Education After The Pandemic

Education After The Pandemic

It’s all over the news. The disruption brought on by the pandemic has caused many students to have lost 1-2 years of learning.

I was going to write about the “New 3 R’s” being “responsibility, resourcefulness, respect” but then I stumbled upon the current post-pandemic learning crisis research naming the 3 R’s as “roadblocks, resilience, and resources”. I would add “remediation” – or call it whatever word promotes a positive attitude toward going backwards for awhile to fill in the learning gaps left over from the educationally disruptive pandemic.

If we don’t scoop up those students who were affected adversely during the pandemic, they will become another student “left behind”. Remember that cry from the past? “No Child Left Behind”. Maybe it’s time to raise that battle cry again.

For now, lets talk about “achievement” instead of “grade level”. Let’s mark their papers with how many questions they got correct versus how many mistakes they made. On a 10-question quiz, receiving a “+3” grade is more uplifting than a “-7” grade. Considering a .300 baseball batting average is considered “excellent”, why not grade our students that way as well. Keep the student’s pride in tact and give them the motivation to work towards a “+5” or better on the re-test. Yes, I said “re-test”. What’s the point of getting to our required curriculum finish line with a good percentage of our students not part of that success? Many teachers are reconsidering how they grade students after COVID-19 upended school life.

Additionally, there is a teacher shortage crisis that cannot be filled by the yearly number of teachers receiving credentials. So now, our students need to catch up in an atmosphere of teacher shortages. Maybe it’s time to take a page from the medical profession that employs “practitioners” to help with the patient load. Let’s have more types of certifications for, let’s say, “learning facilitators” and “teaching assistants” who fill in the gaps left by the teacher shortage.

Post pandemic education will require RESILIENCE on all our parts. We may need something different in order to teach in this type of “new normal”. We need to be flexible and willing to try new methods. We need the students to interact with teachers and each other instead of sitting in rows absorbing lectures, the way it’s been done for over 100 years.

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Opinions and Analysis by: Illana Herzig Weintraub

Publisher: MathMedia Educational Software, Inc.

www.mathmedia.com

support@mathmedia.com

Join our mailing list here! https://rb.gy/t70la