I've been thinking about how social distancing is about to put a huge distance between the more privileged and the at-risk/marginalized kids in the school system.
For example, my kid will be okay because I have more privilege. Middle class, educated white lady with a secure job, benefits, and a salary that doesn't depend on metrics like sales or hours worked.
If my kid's teacher is instructed to roll out some online learning, no big problem. She can do it from the comfort of any room in the house, using one of the many devices that are lying around the house.
Reading time? No problem. We have books stacked floor to ceiling. Math problems? Let's hop on Prodigy or Khan Academy to figure it out.
Science? Not only can we find fun things to do online, but we also have the disposable income to spend on materials for practical experiments. We even have enough available credit to throw the order on a credit card for a contact-free transaction to purchase those supplies.
My kid also has a mother (me!) who happens to work in education, so well-positioned to get help directly, or from one of my colleagues if it's outside my wheelhouse.
Meanwhile, I know of half a dozen students who don't have reliable access to the internet unless it's on public Wi-Fi. Locally, libraries and coffee shops are closed now, so that widens the gap.
Direct example: I can think of one student whose main source of income in a 4-person household is one parent's disability cheque. The student has a part-time job at a fast food joint which now has its hours and services drastically reduced by Public Health.
Even if, optimistically, the student maintains, or even increases their working hours. Now they're working in a situation where they're at higher risk of exposure to the very thing we've all been asked to stay home to avoid.
Work aside, that student doesn't necessarily have the mental or emotional energy to deal with learning at home, even if the family maintains in-home access to internet.
Many younger kids, who arguably need more direction, may still have parents (or the only parent) going to work at one of the now-essential workplaces, where they perhaps don't make a living wage, even if it's above minimum.
Perhaps that parent also had their hours reduced because the 15- or 24-hour open-for-business model is also being reduced and now has extra stressors, on top of not being a trained educator. The support for those kids is a challenge, whether or not they can get online.
And while some people are wringing their hands over the loss of instructional time, some kids are panicked over the loss of their safe space, their one meal a day, their only positive social interaction.
So to focus on educators putting time and energy into making sure kids have access to learning online, while at-risk kids continue to flounder with poor resources/support, and challenges we can't even imagine, seriously belies the greater issues COVID-19 brings to light.
I work in a community with a reported poverty rate around 34%. Considering the myriad challenges that come with poverty, even mailing or dropping off a work package doesn't address the systemic inequality that is highlighted by social distancing and #FlattenTheCuve
This isn't an argument against e-learning. This isn't an argument for me sitting on my laurels with bonus time off while the flimsy structures of our society crumple under the weight of the world's biggest health crisis in a century.
I'm not arguing for anarchy, or "screw the system". I'm saying that the system needs something that looks much different, and much more robust, than "all your learning will be online."
I want to know the bigger plan: how we will reintegrate the underprivileged kids when schools reopen; how we will address the very real gaps in their personal and financial security: how we will acknowledge and guide them through the trauma they experienced during all this.
There is very real disruption happening in education because of COVID-19. Maybe part of the solution is internet as a utility, like water or power, that can't be cut off during a state of emergency.
Maybe it's universal basic income, that relieves pressure from families in crisis and solves other related social and health issues. I know the problem. I don't know or even think there is any one silver bullet to solve it. I just know that moving instruction online isn't it.
