So across the country and at all levels from early childhood to graduate school, educators have rushed to pivot from in person to distance learning models. The idea is to make the best of a terrible situation and to fulfill our promise to learners everywhere. 1
And, by the grace of G-d, we are doing it. We are out of our comfort zone, adapting technologies we never used, and mapping out how to salvage learning out of this massive disruption that we never trained for. 2
Parents and guardians are joking about how - while waiting for us to take over again - they are realizing how much damn work goes into teaching and how much they owe teachers. Which is nice and all. People realizing you are a profession that takes knowledge and talent is nice. 3
And look, we are going to do it. We are going to teach your kids, and some of us will shine brilliantly and others will struggle, but teachers take on an incredibly moral obligation every year and if some digital tools let us keep up our end, we'll do it. 4
But these kids - kids of all ages but ESPECIALLY kids from pre-K through early childhood - are going to struggle themselves and we will need to commit to do a LOT for the children when we get back to some set of normalcy. 5
Learning in school runs on relationships and relationships - between teachers and children and children and children - are going to suffer. When you let children into your classroom you are responsible for their cognitive growth - AND their social and emotional growth. 6
When this experiment - and it is an experiment - wraps up, all kinds of people will do all kinds of studies to try to quantify how well learning stayed on track or did not during mass distance learning. G-d help us, they will probably measure "days of learning" *gag* 7
But we are going to have to take a good hard look at the social and emotional losses that are going to impact kids at every grade level when we replaced their school communities and school relationships with whatever this actually is. 8
Let's keep our eyes on EVERYTHING that matters. 9.
