A worldwide pandemic! I certainly didn’t see that coming. First let’s take a moment to reflect on the loss and grief of the last year and a half. A lot of innocent people have suffered terribly, and it’s not fair.
In the next breath, however, my thoughts turn hopeful. (This probably has something to do with the fact that I was fortunate enough to live in a community where the death toll from Covid has been relatively low.) The vaccines are safe and effective, and they were developed at breakneck speed. I’m fully vaccinated at this point, and the CDC says I can go about my business (in most cases) without a mask or social distancing. It feels liberating.
But you aren’t reading this blog just to hear about my day. The question is: What did all this do for the world of education?
I’d answer that it hasn’t done much, sad to say. Yes, the school all closed down, but when folks at AERO say things like “the education revolution has already happened”, I think they’re overstating the case. The vast majority of kids (in wealthy countries) will go back to school, full-time and in-person, in the fall. Now that the pandemic is receding (in wealthy countries), most people just want to get back to normal.
Still, I hope that some people have woken up from the old ways of thinking. I've seen reports of families actually enjoying the lockdown, since it gave them more family time at home. That particularly applies to spring 2020, when schools hadn’t figured out how to do remote learning yet and people got more free time as a result. I loved the news that schools had adopted “hold harmless” policies where grades no longer mattered. Sadly, grades returned full-force in the fall. The New York Times tells me that some families are reluctant to return to school. That’s a start.
And why should kids be force to go to school if they don’t want to? Pandemic or otherwise, it should really be their choice. I want to see at least one state repeal its compulsory education laws; that would be real progress.