken a financial hit over this.

 

I am still doing tutoring; though, now almost all of it is via Zoom Meeting rooms.

Believe it or not, but I am making more money than I did before and I am poised to make even more money as families are looking for a tutor now that distance learning may become the norm for a while. That’s great for my pocketbook.

 

Is your school staying out for the rest of the year?

 

We are not. We are doing distance learning for the remainder of the year and will finish as planned (May 28th). We still will have a complete, uninterrupted summer vacation and we plan to return in the fall. (Right now, I am on Easter Break and will return next Monday.)

We’ve had almost zero disruptions with our schedule otherwise and so I quite thankful that my administration has been so willing to work with everyone involved. They’ve handled everything spectacularly in my opinion and they continue to do so. We are lucky in that we have discretion in how we go about responding to this pandemic in light of the various gubernatorial mandates put forth, as we a private school and thus not affiliated with any public school district (and because we don’t receive any taxpayer dollars).

 

I'm curious if you were under same/similar school orders or, being a private school, it was up to your own board or what have you.

Any other private school folk, same question!

ETA: and if it's unclear, I mean direction to go to online learning and such (my state calls it soft closure)

 

It is a mixture of both, I believe.

 

I'm wondering if we will see an uptick in homeschooling especially in areas where the on-line distance learning is more of a lesson delivery service than teaching. Some districts in my area have gone to mostly supplying information for the students to retrieve and do on their own. Parents may realize that homeschooling might be a better option, especially if they learn to get by on one income.

 

That may be more true for families with older children who can stay home without supervision. Parents who have to work and can't afford childcare will need to send their children back to school.

 

More homeschooling wouldn't surprise me in the least. I have a few acquaintances already considering it.

But, despite many refutes to the contrary and even real-life examples of such refutes, homeschooling really is more easily done by families with a stay-at-home parent AND the finances to afford the curriculum/extracurriculars/museum passes/vacations I know a lot of the homeschooling community depends on.

That's for your more traditional homeschooling, though I also wouldn't be surprised by an uptick in remote learning (not so chaotic as the current mode)

 

Just about anything is more easily done with an adult resource and the finances to afford things to make whatever it is easier.

I agree. Money and a dedicated adult makes learning easier. It actually is the same for public school students. Those students who have parents that can dedicate extra time to their child's learning and the finances to hire tutors, take them to museums, expose them to different experiences tend to have a child that does well in public school.