The Natural Consequences of Distance Learning
In the back of our minds, we all knew that COVID19’s forced distance learning for students would highlight the great digital divide that lies between the haves and have-nots. Equally, it would showcase those tech-savvy educators and leave the rest of the dinosaurs out in the cold. There lay that great gulf between those who can/have versus those who can’t/don’t. But there is a whole population that exists somewhere in the middle; students and teachers alike; those who have but don’t know how, yet they’re willing to learn and are struggling in the process.
There is inequity in all of it really, but social Darwinists might say this was mapped out for us long before COVID19 was even a twinkle in anyone’s eye. Unfortunately, now the students become collateral damage in this mess. There is always collateral damage in that survivalist theory, however it is even more tragic when it involves children.
When the time arrived, teachers were directed with what needed to be done to continue teaching outside of the school building; they were given explicit instructions on the expectations for distance learning. For nine weeks, teachers were relentlessly encouraged and trained to rise to the challenge of educating masses of children from their own homes. School systems and their highly devoted army of educators, rose to that challenge without skipping a beat, (some better than others, however). Edutopia highlighted much of the stress teachers experienced during this time in Teaching Through a Pandemic: A Mindset for This Moment.
Through it all, the message was clear, keep teaching! We did, and brilliantly, at that.
Students, on the other hand, were sent different messages and left confused as to the expectations they were held to. Schools on one side of the tracks were distributing technology and food to thousands of kids while those on the other side of the tracks were already connected and e-mailing essays and science projects while their sipping Starbucks from the drive thru. Some were told grades don’t matter, so many just logged off, never to be heard from again, forcing school administrators out on wellness checks. The Starbucks-sipping students seemed to have it so easy until hordes of overzealous teachers began inundating them with unreasonable amounts of schoolwork keeping them online till all hours of the night. The stress levels were rising, and in the midst of it all, all the schools really wanted was for kids to log in and select their attendance button to show they were alive.
Students on both sides began to flounder trying to keep their heads above water. Some swam beautifully in the stream of COVID chaos. Others treaded water until they learned to float. Some could barely tread water at all, and others completely drowned. And there was no rhyme nor reason to who sank or swam. Straight “A” high achieving kids dropped out of sight and normally failing students found themselves online every lesson strictly because they missed their teachers. At some point we must question, not survival of the fittest, but accountability for one’s behaviors and natural consequences.
Now that the end is near, educators have options for grading their students. But Marie Antoinette has spoken, “Let them all pass!”
Everyone? From those who made a conscious choice to do nothing to those who stayed up all hours of the day and night to get their work done? How does this fit into that survivalist theory? I realize I will sound like the heartless educator who fails to see the pandemic they are living through and the struggles they have faced in the process, but at what point do we stop giving everyone a trophy and begin holding our youth up to earning that very trophy? At what point do we stop making our children that collateral damage? It’s never easy to be the bad guy, but to raise hardworking, ethical and honorable young men and women, consistency is critical. Natural consequences to behavior, the unspoken lesson all teachers teach on a daily basis. Does it occur to anyone that awarding the underachiever with a passing grade sends a tragic message to the straight “A“ student who worked tirelessly to get his earned grade?
I shudder at the thought of how the next school year will open if the bar is set this low now. We tell them one thing yet do another and then wonder why they don’t comply. Teachers worked relentlessly from home on lessons and meetings and plans, making phone calls to parents and students. Students who could, survived and others were deemed, well… non passing. Why on earth is that deserving of equity for all?
Educators, I beg of you to reconsider the theory of equity over tough love. We’ve all said it before, “I don’t give you grades, you earn them”. Make that definitively tough call and stand by those words for the best interest of our kids and their future.
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