Educational Roulette: What’s Best for Students (Post-COVID)
What will be your new normal? Will you wait for the data to tell you what to do, or will you trust your gut, and do what you know is best for students?
It feels almost cliche to add to the stockpile of educational articles claiming to know what post-COVID education should look like. What’s one more piece of literature talking about what needs to be the “new norm” for curriculum?
Remote learning is starting to feel like SABRmetrics coaching in Major League Baseball. Educational experts around the globe are analyzing data, sharing spreadsheets, and telling us to “look at the numbers.” Data, data, data, is what we need to look at, because statistics are showing we need to change the way we teach, the way students learn.
Don’t get me wrong, I loved the movie “Moneyball,” but I always respected the coaches who went with their gut in Game 7 of a World Series. My favorite line from coaches who didn’t play by the numbers was, “I trust my gut, not a spreadsheet.”
I’ve been a proud New Jersey educator for almost 20 years. I’m not giving that stat sheet to call myself “expert.” I’m giving that number to reiterate the fact that the success I’ve had has everything to do with my philosophy and my playbook — not data or what the statistics say.
My digital tattoo for Remote Learning is “Compassion over Content.” Not because “all of a sudden” I am realizing that education should include relationship building, but because education (for me) has always been about relationship building. If I’m being honest, I struggle when I hear people say, “I think SEL needs to be a part of the conversation,” or “we need to be checking on students’ well-being” when we get back in the building.
Shouldn’t we have always been doing that?
Doesn’t everyone already do that?
If distance learning has opened the eyes of society to question the need to maybe modify or revise what we prioritize in schools, I guess I am grateful. But if I’m being honest, that scares me to think, see, and hear that some never thought about the importance of embracing empathy, promoting inclusivity, and building a brand that welcomes a positive school culture.
Either way, it doesn’t matter who’s joining the party, or how you got here — it’s about you being in the conversation now.
No spreadsheets, no data, just trusting your gut to do what’s best for students.
That’s post-COVID education.
Behind the mask, we need to go below the waterline of our students and ensure their mental health is okay.
Post-COVID education isn’t about curriculum, content, or standards. It’s about the authenticity of being human. Truly caring about students, our staff, parents, and community shouldn’t be based on anything other than what we all should have been embracing pre-COVID. No matter what your “new normal” looks like, all schools need to share the responsibility of instilling a feeling in our students of “wanting” to come to school, as opposed to “having” to go.
What will be your new normal?
Will you wait for the data to tell you what to do, or will you trust your gut, and do what you know is best … for the students?
“Compassion over Content” is a mindset and curriculum within itself. It’s an idea built on being an ally to adversity in order to change the narrative of education each school year.
Tear up the textbook and teach from the heart. Press play on passion and let learners leave a legacy the future will want to live up to.
