A fresh start: The quest to make schools more human

If a measure of a society is how well it takes care of its young, the past nine months are a damning indictment of our nation. Parents and teachers have been working overtime under impossible circumstances, and states have prioritised keeping gyms and restaurants open over keeping schools open. A result is that about 48 per cent of all students are still in full-time virtual instruction (another 18 per cent are in hybrid), according to Burbio, a company that tracks school calendars. These rates are higher among poor students and students of colour. This is shameful — private schools holding classes under tents on spacious campuses while poor students are sitting outside McDonalds to get internet access. 

There is little doubt that going to school is, on average, better for students. They are frequently tuning out of virtual learning. In higher poverty communities, older students are working to help make ends meet or have simply disappeared from the school rolls. What parents have seen streamed into their living rooms often reflects uninspired curriculum and pedagogy. Students think much of what they are learning is irrelevant and disconnected from their identities and the world around them. These are not new problems — they are just newly visible because of the pandemic, and in some cases exacerbated by it. 

It’s looking as though all schools should be able to open fully in the fall. The pandemic — and the pause in institutionalised schooling — has helped us to see what should change when that happens. 

The first lesson that the pandemic has revealed is the limits of one-size-fits-all schooling. Some students have actually liked not being in school — the lack of social pressure and anxiety has made them more able to focus on learning. Some were miserably lonely at home and couldn’t wait for school to reopen. More reticent students have really liked being able to type into the chat instead of talking, and some students have thrived in the small groups afforded by virtual breakout rooms. When we reopen schools, could we do so in a way that creates different kinds of opportunities for all kinds of students — introverts and extroverts, fast processors and reflective thinkers? 

A second lesson is the necessity of making schools more human. One of the best outcomes of the pandemic is that it forced schools to get off their treadmill and actually talk to students and parents — understand their life circumstances and how those intersected with school expectations. As one seventh grade teacher in New Jersey, William Stribling, said to me, “When we’re on campus, our schedules don’t allow us to be as human-centered as we are in this environment.” 

We often are in such a rush in school — from one class to the next, from one topic to another — that we don’t remember that the fundamental job is to partner with families to raise successful human beings. The pandemic is helping many of us to think about our students in a fuller and more holistic way; we should remember that when the crisis ends. 

Another part of making schools more human is having them start later; some studies show that teenagers’ mental health actually improved last spring, and researchers think one of the most likely explanations is that the students got more sleep. Classrooms that are thriving during the pandemic are the ones where teachers have built strong relationships and warm communities, whereas those that focus on compliance are really struggling without the compulsion that physical school provides. 

Creative teachers are allowing students to choose music during breaks, scheduling one-on-one check-ins, and designing assignments that give students agency, choice and purpose in their work. They are taking some questions that Zoom school has raised, such as whether students should have cameras on or off, and inviting students to co-design these classroom policies. They are connecting learning in the classroom to the major events that have happened outside of it: Covid-19, as an occasion to understand epidemiology or political leadership; George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter protests, as a way to explore institutional racism or the power of organising. 

Smart schools are making significant organisational changes to become more human. Some high schools are moving away from semesters with seven-period days — unsafe in person, unmanageable at home — to a quarter system where students take no more than three subjects at a time. This frees teachers to focus on half as many students (reducing their loads to, often, about 80 from 160), which has given them the time to build the relationships that students need — particularly in a pandemic, but always. 

Other schools have foregrounded the student-adult connection piece: La Follette High School in Wisconsin has reorganised itself during the pandemic so that every adult in the building is responsible for 10 to 15 students. Students can call or text these adults as needed — the equivalent of an on-call adult to help them navigate their virtual classes. 

The pandemic created a difficult conflict: Parents wanted teachers in school; teachers were fearful for their safety. In some communities, this was worked out through extensive dialogue and flexible solutions that enabled some teachers to come to work while the most at risk stayed home. In other communities, teachers were demonised, unions dug in, and the situation spiralled downward. Coming up with ways to build trust and find solutions that are good for both students and adults is one of the meta-lessons of the pandemic. 

There is the question of how to catch students up on what they missed during the pandemic. This is a serious problem — 56 per cent of teachers in one survey reported covering half as much material as they would in a normal year, or less. But, at the same time, we don’t want a repeat of No Child Left Behind, where disadvantaged students got endless drills in reading and math while more advantaged students were given a richer curriculum. The right choice here is to get very specific on what needs to be made up and what does not; teams of teachers and administrators could work together to decide what is essential to keep and what can be pared. We should take a page from the Japanese tidying expert and Marie Kondo the curriculum, discarding the many topics that have accumulated like old souvenirs, while retaining essential knowledge and topics that spark joy. Such an approach would responsibly prepare students for the future, without exacerbating many of the conditions that turn students off from school. 

The pandemic is giving us an opportunity to make a pivot that we should have made long ago. We have been on a treadmill of short-term fixes, pretending that if we just get the right test, the right incentives, put the right pressure on teachers and students, they will achieve what is good for them, like it or not. But we are realising what we should have known all along: that you can’t widget your way to powerful learning, that relationships are critical for learning, that students’ interests need to be stimulated and their selves need to be recognised. 

The same is true for teachers — they need to feel physically safe, they need support, they need their work to be recognised and honoured, and they need working conditions that make it possible for them to succeed. All of this is doubly true in high-poverty communities, where in the name of urgency, we have moved the furthest from taking a human approach to both students and teachers.