A High School Teacher’s Perspective
Obviously, when people refer to the “reopening of schools”, they are not referring to the PROCESS by which we educate, nor the PEOPLE who facilitate education. They are simply referring to the BUILDINGS in which we traditionally educate (or, at least provide the opportunity) BEING STAFFED and ready to receive students “in person”.
I say this because we’ve actually BEEN “open” and providing the “opportunity” to students to engage in learning, pretty much since the “stay at home order” began back in March. Plus, if you include summer school, we never really “closed”, except for the few weeks between Spring Break and our “at-home learning” launch.
At any rate, You really cannot STOP learning from happening by closing a building. You cannot “CLOSE” learning, if it’s desired. ESPECIALLY, in this “technologically stacked” information age in which we live.
The need to “re-open” the buildings is more about the childcare that is needed for those parents, with young children, who need it in order to be able to go to work. Which, is completely understandable and valid. But, for high school it’s a bit different.
At the high school level, most students ONLY truly miss the “SOCIAL aspect” of school. They don’t necessarily MISS the “in-person ACADEMIC instruction” as many claim they do. Mostly, they just miss their friends. Of the more than 200 students on my roster this year, guess how many reached out to me for work ON THEIR OWN, once it became apparent we were not returning to school for the remainder of the year? It was in the single digits.
I don’t say this to suggest that students are wrong in some way for this. No. I say it to state that for the most part, students are ACADEMICALLY DISINTERESTED in the CONTENT we offer them. Not ALL content. I’m referring more so to what we call our “CORE content” areas that our states deem necessary for “graduation”, than I am to our electives. Our electives are more along the lines of what we SHOULD be offering our students as “the CORE” curriculum of each students’ specific PATHWAY at the high school level.
We learn whatever we WANT to learn, regardless of our age. There is always the opportunity to learn, IF a person wants to. School is always open to those that want to learn.
That being said, the issue may not be “is the school building and staff safe enough to gather students for in-person instruction?”. The issue may be “WHEN are we going to start providing THE CORE CONTENT that will cause the students we are instructing to “re-open” themselves to learning in our public school system?
In my opinion, it’s not about HOW we’re teaching. Nor, is it about the packaging or structure in which we deliver content. It’s WHAT we’re teaching that is the problem. It at least needs to be revisited.
Many of us as educators will readily acknowledge that each and every student has unique learning needs. So we are constantly encouraged to diversify our instructional methods in order to accommodate those needs.
All I’m saying is, that if the CURRICULUM is irrelevant to the student, then it matters not the instructional method used. The curriculum needs to be more individualized as well, as the student gets older, so that, each student is able to graduate with something specifically meaningful for their lives.
When we do “re-open”, may these things be more in place than they are now.
Jason C. Smith 