Covid-19 drastically changed education. In response, everyone felt growing pains. Students adapted to learning online, parents saw their homes become classrooms, and teachers and schools experimented with new educational formats.
Now that we've almost completely recovered, will our education system ever return to normal?
After schools discovered plentiful benefits, it’s likely that education will never be the same.
Scheduling
Coronavirus shutdowns created a wide variety of new schedules for schools and school districts. Once schools broke away from tradition, they gained valuable insight into new formats! Even though some experiments weren’t ideal, schools discovered much about making transitions to keep their students productive and happy.
Now that schools have become more comfortable with experimenting outside of the norm, they’re more likely to test new timing layouts. Potentially, concepts like longer/shorter days, year-round schooling, and shorter weeks could be tested!
Family Communication
When students started calling in from home, families were thrust into the public sphere. Though many parents felt concerned about sharing their private lives, great benefits emerged! Since this transition, teachers have been able to improve dialogue with parents, making school life more transparent. As parents have become accustomed to increased communication with schools, it’s likely they’ll expect the same from here on out.
Education Technology
Before the pandemic, e-learning and educational technology were already on the rise. When the pandemic hit, we saw tech enter the classroom at a rate unparalleled. Schools, teachers, and students had to become familiar with e-learning to keep education functional. Now that students and teachers are more comfortable with technology, many believe that online tools, platforms, & programs are here to stay, especially for homework & other after-school assignments!
Remote Learning
Even though the transition to remote learning was chaotic, teachers across the country saw a silver lining. For students technologically equipped to transition, online education had a ton of benefits! Considering the grade improvements many students experienced, it’s likely that hybrid classes will stay around much longer than the pandemic. It’s also likely that students will find themselves taking more online classes than they used to.
Social-Emotional Learning
As students found themselves subject to a strange new way of learning, teachers across the nation took it upon themselves to ensure students were staying emotionally healthy. The benefits of this were astounding! Many classrooms became a place to process hard emotions, and students improved their abilities to cope with difficult situations. This trend made apparent the value of Social Emotional Learning (SEL) in the classroom. As students found themselves unable to see friends, teachers rose to the occasion. They created communities, spaces for emotional dialogue, and lessons that teach healthy communication and relationship structures.
Internet Access is More Important Than Ever
When in-person learning shut down, students across the country were able to continue their education online. But many students were left behind. Millions of households in the United States don’t have access to broadband, with rural areas being hit the hardest.
Since the internet was adopted in the classroom, a grim trend has emerged, called the Homework Gap. A staggering amount of students were locked out of the classroom because of the pandemic.
Covid-19 made it clear: the internet has become an essential utility, on par with access to clean water and electricity. We need to close this gap, for the sake of our students.
“I think we need ‘No Child Left Offline.’ I think this is the moment.”
— JESSICA ROSENWORCEL
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