Teachers Have Improved During COVID
It’s time we recognize them for it.
There’s been a lot written about teachers’ struggles over the past two years. One thing almost no one is talking about is how much better the average teacher has gotten since COVID began.
My organization, the Modern Classrooms Project, studies teachers. In January of 2020, we asked teachers in three of our partner districts whether they could easily help students who had missed class to catch up. Eleven percent said they could. In January 2021 we asked again — and 63% said they could. This January, in two different districts, that number was 60%. That’s a small sample, but a giant leap. Given the challenges COVID posed, teachers have had no choice but to improve.
On a larger scale, teachers are asking better questions, too. In addition to our research efforts, the Modern Classrooms Project trains teachers to create their own instructional videos and lead classrooms where students achieve mastery at their own paces. Three years ago, this idea struck many teachers as crazy. They asked: “Why would I record a video lesson when I can just explain content at the board? Isn’t it hard to create a video? And shouldn’t students all learn the same things together in the first place?”
Since the start of 2020 we’ve trained thousands of teachers in over 150 countries — and we don’t hear those questions anymore. In a world where classes can go virtual at a moment’s notice, it’s obvious that technology has a role to play in instruction; facing gaps between students that are wider than ever before, it’s clear that one size no longer fits all. (It never really did.) So now teachers ask: “What makes for an engaging video? How do I improve the videos I’m already making? And what structures do I need in place to keep a self-paced classroom running smoothly?”
This isn’t a subtle shift in the way teachers think about teaching. It’s a quantum leap.
If you were a teacher before COVID, chances are you were standing at a whiteboard with a marker. If you’re a teacher now, you’re probably creating content online and delivering it across multiple ed-tech platforms. You’ve gone from the 19th century to the 21st pretty quick! (I’m exaggerating a bit, but you get the idea.) Your classroom today might look something like this:
And how have you been compensated for this dramatic increase in your technical and pedagogical skills? Likely not very well, I’m afraid. The teaching profession has become more political, more criticized, and more burnt-out than ever — and just as poorly treated. Teachers have learned entirely new skillsets overnight… while taking care of our kids! In return they are met with bills that restrict their autonomy and hotlines that seem designed to drive them out of the profession.
Unfortunately for all of us — young people in particular — many teachers are getting the message. There’s talk now of a “teacher exodus:” one survey from the National Education Association found that 55% of educators now plan to leave teaching sooner than planned as a result of the pandemic. In New Mexico, National Guard members have been called in to serve as substitute teachers. I’m all for well-run classrooms, but that doesn’t seem optimal for either education or national security.
What’s the solution? One simple answer is to pay teachers more for their newly developed skills and abilities. (This summer, we’ll be paying our Expert Mentors a minimum of $50/hour.) But that alone isn’t enough. Most teachers aren’t in it for the money.
What teachers want, in my experience, is to feel they are advancing. They want to go to school every day and feel like their talents are moving their students, and their world, in the right direction. They have a wealth of new skills, and they want to put those skills to productive use.
So how do we empower teachers in this way? Tech alone won’t do it — there’s plenty of that already — and neither will a return to the old whiteboard ways. Teachers have come too far to go back.
What teachers and classrooms need is a new operating system.
Educators need models of instruction that leverage their newfound knowledge, and schools’ and districts’ considerable investments in technology, to meet their students’ needs. They need to walk into classrooms and feel like the skills they’ve built during COVID — making learning accessible to absent students, or recording their teaching — can inspire their students, and revitalize their careers. In an era defined by innovation and creation, teachers need to feel like innovators and creators too. They need to feel like they are transforming teaching itself.
Across the world right now there are teachers feeling beaten down by the stress of returning to school, under ever-more-burdensome restrictions. There are also teachers who are feeling revitalized and inspired, ready to take what they’ve learned during COVID to elevate themselves, their students, and their profession. Here’s what the teachers we’ve trained during COVID have said:
As much as COVID has been a crisis for teachers, it has also been an opportunity. The crisis of a mass teacher exodus still looms — and if we ask teachers to go “back to normal” without honoring what they’ve learned, we’ll accelerate it.
If, instead, we can empower teachers to use the skills they’ve developed over the past few years, in new and innovative ways of reaching young people, there’s no limit to what they or their students can achieve.
Learn more about Modern Classrooms at modernclassrooms.org.