It has been said that you don’t know what you know until you know it. As we conclude our first full trimester of Hybrid/Virtual learning, this is true. I find myself in a unique position of viewing the experience from multiple lenses- that of an educator and that of a parent. On one hand, I have tried to approach the learning curve with grace and humor, both as a parent and as an educator. On the other hand….WTF.
Sometimes you just have to laugh. In all seriousness though, this is completely facetious. Notice the ‘Try harder’ box that is checked. Here is the thing: we are all trying hard. This is a hard situation, and I know everyone is trying. really.dang.hard. Principals, district administration, teachers, paraprofessionals, office support staff, parents, childcare providers, siblings, students…..everyone is trying hard.
I recently told my boss that sometimes it feels like the goal posts keep moving as we try to navigate virtual education/hybrid education as we strive to achieve the same quality of education we delivered pre-pandemic. I am worried that my kindergartners won’t all be reading at a level D and be ready for first grade. I am worried my fifth graders won’t be able to multiple and divide fractions with unlike denominators and write quality thesis statements. I am worried that my son won’t pass his AP exams. And all of the stakeholders in these scenarios are trying REALLY HARD.
In most circumstances effort (trying) and outcome are highly correlated. When a person puts a lot of effort- they try really hard to lose weight through diet and exercise, they have a positive outcome- a healthier body. The same can be said of learning most new skills, including virtual education. The difference here is that we have no grace period in learning. We are accountable for outcomes NOW. That’s not to say that it does get easier, and we do learn more and more as we get further along in the process. But the fact remains: this is hard.
What I have learned as a parent:
- Asking if the work is completed isn’t enough. As a parent, I trust my kids. So when I get home from a long day of work and ask my sons if they are caught up on their work, and they say yes, I accepted that at face value. While it was OK for one son, the other got behind. I have a responsibility to check his google classroom to see for myself if the work is completed. This simple task that would have taken me 10 minutes a day would have saved me hours of frustration the week before the end of the trimester when the teacher started emailing me. Which leads me to number two.
- Know how to navigate the online platform. If you are the tech savvy parent, go in and figure out all of the functions and features of the learning platform. If you are not tech savvy, watch the instructional videos that the school sent you. This will save everyone headaches down the road. Knowing where to look to see the completed work, graded work, directions and links to videos and zooms saves everyone stress….me included.If the videos don’t work for you, call the school and have someone walk you through the steps.
- Find the balance between parent and teacher. Unfortunately the school/home partnership dynamic has changed and where the balance was tipped more heavily on the teacher, with hybrid and virtual learning the balance is more on the parent…who is probably also balancing work, other children, home and life in a pandemic. For me this has included more frequent monitoring of powerschool as part of my morning routine, checking google classroom as part of my evening routine, and making sure that I have the availability to drop what I am doing to supervise school work when needed. I was not that powerschool checking parent before we went virtual. I expected my kids to go to their classes, be attentive and cooperative students, do their work and contribute to their classes. I expect them to complete homework assignments when they have them. We expected their teachers, seeing them daily also had a role in the accountability balance dynamic during their face to face interactions. In turn my kids expect me to ask them everyday how their school day went, what assignments they struggled with, what they aced, and if they have homework. We expected graded that reflected hard work and integrity in their learning. The same hands off approach and expectation for autonomy with a successful end point can not be guaranteed in the hybrid or virtual world.The definition of student autonomy has changed when we went virtual.
- Don’t rely on the email from google classroom to know what is due and what is missing. No learning platform is perfect, and no platform is a replacement for the brick and mortar classroom. One of the glitches with google classroom that bugs me to no end is the ability for students to submit nothing. Seriously..allows them to click the submit button with NO WORK ATTACHED. C’mon Google….didn’t you see that one coming? Then when Google generates the automatic email update for parents, it does’t say that there is missing work…when there is!
What I have learned as an educator:
- Consistency is key. No matter what the schedule looks like, having a schedule to follow helps students stay on track and helps parents and students become more effective time managers. This is especially important when parents are working: where in the schedule of the day does school work support fit in?How much time is scheduled for independent work and how much time is scheduled for supporting work?
- Students need to have an effective set of study skills. Students who have an existing effective set of study skills pre-pandemic seem to have less difficulty navigating their hybrid and virtual learning. Case in point: A middle school parent I know mentioned that one of her children who has a very high IQ and is very bright is struggling more than her average intellect student. During school the way is used to be… Her super bright child never had to work too hard to get good grades and the elementary content knowledge was acquired quickly and with little effort on the part of the student. The average student on the other hand had to work a little harder, and be more deliberate in the approach to learning. This student had homework more routinely where the sibling didn’t. This student had to be more focused on instruction where the other sibling could often multi-task and still get the content. Now, the student who since primary school has had to practice more diligence with study and learning is not experiencing the same struggle and frustration that the sibling is experiencing (although this student does have frustration with other facets of virtual education). This pattern of behavior is not uncommon for super smart kids- the lack of study skills often comes back to bite them in the backside when the content increases in demand and complexity in middle and high school, but in a face to face world….this is an easier challenge to overcome. The takeaway here: if your child was the gifted learner, start being explicit in teaching effective study skills moving forward!
- Some is better than none. I know this hybrid and virtual format for public education is overwhelming for many parents. I can’t even tell you how many parents have told me forlornly that they feel like they are failing their children. Let me say this louder for the people in back: As long as you are trying, YOU ARE NOT FAILING! I came across a quote on my adult daughter’s facebook page that said: Anything worth doing is worth doing half assed. My immediate response was ‘Who sold her that line of BS?!’ But as in the way of life and understandings, I came across an article about mental health supports for parents of children with anxiety that said the same thing. This was a moment when I not only acknowledged my own parenting fail, but also starting thinking about how to help others. The article said that often times, especially with things that create anxiety (hello….virtual learning) that even accomplishing just a little is better than accomplishing nothing. While some may not get us to the finish line, it is better than none. If you signed up to run a 5k, but each day you get up to train and it is overwhelming, so you decide to just sit, that 5k is going to be a huge struggle. But if you got up and said, ‘I’m feeling overwhelmed, and I can’t do the whole 5k, but I can run around the block’ and you do this everyday, the 5K is still going to be hard, but it might be less hard.
- We have to have the hard conversations. This is a hard time to have hard conversations, and this point seems so counter-intuitive after point #3…but…This is a time where we have to communicate clearly, we have to say some things that may be hard to hear, and we need to do it in a timely enough manner that the course of the outcome can still be altered based on the conversation. Here is the BIG HARD THING for public education and Covid 19: just because a student is enrolled in a grade level is not an automatic pass to the next. Stakeholders need to know their children are still accountable for the learning and lessons in the grade level or class.
- Public Educators have a obligation (opportunity) to redesign public education. When we think about what the return to five days a week for every kid looks like, we will need to do better. We will need to develop innovative schedules and programs that will allow all students to move forward from where they are knowing that during the pandemic so many variables impacted their learning, and some students will have significant gaps in their learning while others will be ready to move on. We must have a plan in place to address an even greater diversity of learning needs among our student populations. We will need to have flexibility to think outside the box and break away from the outdated institutional model of education that the US has embraced wince the industrial revolution. As principals, we need to be ready to lead this work. As teachers we need to be ready to embrace and implement this work, and as families, we need to be ready to support this work.
What I have learned as a principal:
- Do not take it personally. This year I have been yelled, at cursed at, cried at, hung up on, criticized, questioned, belittled, name called….you name it. There are days where I feel like I should have the words ‘Complaint Department’ on a sign outside my office door. 90% of the issues that are brought to my attention are so far over my pay grade it isn’t even funny. The rest…well let me walk you through how to use google classroom. 😉 10% are issues we can work through. But none of them are about me personally. I had a colleague, newer to her role who had a particularly rough few days. I had to remind her…and myself that sometimes we have to be like a duck and let it roll off our backs like water. I know that the majority of the parents who have come at us, are just seriously frustrated and don’t have another outlet or skill set to effectively deal with their feelings. I get that. (Except the guy who angrily came at me over the governor’s mask mandate and asked me to see my mask policy….) And I’ll take it…as long as it helps your kids in the long run and they are not feeling that level of frustration.
- Take it personally. The expressions of gratitude, the heartfelt thanks, the appreciation and the kind words. Take it all in. Remember that the 90% of the issues that you field on any given day are coming from 5% of your stakeholders. The other 95% see how hard you are working, know how much you genuinely care about their children and family, and will support you to the moon and back if they could.
When it is all said and done, at the end of the day, we know we are all going to get through this. We don’t know when, but the day will come and when it does, My hope is that we can all take the lessons that this experience has taught us and be better parents, students, educators, schools and communities because of it.
