Andy Malone School is important.
That might sound obvious. I hope it sounds obvious. But recently, scrolling through my social media accounts, I’ve noticed the rise of a simplistic, vitriolic, anti-school discourse.
As an educator, I feel the need to speak up on school’s behalf.
Of course, school is not the most important thing, especially during a pandemic. Our loved ones, our safety, and our wellness come first. I think educators have always recognized this order of operations. For a big recital; for a family wedding; for snowstorms of certain sizes – school takes a backseat. As it should. Even within schools and classrooms, educators recognize that our first job is to cultivate safe and loving communities. We do this not only to lay the foundation for higher levels of learning, but also to acknowledge, honor, and celebrate our students’ humanity. Students are people first, as are their teachers, as are we all.
In the era of Zoom classrooms, we educators must continue to put people first. We must evolve our practices to be more patient, flexible, and sensitive to the dynamic human needs of our communities. Here, we have no script to follow. We must stay awake and aware; converse frequently and honestly; and, from there, make the soundest decisions and plans that we can, putting our people (small and tall) first.
Judging from my various feeds, it seems that many districts have understandably stumbled through their early efforts to manage COVID-era change. A number of remote learning plans I’ve read do undervalue the human dimension. Wanting for patience, sensitivity, and flexibility, such plans marshal unreasonable expectations for families. In turn, many parents have taken to social media with their frustrations.
Hence, the recent burgeoning of a charged, anti-school sentiment in the twitterverse.
The frustration is real and important. Schools need to do better by their families. And family perspective should constitute an essential part of how schools reconfigure themselves as this pandemic evolves. That said – and with empathy and respect for the complexities involved – I worry deeply about the spread of “just cancel school” messages; of reductive, polemic comments that dismiss educators’ efforts to continue instruction.
While I believe we must change school – and maybe even pause school – my hope is that we view such measures as unfortunate necessities, rather than “no big deal” accommodations. Scaling back a child’s schooling is a big deal – particularly for our country’s most vulnerable populations. Affluent families can more feasibly and independently compensate for lost schooling – not only for academic interruption, but also for co-curricular programming, therapies such as speech and counseling, and various other school-based services.
So, I do not believe in bellowing “cancel school” from the nearest social media platform. And I certainly don’t believe in berating educators who are trying their very best to instruct with care. Nor do I endorse equating unstructured days of video games and snacking to play-based, child-led instruction. Play is a phenomenal, essential site for learning, but such flippant equivalencies undercut the sophistication of play-based pedagogy and the expertise of Montessorian pedagogues. Derisive “cancel school” narratives are as unfair to homeschoolers and unschoolers as they are to their brick-and-mortar counterparts.
While some of these anti-school posts may be intentionally (or agnostically) hyperbolic, language matters, and “cancel school” is not a message we should throw around lightly. For all of the shortcomings of U.S. education, school remains among the most vital parts of our democracy. As an institution, and as a concept, it deserves better than some of these emerging narratives afford.
Our youngest generation deserves better, too. They deserve to be cared for and they deserve to be taught. COVID-19 incites not only a range of emotions – fear, anxiety, anger, hope; but also a range of deep and urgent intellectual questions – about science, sociology, economics, philosophy, ethics, and more. Students deserve to engage with these questions and to acquire related content, skills, and dispositions. And students deserve to grapple with such questions alongside their peers and with the guidance of their teachers.
In some form, then, school must go on. It’s hard to say exactly how. We will need to work together to figure that out. But as we do, let’s reject the suggestion that school is readily disposable – along with the false dichotomy between instruction and care. While putting physical and emotional health first, we must continue to teach: to nurture our students’ intellect, to challenge their thinking, and to catalyze their spirit. I hope that the dialogue surrounding pandemic-era education will increasingly honor the importance of our schools and the efforts of our educators. At this most trying time, such discourses ought situate education not as not competitive with, but as essential toward, our most human needs.
