Education In A Post Covid-19 World
Covid-19 has been a significant cause of change for most people in every aspect of their lives. Work, leisure activities, travel and even seeing friends and family are all things people are trying to get back to normal. However, one thing in particular I would like to focus on for this post is covid-19’s impact on the education system and what that means going forward.
In order to find out the true extent of covid-19’s impact on the education system I sat down with the Coordinator of Curriculum and Instruction for the Yorkshire-Pioneer School District, Jennifer Kless, to talk about how covid-19 has affected her district, what changes have been made, and which ones are here to stay. We began by discussing how covid-19 has disrupted her normal duties and goals for the district.
All hands on deck
“It has consumed us” (J. Kless, personal communication, Oct 9, 2020). These four words is the best way Jennifer could describe the extent to which covid-19 has impacted her district. Prior to the virus, her goals primarily focused on improving curriculum and creating a better learning environment for students in the classroom. Now, she is constantly dealing with everchanging guidelines, covid-19 outbreaks, students lack of at-home resources, teachers struggling to teach efficiently in an online setting, etc.. Instead of solving important problems within the curriculum, Jennifer has been forced to combat the countless issues that arise from covid-19. One major problem is the impact covid-19 has had on teachers ability to teach.
It is three times harder to teach a concept over zoom verses face-to-face
said Jennifer when asked what the biggest struggle with online teaching was. She pointed out the fact that teachers can no longer gage the room to see if they are getting their points across. She spoke about how establishing mental stamina for students has also been much harder than in recent years due to the long break from school and the inability to fully immerse kids in a learning environment.
With covid-19 came a number of changes. First, there has been a centralization of a communication platform between students, teachers and parents. Before, different teachers often used different communication methods to interact with students and assign work. Now, Jennifer claims that in order to smoothen the process of an online education, her district is forcing teachers to use one program so that students have an easier time filing through assignments and communicating with their instructors. According to Jennifer, this is a positive change and likely will be here to stay. Another change that isn’t so bad is an increased involvement of parents in the education system. Jennifer pointed out that with Zoom, parents can witness first hand what their children are learning and how it compares to other schools. This, Jennifer says, will lead to higher standards for teachers and will allow for each student to receive a guaranteed viable curriculum. Hopefully, these positive changes are here to stay, and the negative once will be short lived.
