Learning in the new normal

In his 1948 speech to the House of Commons, Winston Churchill changed George Santayana’s 1905 quote slightly when he said, ‘Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.’ And today we find ourselves in that very precarious learning curve once more.

I write this as a teacher, in South Africa, on the 14th day of a nationwide lockdown as we try to flatten the curve of the effects of the global pandemic on our country. For the last month I have been spending time with other South African teachers from all over our country (and others from around the world) to help myself and my colleagues prepare for emergency-remote teaching during this pandemic.

PART I: Short Term Focus Areas:

I have learned the following lessons about the current situation:

1. This is crisis-based REMOTE learning, not classroom teaching.

School community households are under unusual stresses at the moment. There are no bells dictating lesson times, no peers in uniform reminding students that they are in a learning space or teachers to guide attention back to learning. Yet, schools cannot 'enforce' when learning will happen as this is a household decision to make. Households vary from stable to unstable and every child’s situation is unique (this is before even touching on the concept of access to the internet and equity).

2. Curriculum completion cannot be the goal.

The focus should be on tasks that can be accomplished without the teacher having to be there. Focus on reading activities, skills reinforcement and consolidation of known content.

Half the work in double the time and even less work and more time for Grades lower than six. This can be accomplished by using student-driven strategies such as choice boards and flexible, online access to teachers during 'school day’ hours balanced out with regular feedback, course-corrections and extension support from teachers online.

3. Traditional Assessment is not possible.

It adds undue stress in a time where empathy and support are paramount. Measurement of understanding, skills and mastery should be the focus with multiple feedback opportunities before the final task is submitted. The implementation of trauma-informed teaching practices is crucial here. The learning journey and processes are so much more important here than the outcome of an assessment or final product of a task.

4. Content delivered must be carefully crafted to accommodate challenges in many areas.

Do not overwhelm students with too much information and resources to try and replace the teacher’s explaining and guidance.

The rule of 3 applies:

Vocabulary + Explainer + Visual support.

Instructions must be clear and in support of the WHY and the WHAT of learning to be done. Scaffold everything to accommodate every child at their level.

5. Finally, increased emotional support and connection:

Opportunity to connect to a mentor or to regularly check in to see if everything is OK (for all stakeholders). All our efforts should be guided by trauma-informed best practices.

Due dates and content mean nothing if kids and parents are in a fight-or-flight mode or grieving. Children are grieving their face-to-face time with friends at school. Adults are grieving for their ‘old normal’ -this aside from grieving for those directly affected by the crisis.

Executive access is needed for learning so MASLOW before BLOOM’s in all we do.

School is sometimes the only safe space some kids have. Now, more than ever, we have the obligation to make this true for all our students. Our focus should be on designing opportunities to look forward to; jointly reflect on the week's learning and allowing that feedback to guide the next week’s efforts.

We can sort everything else out when school opens again. A professional cadre of teachers with hundreds of years of experience between them will definitely find a way to manage the fallout.

While I stand by this message as a short term band-aid on a much larger challenge lurking in the shadows, I am forced to think about what school could look like after all of this is over.

Surely we cannot go back to how it was? We have learned too much and I do not want to go back to a system that cannot provide learning to all students where and however they need it. These were the stark truths unearthed by the lockdown.

Many students who have no access to basic needs for survival are often lost in the cracks of an over-extended system, so focused on assessment and managing the fallout of Grade 12 exams, that these cracks have been left unattended for far too long.

Our whole approach to education must change. We have been hearing the same message over and over again: We have to stop training perfect little factory workers in a world that will soon need more innovators, creatives and trailblazers as automation becomes the norm.

Some ideas for what we could do to safeguard the flattened curve while going back to school - when we do:

The suggestion is a staggered contact approach as outlined by these images:

TEACHER'S TIMETABLE

TEACHER'S WORK FOCUS FOR THE WEEK

STUDENT WORK FOCUS FOR THE WEEK

These are idea I've been toying around for a while now - in their RAW form and with much need of fleshing out by a team of people as no one person has the answer to every aspect of this situation.

PART I: Future Focused Possibilities

We cannot continue to inflict the practices of a failed system on our precious children any longer. We need creatives who can solve problems and ask questions and create sustainable solutions while living healthy, balanced, full lives. Our focus should be on learning and finding each child’s IKIGAI, preparing them to live a life based on their strengths and passion.

Aside from improved hygiene with hand sanitiser dispensers in classes and all around campus where students enter and exit spaces - this includes ones at an appropriate height for children in wheelchairs and with motion sensor beepers and flickering lights for vision impaired and hearing impaired students and staff...

What could a new learning biome look like? A teacher dreaming out loud...

Subjects are no longer assessment silos. The skillsets of core subjects are extracted from the old curriculum and learning spheres are created with small groups of learning pods interacting with each other in each pod.

Each learning sphere’s curriculum is interwoven so that several age groups work on the same task simultaneously at scaffolded learning levels.

E.g. Grade 12-8 work in the same learning sphere, and interact to support each other’s learning process and journey while solving the same problem.

Teacher job descriptions will also be merged and re-distributed according to strengths and talents. Teams of teachers with the required skills will rotate throughout the learning spheres as their skillsets are required.

New Learning Spheres:

1. Inter-disciplinary World Thinking Studies:

Chemistry, Physics, Biology and Astronomy team up with World Philosophy and Cultural Studies

2. Expressive Studies:

Languages, History and the Performing Arts team up with Geography to connect expression to a variety of scales and perspectives.

3. Mathematical, Economical & Human Studies:

Maths and Economics team up with Sociology and Anthropology to bring balance to developments in world economies and logical, strategic design thinking

4. Creative Problem Solving Studies:

Engineering and Expressive Arts join forces with technology and IT studies to create beautiful, expressive, functional solutions to real-world problems.

5&6: Human movement and Nutrition studies team up with Real-World-Life Studies:

Empowering students who want to explore careers in sport and everyone else in how to live a balanced and healthy life in the real world along with basic skills such as registering for ID documents, driver’s licences and how to do taxes. How to prepare a meal, how to host guests and how to take care of a sick child. Relationship building and guidance on connecting with people on a human level.

7. World Skills:

Communication skills, Environmental Studies and Language Studies, along with effective creation of content best practice, underscore all the other learning spheres and content design and learning skills become focal support structures reinforced throughout all learning experiences in all the spheres as a golden thread that binds them all together.

Assessment is replaced by a Mastery Measurement Mindset where the learning process is the absolute focus. This requires an enquiry process with deliberate spaces for engagement, sharing and feedback. Children are taught how to craft questions that unlock learning and further exploration of content in context while collaborating with others towards a shared goal.

Learning is streamlined as children choose the format they use to make their learning visible and as it becomes visible understanding, application and skills acquisition are measured by using clear milestones and rubrics that assist mastery. Teachers give feedback and children share work for peer feedback in order to improve their efforts.

One of the most important practices will be reflection and re-focusing. Each week should end with a reflection session that shapes the planning for the next.

The idea of ‘passing a Grade 12 Exam’ will no longer exist. You are done with learning when you have achieved the goals set out at the start of your journey. Some will take longer others a little faster, there is room for course corrections as maturity shapes and reshapes goals, but everyone will leave with a complete set of skills to support his/her/their IKIGAI or sustainable calling.

The end product of this education system?

A young person set up with everything he/she/they might need to start living life independently.

A young person who is balanced, healthy and connected to other humans and the planet they live on, while focused on achieving personal goals in a harmonious way.

Someone who is curious about the world and the people in it and not shaped by 12 years of anxiety-driven, PTSD-causing competition-habits.

A young person with empathy and understanding of those around them. Someone who can contribute to society in a meaningful way directly out of school.

In short, we will have a generation of people who are::

Thinkers

Carers

Creatives

Problem Solvers

Innovators

Re-connected with humanity and nature - as we were meant to be.

I end off with a quote from the late Sir Terry Pratchett (as I often do) as these words guide my teaching and thinking every day:

“Learning is about finding out who you are, what you are, where you are and what you are standing on and what you are good at and what’s over the horizon, and well, everything. It’s about finding the place where you fit. I found where I fit, and I would like everybody else to find theirs.” Tiffany Aching - I Shall Wear Midnight