Since students have returned to instruction over the last month, there have been flurries of back-to-school activity. Buses are rolling. Many classes are open and filled with students. Many students are learning online. Sports and extracurricular activities are underway. There is a lot of activity going on in our long-empty school corridors. Amid all the movement in our schools, I often wonder what achievement looks like now and what it will look like in December and the Spring.
Our students and teachers have had a long year. Academic regression is not unexpected after the abrupt early end of the school year in the Spring, then the normal break over the Summer. In addition to the long absence of instruction, there’s COVID19 we are still navigating and significant civil unrest and the stress that comes with social instability. Academic regression is an unfortunate reality for many students.
Education officials have pushed for a return to “normal” or as normal as we can get it. But in the desperate push for the move toward normal, what are we accomplishing? Are we in such a rush to get back to normal that we are sacrificing achievement along the way? Are we addressing the emotional needs of teachers and students that could potentially derail effective instruction and learning? How is social distancing or virtual learning affecting critical Fall assessments and benchmarks? What academic goals are districts and campuses trying to reach?
There are so many questions that need to be answered throughout the 2020-2021 school year. Perhaps our primary focus should be on mental and emotional well-being and building (and rebuilding) basic skills like reading, writing and math. Perhaps we could also forgo standardized testing. After an almost six-month school break, what are we expecting standardized testing to tell us that we cannot accurately predict? There is no need to put teachers or students through additional stress to tell us what we already know. Let’s not approach the back-to-school effort for show. We’ve lost enough time already. Let’s make every minute count.
This is a prime opportunity for our nation’s public schools to evolve and move toward education excellence. If we are moving to return to our pre-COVID19 norms, we are selling ourselves, our students and our nation’s future short. Now is the time and the season for us to reimagine education and prepare our students to be the world changers they have the potential to be.
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