Sep 1, 2020
How Online Learning Could Work
The way forward for progress begins and ends with technology.
We’re now in August, five months clear of the apocalyptic beginning of the COVID-19 epidemic. Landlocked next to all the other drama that occupies any contentious election year, every institution and sector in society has taken a nasty beating because of the outbreak of the virus.
There’s back-and-forth discussion by doctors like Anthony Fauci and professionals in the healthcare establishment (Big Pharma looming in the dark background) weighing in on when a vaccine, a one-size-fits-all solution will be perfected, tried, tested, and approved for mass production and distribution.
It doesn’t matter when that happens to be. People need to get back to work and running their businesses. The Earth is still spinning on its axis. The sun still rises, and the moon meets its role call at the brim of night.
Whether there’s the new normal or the old normal, life must return to some kind of “normal” at some point. Part of that involves the 50+ million schoolchildren being able to go back to daily instruction once again.
The future of college is just one layer in this stout cake. All parties pertained to K-12 education have their backs to the wall, and are waiting patiently on the next steps forward.
If a pro-federalist dissertation ever needed to be written again, case in point #1 in its favor could be every nook and cranny of this pandemic.
Like with restrictions on wearing masks and if people can go out and about, individual states for the most part have been left to their own devices to decide when and if they want to re-open in person.
Some states, cities, and districts are more eager than others to return to the old normal. This pandemic surely is stirring the equivocal debate on states’ rights vs federalism. Federalism is rising with the upper hand here.
The individual states that choose to jump the fence are risking creating a new batch of cases, and putting students’ lives in danger, plus the lives of the family members that they have to go home to at the end of the day.
All 50 states are connected, and travelling from state to state hasn’t ceased exponentially because of travel restrictions.
When New York, particularly New York City took the beating early on in March and April with having so many cases and an escalating number of deaths, many affluent residents packed their bags and departed to the suburbs in Long Island, upstate New York, the adjacent states around New York, or even Florida, a very common vacation spot.
If adults in American don’t adhere to social distancing policies, then all hope for the youth, who are impressionable, clumsy, and rudderless, to behave themselves is worthlessly misplaced.
Hannah Waters, a sophomore at North Paulding High School, outside of Atlanta, Georgia was suspended for posting the photo above on social media, showing the gorged hallway she is stuck in the middle of.
The photo went viral, and most major news outlets were on the jump to report it. It rang alarm bells, and had the people on the side of the fence, in the era of COVID, cautious and frightened for their lives.
Her mother, Lynne Watters came to her defense when interviewed, explaining the content behind the action her daughter took. From the interviews, CNN held and likewise, Hannah had virtuous intentions by bringing awareness to the lack of consideration being given to the recommended social distancing policies.
Hannah was suspended for violating school conduct policies, including having her cell phone out initially but that decision was reversed.
Isolating the picture out of the flurry of spiteful criticism and hyper-emotional soliloquies it might’ve received, a scene like the one shown should’ve been expected.
Social distancing policies cannot be applied equally in all settings. An arena for a basketball game has much more space to work with than the confines of a suburban high school.
Across the world, there are nations that have curbed the amount of cases and deaths more efficiently, allowing for the semblance of normal everyday life to resume. Nonetheless, these same nations have also upgraded their protocol to address needs in certain contexts, and students returning to the classroom, safe and sound reach the top of the list.
China reopened quite early and then had to pull back with their reopening due to a new wave of COVID-19 being unleashed. When students were allowed to go back to school, the procedures to ensure no kid got sick could’ve been written out of a new age dystopian novel.
Students are required to wear masks. Before they enter the building completely, they must go through a concise and thorough screening, having their temperatures checked and other procedures done.
East Asian countries are stereotyped for their preference and leanings towards authoritarianism. Not all Asian countries are China, but stereotypes don’t choose themselves.
Schools in Denmark are bringing kids back into the classroom by maintaining social distancing with whatever and wherever the kids are throughout the school day (even on the playground for prepubescent kids).
The CEO of Taaleem, one of the largest education providers in the Middle East detailed on video on how kids going forward will walk through scanners to get examined in the school building.
Inside the classroom, visual markers like dots and stickers are big and bright to register to the kids when they are getting to close to one another.
It’s not an encouraging sight when the process to attend school, the experience every young person has feels no different from trying to get business done at the DMV.
That’s at best. At worst, kids will endure through the deep-scrub cleaning a car wash provides before they can enter a classroom or a translucent morgue.
Playing devil’s advocate is simply a child’s play when lives are at risk and well-rounded solutions, formulated in a vaccine or not, need to be devised ASAP. But upon deep second consideration of all the factors in the mix in regards to this pandemic and education, people are stressing over the wrong things for reopening schools and getting students back to their normal lives.
Social distancing is one measure, but it’s not the be-all, end-all. Nuance is like an abandoned baby on the side of a road; somebody has to pick it up.
The major hurdle that needs to be jumped over in order to make the most out of the least ideal situation for the upcoming fall semester in the American public education system is not the logistics.
If necessary, hybrid schedules will be adopted and smaller class sizes will be mandated. What needs to be done will be done accordingly, and without failure (fingers crossed).
The question that must be asked and answered does not pertain to the tools in the apparatus kids need in order to do their homework, study efficiently, and get the highest grades they can.
Embracing the multi-faceted transition into a digital realm in regards to education is the real issue being deliberated upon.
Parents not wanting to, or too busy and preoccupied to take an active role in their children's education is second-hand. It’s myopic and inconsiderate to call them selfish and lazy parents. They too are struggling to adapt to the zeitgeist, the norm that their iPhone Generation youngsters are more adept at than they’re willing to admit.
For sure, learning through compact but overstuffed Zoom sessions hasn’t shown much efficacy. Deep down, kids aren’t taking it that seriously because the non-romantic intimacy that exists from interacting face-to-face with their peers is non-existent. All that those sessions seem to have produced are a lot of funny and quippy prank videos on YouTube, and opportunities for hackers to reap plenty from a vulnerable gold mine.
We can say “Ok Boomer” all we want. That ironically and seriously demonized and debased demographic gets enough shaming already. The biggest point articulated that should be torn apart when sifting the ignorant concerns of the Boomers is how it's bad that “people in this generation look at screens all the time.”
This generation, these young people have it all wrong. What has happened? What is wrong with them?
Are they wrong? Not really. Is a world of screens and projections the new normal? Yes. Will society be changing to anything different anytime soon? No.
For as much as socially-distanced learning is brutal to young children who benefit the most from hands-on learning and seeing the faces of their teachers and peers in the flesh, learning online is the future.
Learning online is extremely cost-efficient. For schools, in terms of staff, administrative costs, materials, the overhead expenses for all of that are ginormously reduced.
Payroll and staffing cuts that will have to be made as collateral damage should be welcomed. From my point of view, whether it’s the standard four-year university or elementary school, there is an excess of glut and toxic visceral fat in terms of overseeing administration.
Public policy on education bit with the bug of bureaucracy gets entangled in a sticky spider web. Millions of dollars in the national spending budget are allocated to education, and those dollars are not always put to the best use.
The money is often used to grow and back up the bureaucratic elements entrenched within rather than give back to the students and teachers who need it in order to make everyone’s job a little easier.
The common complaint students and parents reiterate about how they’re not engaged with the material because they’re slow and fast learners can finally be sorted out. Distance learning patches up that hole by allowing students to learn at their own pace and not feel overwhelmed.
For those not fully convinced, innovative new options like group “pods” unravel a unique type of genie in a bottle.
Learning “pods” are a spur-of-the-moment, vibrant new option targeted to students and parents who are going to pass on returning to a physical school building and direct remote learning.
Buzz and “over-the-shoulder” talk about learning pods percolated online as soon as the first wave epidemic appeared to be cooling down in its descent. Their creation got the word spread around through exclusive avenues, like Facebook groups, etc. by nature that can be quasi-elitist and ran like an authoritarian, intellectual echo-chamber masquerading as compassionate democracy — or the Wild, Wild West where no holds are barred.
Organized on the accord of the parents involved, the pods are a community-based effort to provide a viable all-in-one alternative to the traditional model of schooling.
Whatever setting kids are learning within, social interaction is a secondary perk that they get and need an amplitude of. Direct remote learning strips that layer away and learning pods circumvent that issue.
Plus, a greater sense of accountability is earned because parents are working together with some agency, giving their kids what they need to maximize their education.
A lot of the details and logistics become flexible. If agreed upon, parents teach the kids. If not, all the parents or those who choose to will hire a babysitter, private tutor, or professional educator willing to make adjustments. Parents that have to work a day job to support the family will opt-in to that.
Each individual pod can dictate their own unique social distancing policies when and if the imperative comes about.
Also, the curriculum taught can be inclusive of different subject matters that the kids aren’t normally exposed to. Their horizons are expanded, and they can learn how to think creatively, outside the box. This new education makes it easier to introduce practical skills to the youth that’ll help them in their everyday lives on a higher frequency (woodwork shop, home economics, etc.)
Minus some externalities and subjective expenses, it’s a win-win for most parties. Teachers also get thrown a bone in the equation. Teachers that abhor at the idea of having to return to a vulnerable environment that diseases and germs can exploit without pushback doesn’t feel appetizing. Many have quit, or will before s*hit hits the fan.
The last card to be played in the deck in order to assert a stand will be organizing strikes. The teachers worried about their safety will wave the banner, blotched in red that doctors like Anthony Fauci are committed to.
If these don’t work, the teachers that quit will take advantage of the opportunities learning online is offering. Decentralized now are the levers on educational provisioning.
As the pendulum swings —
Education goes from gesturing as a commodifiable industry to a virtuous route that guides young people towards self-development and wholesome self-improvement.
Just like with the pods, online distance learning, on the whole, shapes itself to be a double-edged sword. Disparities in outcomes and prosperity with education have not gone anywhere. Off that leg, there are two fronts in which hierarchies become boldly observable; one in relation to class and socioeconomic status, the other in relation to the special needs sector of education.
Education here is just another forefront for racial inequality to be the elephant in the uneven room, as Black and Latino's students more frequently tend to constitute an assertive majority of struggling low-income students.
Even if they’re not low in socioeconomic status, a vast majority of American families today have both parents working full-time to pay the bills and put food on the table.
Taking advantage of subsidized childcare is already biased towards these same families as will. To top that off, these families consistently tend to not be able to afford the technology, or Wi-Fi services to plug their children into learning in a digital setting.
During this pandemic due to COVID-19, poor parents and wealthy parents statistically are proven to have been investing a similar quantity of time in assisting their kids in transitioning to online learning. There’s no disparity there, but those two distinguished groups of students still aren’t learning and keeping up with their grades to their maximum capabilities.
For low-income groups and communities, the question of making online learning an equitable reality across the board comes down to a prudent matter of technology.
A pipeline must be built to source the necessary resources, including laptops and anything else that sets up a barrier for disadvantaged students to climb over.
Pandemics and recessions will always be a busted dam for ripe new money-making opportunities.
Companies and outfits specializing in education are noticing the high demand for alternatives, sending their bid in, hot and heavy into the marketplace. Learning pods and their doppelgangers are to education what Bitcoin has materialized into for monetary currency.
“People over profit” is a short-breathed plea, waned by the colloquial irony that coagulates around it. The motto is earnest and genuine, but in a society dictated by capitalist vision and means, even the grave, life-alternating circumstances a pandemic has spawned doesn’t stop Jeff Bezos from making a killing, post-divorce mind you.
So the age-old divisions between the haves and have nots express them in divine dejection. What adds insult to injury is that the youth are taking a hit from a systemic linebacker.
To try to solve the overt inequity in access to these resources, much is being done to avail. Scholarships and other allotted money have been offered by some companies who want to minimize the inequity at foot.
But handouts and socio-politically tainted generosity are not limitless.
“We can spread ideas, and we can be coordinators, and share information, and tap into the power of our families. Our families are just as equipped and just as savvy and can be — and have been — incredible partners in remote learning.” —
Steven Evangelista, the principal and co-founder of Harlem Link, made that statement as he and the staff at his charter school have deliberated upon integrating original learning pods into their main curriculum, to service the underserved needs of his minority-dominated student body.
Mr. Evangelista is among many who recognize educators have more power than they realize. They are advocates for the students they teach when they’re away from home, mediators to be even more precise; a voice for the immature voiceless.
Low-income students above all other demographics need all the help they can get, so that they don’t slip through the cracks, or bear the seasonal “summer slide” to a steeper extreme.
The onset of the summer slide (or “COVID slide”) taking effect as the dog days of August closeout should have people contemplate adopting a linear approach to progressive learning, where students can accumulate knowledge (and thereby skills) by building a fortified bridge, from freshman year of high school to senior year, and all in between.
The years in specifics don’t matter, it can be whatever. The message that must be understood is effective learning and teaching are not redundant. There has to be a symbiotic relationship between student, teacher, and the material being taught, in and out of the classroom, even after the last day of school.
Ignoring the inequality exaggerated because of, learning pods is a market-disrupting idea that has the potential to decentralize the levers of state-mandated education, similar to what cryptocurrency is doing this century.
It’s an ambitious idea. Fusing the rigor noble academic materials have with the diversification and colorful, jaunty entertainment an amusement park makes money off of is brilliant while being dynamic and flexible. Regardless of where they’re doing it from, getting students engaged and excited about learning no longer has half of the dizzying complexity of a Rubiks’ Cube.
Teachers are entertainers, contrary to the bitter and morose opinion that my 6th grade ELA teacher expressed out of frustration to me and my class. The advanced technologies ubiquitous in our day and age eliminates all excuses for teachers to take the next step and evolve in their craft.
They’re not clowns or court jesters to be sympathetic. Not every teacher needs to inspire like the late great Robin Williams in the YA cult film Dead Poets Society, but they and the principals and administrations they serve under need to adapt with the times.
Gen-Z, and to a lesser extent, are enamored with apps like Instagram and Snapchat. They spend inordinate amounts of time surfing through them. Every shadow is following a source of light. So since this behavior isn’t going to die off anytime soon, why not direct that attention towards a productive objective.
Toying around with things like augmented reality and so forth, if done right hopefully, translates into building a virtual experience that immerses students into a realm where the slides they’re looking at, the words from their textbook glow more, sizzle and pop more. It’s a “full-stack” medium to facilitate learning.
Kids can be introduced to materials and concepts that might pose dangers for them to physically handle. They can be dropped into the jungle of endless pathways, avenues, and boulevards, realizing the role of protagonist in their own movie.
Yes, dreamers don’t set the best policies but the youth is a whistling, boiling pot of scattershot dreams and admirable hubris. It needs to be course-corrected and supported.
Having such a platform for kids to learn on at home, and interact with once again forms an environment that funnels their creativity and youthful zest towards the better.
It’s not a perfect system, but if schools and the government decide to go forward with complete online learning, then bugs need to be fixed to allow everything to run smoothly.
Education in America is dying for a paradigm shift, and COVID-19 bringeth it, pounding on the glass front door.
The way forward for progress in civilization begins and ends with technology. You can ignore that, but you won’t get anywhere doing so for too long.
In my humble opinion, the world we’re entering into, post-pandemic presents as many rainbows as it does black holes in terms of possibilities.
As colleges and K-12 schools reopen in America, the speculation on a subsequent second and third wave will be put to the test.
Some colleges have already even before September has arrived have had to institute new restrictions, and transition full steam ahead into online learning
2020 and beyond, it would be insane and illogical not to incorporate learning online in a more elevated capacity. If students use laptops in-class to look at slideshows and complete assignments, and teachers in districts and areas that are well-funded have access to the latest technology (SmartBoard, etc.), then it’s silly to deny the fact that the digital revolution is here to stay and take over.
For purposes of networking, socializing with others, and similar activities, doing all of those things in-person will always be the default. But a hybrid method can also be adopted.
It goes over so many people’s heads like an eagle how social media is utilized to make friends. The word “social” in social media is not a redundant placeholder, though it may seem like that at times.
Whatever new technology that is developed, and becomes popular because of the surge in distance learning has to maximize the implementation of that word. The teacher-student relationship in a digital setting can be strengthened thereby.
Teachers can hold students accountable to produce fair and honest work. All students, especially if it improves their performance, can get personalized one-on-one time with their educator. Their specific learning curves, needs, wants, aptness, etc. can be matched, dollar for dollar.
Participation is key, and students under the impression that what they learn is engaging will feel more than obliged.
Voices bringing much-needed attention to the silent mental health crisis rupturing in the pandemic are bereft from, few and far in between.
Young people re-entering the classroom this fall are stressed out. Anxiety and depression are sinking its talon into them, and they need to feel uplifted. Young people more than anyone else have to feel that there’s palpable hope for tomorrow.
Politicians, users on social media, pundits in the media would do everyone a humongous service by not painting the potential solutions to go about educating America’s children in the post-pandemic future as “either-or.”
Either we return full-time to the four prison walls of a classroom (just a joke) or we retain classroom attendance online through video conferencing to prevent any further spread of COVID-19 and adhere to social distancing policies.
Neither solution confronts the looking glass head-on. Irrationally swayed by political leanings that are intensified due to the natural pandemonium going down in an election year, nobody is motivated to make a compromise.
Every opinion shared mirrors a toddler, red in the face, panting, screaming, and echoing in a tunnel. Like any other institution at an impasse right now, the education system needs a lifeline, a bone thrown to it. It also needs to change.
Unless compelled by local, state, or federal authorities to make specific decisions, parents have the ultimate sovereignty in deciding what’s best for their children. That’s how things should be.
There will be life after this pandemic, and the decisions made have to articulate the belief that such will be so.
To be honest, I believe this pandemic has exposed how colossal of a mistake it’s been in America gradually over the last century to have the government subsidize public education so extensively, removing power in that department out of the hands of the rightful owners of said power, the parents.
It’s parents’ responsibility to pass down that precious power to their children, handing it off like a torch at the Olympics that will light a fire throughout generations to come, connecting back to the generations of old.
We want excellence out of our students. We want to keep our word and be about churning out confident, assured, and capable young people that will make large dents into the brave new world they enter.
In this post-pandemic period upcoming, there’s no need for handling education with baby gloves.
The future is more uncertain than ever before. It’s time to roll with the punches, and say no more to hanging on to the plucky, succulent breast of “old-order thinking”.
Be that as it may —
That last line is no less true than it is right now, when the most large-scale crisis of public concern since the world stood still on 9/11 is in our midst's, with no vaccine or secure end in sight.
To be educated is to be informed, enlightened, and cared for.
Whatever path schools, educators, and parents choose to take across the nation, what’s of the utmost essence is that students, of all stripes, backgrounds, and incomes remain sharp on all ends.
Keep the proposition below in mind —
