"We believe that the voices of students, educators and families should be front and centre in decisions about how to remake school after this moment." - 100 Days of Conversations Project, Human Restoration Project/REENVISIONED
"Being Indigenous is firmly grounded in the land that you are born into, as well as the traditional language and knowledge that goes along with that land...A day out on the land can teach you that food is medicine; it can help to pass on the traditions of your people; it can strengthen your sense of identity; it can promote belonging through sharing with family and community; and it can build character skills like patience, determination, confidence, resiliency and focus. All of these things are grounded in traditional knowledge and are extremely important to the well-being of our people: physically, spiritually, emotionally and mentally." - Karl Moore & Wahiakatste Diome-Deer
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Although still firmly in the clutches of pandemic constraint, there are numerous impacts of our year-long (so far!) imposed restrictions that are surfacing and beginning to demand the attention of educators, parents and students - even as we all glance longingly forward to a fall that does not demand the same level of hibernation currently required for safety.
These visible effects will necessarily nudge educators into different actions in our very near future and will significantly influence student learning - most likely for the foreseeable future. Although we think 'back to normal' almost immediately when we consider the beginning of school year 2021-22, the reality will be much different whether we acknowledge it immediately and plan differently to meet the changes with forethought and imagination, or we simply wait and respond as things begin to happen on our school landscapes.
It is up to educators - and our parent partners as well as our students - to decide whether we shape our responses intentionally as we orchestrate a gradual release from pandemic controls and risk-mitigations, or we wait to react whenever a new impact emerges unexpectedly amongst our learners. It may look like a clear, linear journey towards opening with some sort of normalcy - all we have to do is stay the course at present and sustain precautions, wait for vaccines to be administered and then we will all return to what 'school used to be like' in September.
There are already so many curves emerging on that 'straight line to September' - and we have not met all our challenges yet - with an extended, elusive vaccination period in front of us all, the absence (at present) of vaccinations for children, the continuously evolving restrictions and relaxations across our country and around the world, the tremendous demands on teachers and school staff to adapt their teaching and learning approaches - while both learning and teaching new digital skills simultaneously, the demands on our children to adapt to blended learning environments, as well as the demands on parents to fill in the learning blanks that are becoming increasingly more visible in students, it is becoming abundantly clear we are going to have to navigate carefully to travel straight down this twisting path as we struggle to write new stories of learning in what will be yet another massive shift in our reality.
What will those stories be and where will they take us as we navigate a new world of teaching and learning?
We do know that social and emotional well-being of children will require primary attention. Already we are seeing social interactions become less harmonized as students continue confined to specific spaces and groups with reduced opportunities for interacting with friends both at school and at home.
Anxieties in children are increasing as the pandemic restrictions continue to extend into their forseeable futures - some are no longer able to easily recall what freedom to come and go to play dates, shopping and activities was even like, the pandemic has taken up such a huge piece of their life. If a child is 6 years old, approximately 20% of their whole life has been spent living within in pandemic restrictions - and that percentage is their most recent experience.
Additionally, children are beginning to express a sense of loss for their previous activities and freedoms, wondering if they will ever be able to freely play with friends again or visit grandparents whenever they want, go to Disney World again. As the pandemic restrictions continue unabated, the distance in time from when these experiences were part of their real world become more remote in their memories and they mourn their losses more visibly.
Academically there are myriad challenges awaiting as we move to open and run schools in any way resembling as we did before.
Schools are organized to develop independent learning, organizational skills, critical thinking and problem solving gradually through opportunities that are spiralling in nature and encourage learners to practice their skills naturally as part of their overall learning experiences until they achieve mastery and move on to further develop new skills. This is accomplished in an environment that fosters social and interpersonal development and communication skills, while also fostering the growth of citizenship qualities, personal characteristics and understandings of social justice, empathy and care for other humans. Gradually we release the responsibility for increasingly challenging aspects of all these skills and qualities to students themselves as they progress through a wide variety of learning situations.
As students drift away from this structure through periods of isolation, online learning, home schooling and quarantine, their development in these areas also begin to diminish as they respond to competing influences where they are using a whole new set of life skills.
These skills might include helping out at home with chores or siblings, adapting to much different routines and expectations that may fluctuate in reliability and persistence compared to their school experiences, finding themselves with greater periods of free time to fill quite differently than before, accessing technology more frequently as an essential part of existence rather than for entertainment or creative expression.
Nothing is quite the same or as predictable as before; building essential foundation skills like independence, organization, critical thinking and problem solving has less reliability and predictability for every child as shared experiences diminish and limit opportunities to practice and encounter new or creative thinking.
The academic challenges resulting from a patchwork of learning experiences that lack the consistency previously available to every learner will eventually erode the skills online learners require to continue progressing successfully as students who are obliged to be self-motivated, organized problem solvers as they miss out on some, many or even all of the repetitions and gradual expansions of skill opportunities that students typically spiral through in the course of a usual school year.
Academic opportunities to gradually develop multiple learning skills and strategies.
Social interactions that foster multiple chances to build communication skills and understanding, as well as empathy, care and appreciation for social justice.
Emotional supports to assist learners with processing new demands on them as they gradually expand their circles of contact and interaction, work to restore their broader social contacts fairly and with kindness and develop greater communication skills and strategies.
These are, at the very least, some of school-based elements that will demand our attention as we continue to progress through these times of constraint and make our way to living out school in a more open, accepting and engaging way - hopefully by the beginning of the next school year.
We have work to do for sure.
Educators, parents and students will need to work in tandem with each other, starting now, anticipating the challenges and begin to write new emerging-from-a-pandemic stories as we seek and find ways to travel a path full of twists and turns as we try to see a clear path to a renewed, revisioned and revitalized school year.
This is our children's future we will be writing with them. Once these days of restraint have passed, we will need to turn our undivided attention to reestablishing their confidence and capabilities through re-envisioned quality learning experiences.
It will be, I am certain, well worth the attention, effort and grit to create successful learning paths with children and assure their abilities to stride confidently into an uncharted future.
Lorraine Kinsman, Principal
Eric Harvie School
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