Justice over achievement

Image via https://twitter.com/lunchbreath

One of my big takeaways from COVID-19 is the importance of equity. Our society, including our educational system, has been built on a model that values overall achievement over equity. In other words, as long as you are enabling your top students, or at best, most students, to achieve at high levels, you are doing a good job. But this is wrong. I've been wrong. I have historically had it backwards, idolizing human potential and achievement and neglecting equity. Here's what I'm learning:

1) Prioritize equity: Better to live in a just society than an advanced one. If forced to choose between a just society or school and a high achieving one, choose just.
2) Don't teach or test in a way that disadvantages some students.
3) If that means the quickest won't progress as fast because you can't support those who are less ready, then that's how it will have to be until we can get better at supporting and challenging everyone. "Do no harm" is the guiding principle.
4) Challenge every student, but not more than they can actually handle. Set the bar high. Let them try. Then adjust it, always trying to challenge them and inch it higher.

So how can we actually do this in the COVID-19 world?

Let's take a look at the primary hinderances kids are dealing with, and some possible solutions.

Access to technology

Problem: Many students of low socio-economic status lack fast, stable internet or computers. This can lead to an inability to participate fully in Zoom calls, especially if webcams are required.

Possible solutions: Don't require webcams. Provide asynchronous options for learning, and extended deadlines. Bring these students in to school, in-person and full time, if possible.

Homelife

Problem: Many students have home environments that are not conducive to participating in live classes. Some are caring for siblings. Others have distracting activity all around them. Others may be embarrassed to show their homes or families.

Possible solutions: Same as above, plus multiple opportunities for learning and success. In other words, mastery-based learning. They need flexibility. They need to be able to take or submit an assessment when they are ready, not on a deadline. They may also need extra academic help and social-emotional resources and instruction.

ADHD, sleep issues, low conscientiousness, low SEL skills

Problem: Many students attempting to learn from home are hindered by a lack of non-cognitive skills: the ability to get up on time, stay awake during class, manage their sleep, schedules, and tasks, stay focused, manage depression or anxiety, etc. These things prevent them from accessing the curriculum.

Possible solutions: Same as above, mastery-based learning, with a focus on explicit instruction in social-emotional learning and 1:1 SEL support. Instruction, assignments and assessments that target SEL skills separately from content skills.

Lack of readiness

Problem: Many students lack the pre-requisite academic skills and knowledge to access the curriculum.

Possible solutions: The mastery model. Extra academic help and support. 

As you can see, I keep coming back to the mastery model. I think it's really going to be the only way forward if we want to keep standards high and value equity. The impact of COVID-19 is going to ripple out into the coming decade, with students entering each successive year less ready than they would have been--and less equal. COVID-19 has disproportionally impacted at-risk students, so we can unfortunately expect gaps to be wider. 

Moving forward, we can either be driven by the fear of losing some imagined edge or status as a individuals, schools, country or society, or we can be driven by compassion and a desire for a just and equitable society. 

2020 was a unique and challenging year, and it's been hard to accomplish much, but one thing we can do is learn. Unfortunately, in our society we have a history of valuing some people over others. We have the opportunity to learn better and change.

Are we lighting fires or quenching them?

Jim (not his real name) was an at-risk student in my general science class two years ago. When he started the class, he talked very little, was totally unmotivated, had frequent run-ins with classmates, and generally had a very resistant, almost intimidating air about him. He had little interest in work.

A couple of months later, the whole class was sitting family style around a cluster of desks, passing around the "ingredients" for esters that smelled like wintergreen and bananas, and Jim was starting to like science. He started showing up early for class, asking what we were doing that day. By the time we were passing around the ingredients for (really cool) silvered holiday ornaments, Jim was making extras for his classmates who couldn't make their own.

I saw Jim a few weeks ago and asked how he was doing. "I wish I could take more science," he said, "but it didn't fit in my schedule."

Jim's on track for graduation in June.


Sometimes I wonder if I'm just being too easy on students like Jim: when I de-escalate rather than punish, when I encourage but don't pressure them to do their work, when I allow multiple attempts and revisions, or don't penalize for lateness or allow zeros, when I try to motivate with interest and autonomy rather than penalties and threats and grades.

In my biology class right now, most of my students are doing better in my class than in any of their other classes. As a few of them discussed how well they were doing, I said, "Do you think this class is too easy? Do you think I'm too easy on you?"

"This is my favorite class," said one girl with Cs and Ds in all of her other classes. "Your the best teacher I have ever had."

"That won't earn you any points," I replied with a smile.


Though I've been concerned about the pace at which we're moving through the curriculum, I was excited about how they did on the test they took this week. And I don't think I've been too easy. I think it's like Maslow's Hierarchy. It's hard to value learning when "learning" seems hostile to you, or when it seems to be saying you're incapable--a failure. Self-efficacy, confidence, and connections (relationships) are prerequisites to higher interests, like learning.

How do you get confidence if every time you turn around there's another F? But once you start liking class--once you see that learning is fun, and that your good at it... 


It's a delicate balance: between pushing and supporting, but one things for sure, we need to stop seeing school as a filter whose only job is to push and see who can make it. "Education," said Yeats, "is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire."

What are we doing as teachers? Testing the strength of fires, and quenching them if they're not strong enough? Or are we starting them and stoking them?

Learning isn't linear

Shared this with my standard-college-prep level biology students the other day.

I started by asking how many were planning on going to college (most raised their hands). Told them they should all plan on at least a two year program after high school.

Then I pulled up this visual, and asked if they thought learning was linear.

I said if we think it's linear we may feel discouraged about how far we have to go.

But then I told them I think it's not linear, but every new skill we learn makes a whole new array of learning possible.

"If kids are ahead of you now in school, it's just because they learned some skills earlier," I said.

"So if you think college seems unattainable, it may be a lot closer than you think, you just need some new skills."

Don't know if they bought it, but I hope so, because I think it's true.