Space Enough, and Time

We started a second week of preparation for the new school year today.  There are just so many things to take care of: cleaning out the gym after last week’s gatherings, checking in with student leaders, nurturing vital friendships, and planning for meetings can often keep you from getting to the work of curriculum.

Rumors are starting to swirl, just a bit, that we might return to some kind of lockdown in the coming weeks.  Even though our numbers are on the lower end overall, there is the concern of multiple days in the three-digit range.  For now, though, we have a plan in place.  We’re going to be 100% online for the first two weeks.  After that, we’re going to have half of the student body on campus for half the week each week.  A co-worker came across this June 2020 article over at Forbes that speaks to the benefits and challenges of the set-up.  First, the challenge:

Let’s start by recognizing the key problem for the concurrent classroom: an inequality of attention. (I’m reserving the term “hybrid” for educational experiences where all students in a class are online and then all students are face-to-face in a classroom together. For example, most executive MBA (eMBA) programs offer a hybrid format. A concurrent classroom, in contrast, has people online and in person in the same class at the same time.) Students physically in the classroom have an obvious advantage: they can interact more fluidly and naturally with the teacher and each other. The juxtaposition prompts online students to feel even more distant and disconnected by comparison, and more likely to succumb to the myriad distractions in their home. Even with clever technologies like screen sharing, tracking cameras, and omnidirectional microphones, attempts at free-flowing conversation between people in the classroom and students on video will encounter poor video resolution, echoing audio with lags and the inevitable but persistent mistakes with the “mute” button. Applying traditional teaching practices from in-person or online classes will fail to deliver high-quality, impactful educational experiences.

Yet the concurrent classroom is unavoidable.

From there, the article gives some of the potential benefits of the “concurrent” format and how to get there.  I had to laugh at the mention of the “cold call,” which is a great way to keep students on their toes.  But it’s definitely something that’s tricky when you’ve got students present but not in person.  And that pesky “mute” button (by necessity) also makes things interesting.

A good read and a sobering reminder of what stands on the horizon for many teachers across the world this fall.  It will be an interesting problem to try and solve.

I feel like I spend a good chunk of my time in meetings as a naysayer, as a “wait a minute and slow down” kind of guy.  It’s not because I want to be a killjoy, not that I want to rain on the parade of the newest and coolest development in things.  It’s more that I’ve learned to be a little more aware of what can get lost in the process.

That’s especially true in times of significant change, which is a big part of what is happening with education, as one quarter online looks to turn into a longer, indeterminate reality.  Which is why I have found Mark Bauerlein’s recent First Things article titled “The Problem with Online Learning” so encouraging.   A snippet:

Academic content is now implicated in a technology that youths have been primed to use, interpret, and value for different purposes. It’s not that the screen is inherently contrary to academic learning (though I doubt the physics of the screen are as generative of advanced literacy as are the physics of the printed page). Rather, it’s that years of a certain behavioral conditioning at the screen make it difficult for students to treat the screen primarily as an instrument of learning, not an instrument of diversion, and teachers don’t have the time or the power or the knowledge to recondition them.

Even the space the kids inhabit when learning at home hinders the shift: American teens have converted the bedroom into a social space, not a private space. When kids go to their rooms and shut the doors, they’re not secluding themselves. They’re opening up to the world (and shutting out the parents down the hall). Now, this game room/chat room/screen room is supposed to be a classroom, too.

That might not seem like such a big deal to many, but it is something worth reflecting for a while, at least.

At the article’s end, Bauerlein gives a list of suggestions for parents to implement as a way of “correcting” for their child’s digital environment.  It’s a nice list:

• • When your kids have to complete a writing assignment, have them do the first draft by hand with pencil and paper, a print dictionary and thesaurus beside them.

  • Do not let them read assigned books online—print copies only.

  • When they watch instructional videos, have them take notes by hand in a spiral notebook dedicated to the subject (research on the advantages of note-taking over any screen method is solid).

  • Finally, keep the leisure screen shenanigans completely out of the homeschooling hours—no breaks for video, no browsing until class is over, no social contact while the teacher is talking.

  • Collaboration over homework is fine, and texting and phone calls after “school” ends are, too. But the school day must be kept intact and uninterrupted.

The whole article is worth a read.  I imagine most teachers aren’t necessarily thinking about that as they prep their lessons and most parents aren’t thinking about this because they are trying to make sense of the logistics of whatever their child’s school will be asking of them. Regardless, it’s encouragement worth heeding.

Tuesday was my first day back full-time to school.  After the last meeting, I headed downtown to grab some sushi for dinner.  The kind folks at Ahi and Vegetable add a salad and miso soup to their meals, so I usually start there while the sushi chills a little in the fridge.  Somewhere between the miso soup and the sushi I took an almost-hour-long nap.  And then I slept pretty well later in the evening.  Turns out that I was worn out.

The pieces of the school year are slowly falling into place.  We spent our fourth quarter online, so we’ve got some kind of foundation to build off of should we need to return there.  At the same time, the last two days have reminded me of things that can be frustrating in such situations.

At the end of this morning’s gathering, I spoke some of the Andy Crouch/Praxis imagery of blizzard/winter/ice age.  I’ve said before that it’s been a good way for me to get some kind of handle on things.  The tension comes in trying to live in between the images.  Just because it’s “ice age” in one area doesn’t mean that it’s the same in other places.  And yet . . .  We’ve been able to keep the numbers low in Hawaii, but the last few days have seen a rise in numbers.  Granted, Hurricane Douglas might have backed up numbers some, but it’s still something to reflect on.

All of which to say?  What have we learned?  What are we learning?  What are the implications of what we have learned?  How do you keep things in mind when so many things present themselves as pressing concerns?  The next week or so will tell, of course, but only for a short window of time.  It’s like the game changes every few days.  It’ a time of moving targets.  How do we adjust while keeping steady and significant aim?