By Karen Gross
The pandemic had a serious impact on our educational system—there is little dispute about this statement. The identified negatives are plentiful. Students have been struggling ever since, both academically and socially. Standardized test scores are down. Mental wellness has declined, for both students and teachers. Educators are leaving the field or retiring early. There has even been evidence of increased aggression between students, teachers, administrators, and families.
During the pandemic I was training teachers and social workers, as well as hosting webinars and conducting workshops for educators alongside Edward Wang, an assistant professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School. Together we also ran, along with two other educators, the Virtual Teachers’ Lounge, a place where teachers could share and vent about their school experiences and garner suggestions and support.
The more we listened to the educators we were working with, the more we began to hear about a different, not-so-negative side to pandemic teaching. This caught our attention, and we decided to dig deeper. We ran more webinars, talked with more teachers, and even conducted a national survey of preK–12 educators with opened- and closed-ended questions. These were all opportunities for listening to and learning about what was really occurring in the trenches in our schools.
What we discovered was that, despite the many ways the pandemic has impacted our education system for the worse, there were a number of changes and adaptations made by educators during this time (what we term “Pandemic Positives”) that actually improved the educational landscape—and could continue to do so if these modifications are identified, replicated, and scaled. In fact, we found these Pandemic Positives to be so deserving of attention that we turned our findings into a new book: Mending Education.
The problem, however, is that most of the suggested improvements voiced and deployed by educators (broadly defined to include classroom teachers, specialized teachers, coaches, school nurses, school psychologists, and school social workers) have not been recognized by administrators and stakeholders at large. To make matters worse, when schools reopened, there was a flurry of activity to return to “normal,” the way things were pre-pandemic. Sadly, there is no going back. There’s only a new normal, one which calls for us to take the lessons learned from the pandemic and incorporate them into our education system moving forward.
Pandemic Positives
Many educators saw the pandemic as an opportunity to do things differently—both inside and outside of the classroom. Of course, some of this was not by choice initially, as in-person schools were shuttered and there were quarantine and social distancing guidelines. But despite the innumerable challenges, educators forged a path forward that placed emphasis on student learning in every sense, including providing strategies for mental wellness. They took the pieces of education and reshaped them—for the better, in our opinion.
Here are four “Pandemic Positives” that we learned about from educators:
1. Insights into students’ home lives
Within the context of online learning, educators saw the “inside” of their students’ lives. They saw a room in their homes. They saw their engagement with family members, including siblings. They overheard conversations. They saw whether students were seated and how they were dressed.
These insights gave educators a vastly better sense of who their students were; it enabled them to focus more specifically on the needs of their students in general and on some students in particular. It also allowed them to frame their students’ needs differently. Instead of asking and pondering why a student acted a certain way, educators now had insight into at least some of the external factors that may have shaped that student’s behavior.
Consider this example: Teachers saw that for some students, home life was chaotic. There was yelling and screaming; there were struggles to get online; and there were tensions as to the length of time a student could be online, as other family members also needed access to the lone computer in the household. All this information allowed educators to do a better job monitoring their students’ progress and mental wellness. It also helped them appreciate why some online assignments were not completed.
2. Breakout rooms
Online learning also enabled large classes to be broken down into smaller groups that could either work together with their teacher or progress independently. With the benefit of online chat rooms and breakout rooms, educators had opportunities to build off student strengths, foster teamwork, and facilitate discussion—including through writing.
For some students, the opportunity to engage online lifted the burden of being bullied or judged in school, thus giving them the chance to speak and share their thoughts more openly and willingly. School social workers or psychologists could also participate in breakout rooms, without students feeling stigmatized.
3. Better access to families
Through the online learning environment, there were increased opportunities for communication with families, many of whom, pre-pandemic, had lacked the opportunity to meet with their child’s teacher in person for a host of reasons, including childcare, work commitments, and dislike of schools based on their own experiences as students. With online learning, a number of these pre-existing hurdles were diminished and, in some cases, disappeared altogether.
4. Increased respect for the value of schools
When schools were closed, families began to recognize the value of the additional services that schools provided—food, after-school programs, psychological supports, and, in some instances, access to social service providers and medical professionals. Pre-pandemic, these services were not totally visible, but when they disappeared, there was a new or enhanced recognition of their importance, as well as an acute loss that was felt by many.
Through this increased respect for what schools actually provided, families were more willing to participate in their children’s education. Plenty of them also saw firsthand the challenges that educators confronted. All of a sudden, they could see their own children as learners (and sometimes as difficult learners), especially when parents and caregivers became involved with trying to teach the assigned materials themselves. All of these efforts led one parent to remark that we need to pay teachers “a million dollars a year. No, a million dollars a week!”
The Reality
Perceived from the perspective of the positive, the pandemic enabled educators to make improvements that changed education in ways that otherwise would not have been possible. Yet, those same educators frequently have voiced to us that they were neither listened to nor appreciated. The changes they implemented were not incorporated into ongoing learning, even though these adaptions could easily occur in a brick-and-mortar space, since the Internet and online learning can still be used (although not as punishment, as has been done post-pandemic).
Unfortunately, teachers remarked that they were not even consulted about educational advances using the Internet moving forward. To make matters worse, few if any of the alternatives to testing that educators tried during the pandemic were adopted.
Yes, some educators were fortunate to have exemplary leaders, but many others were not. The result is that educational improvements have not been consistently solicited, supported, or scaled. Educators have lamented this absence of leadership communication, true listening (and actual hearing), transparency, authenticity, and respect.
The reality is that we will pay a steep price for failing to recognize teacher voices. Educational improvement can only come about if we are sufficiently respectful of and open to the opinions of those to whom we entrust our children every school day. We need to listen, learn from, and, most importantly, act on their suggestions. We all stand to benefit if we do.
Karen Gross, a former college president and senior policy advisor to the U.S. Department of Education (Obama Administration), is an educator specializing in trauma’s impact on learning. She is also a visual artist and author of adult and children’s books. Karen currently serves as a continuing education instructor at Rutgers School of Social Work and on the Advisory Council for Minority Serving Institutions at Rutgers Graduate School of Education.
