What We Learn When School Cant Stop

the last day of school

was barely school i fielded complicated

questions from students who braved

public transit to attend

i wiped down every desk between classes

and reminded myself to breathe

i held it together so hard when students

said goodbye

with a strange scared weight on that

word

colleagues and i exchanged glances in

the hallway at once

tense and comforting we were in this

together

even if we were about to part ways for

several months

and when school as we know it stopped we

all took a long minute just

to process that it seemed impossible

400 000 students in chicago now needed

to learn from home

and we would need to make that happen

both as the third largest school

district in the country

and as the human beings who constitute

it but

the seemingly impossible keeps becoming

reality

really fast lately so teachers jumped

and adapted

we learned to host online meetings we

hung white boards on our living room

walls

many teachers struggled just reaching

out to see if their students were all

right

and in addition to making remote

learning plausible

teachers have also been organizing food

drives and

housing resources they have made and

donated masks by the thousands

and they’ve never stopped reaching out

but this isn’t new

this isn’t dramatic heroism in the face

of a pandemic

this is teaching this is being invested

in our communities

as parents we’ve had to adapt too

because our working lives and our family

lives

and our mental health have all collided

and coagulated

well-intentioned color-coded schedules

speckled the internet

everyone has cried at the kitchen table

at least once

some of us several times and then there

are other students

i’ve seen students participate in class

from the break room at work where they

are front line for minimum wage to help

their families

they’ve attended a makeshift funeral in

the morning and a google meet in the

afternoon

they are child care providers they are

experiencing housing insecurity

they are scared they are stressed and

they are children

when my son’s teacher asked a screen

full of nine-year-olds

if everybody was okay it almost broke me

how are you what do you need

is your family safe

school without school has been traumatic

it’s been makeshift it’s been messy

parents teachers and students have

fumbled with tech

fumbled even more with expectations

we’ve lost so much

that maybe just maybe

stripped bear like it’s been we can see

more

when words like rigor grit

and a half dozen other educational

hashtags don’t seem to matter

we can see what’s in front of us with

new clarity

and that includes the gaps the

inequities the failures they’re all

heightened

but so are the successes so what’s

working

what do kids need from their schools and

what do we really mean

when we discuss frame and fund

education well as both a parent and a

teacher

i keep coming back to four big ideas

none of them are new

all of them are necessary and in them

i’m hoping other parents

other teachers and students will hear

echoes of their experiences

and outlines of what’s possible we can

and we must engage parents

demand equity support the whole student

and rethink assessment first and

foremost

engaging the parents historically we’ve

isolated parents and teachers

schools and neighborhoods we say

otherwise

but the influential forces in a kid’s

life rarely intersect with any depth

we have parent-teacher conferences a

stem night

a bake sale we all immediately regret

agreeing to do

but the parents are here now every day

inadvertently eavesdropping on class

because we’re also

making lunch or sharing a workspace we

are tutors

we are co-teachers we are all relearning

algebra

and it’s awkward but maybe it’s exactly

what we needed because

parents are seeing how school happens or

doesn’t

what excites their kids and what shuts

them down whether there’s a rubric for

it or not

and we’re watching our kids learn

empathy and balance and time management

and tree climbing and introspection and

the value of a little bit of boredom

we might not want this to last but we

can learn from it

we can keep parents engaged beyond bake

sales we can take this time

and ask parents what they and their kids

need

ask again ask in every language

ask the parents who haven’t been able to

engage with their children’s remote

learning

meet parents where they are and many

will tell you they need us to prioritize

their children’s wellness

support diverse learners protect

neighborhoods from housing instability

and attacks on immigrant communities so

many parents

will tell us right now that they can’t

support their children’s learning

if they can’t support their families so

next

we demand equity our school system

currently serves a student population

that includes 75 percent low-income

households and 90

students of color the fight for equity

in chicago

is as old as chicago so what do we need

right now

for starters we need equal tech

infrastructure

for all this isn’t an option anymore we

have to close the tech gap

over a hundred thousand households in

chicago don’t have a computer or tablet

we have no city-wide program to put a

device in every student’s hands

and no city-wide wi-fi these are choices

and we don’t have to keep making them we

can refuse

the isolation and competition for

resources that pit schools and

neighborhoods against one another

get rid of rating systems and budgeting

formulas that punish kids for their zip

codes

in a city that’s been segregated since

its inception

the fight for equity in chicago did not

become life or death in a pandemic

it’s been life or death for a long time

now we need to care about other people’s

children

and not just as data points alongside

our own

third we need to support the whole

student

as much as parents might be exhausted by

remote learning

and can’t wait to get the kids back to

school or teachers can’t wait to get

back into our classrooms and do some

real teaching

chances are the kids miss the playground

more than the classroom

the activities as much as the academics

that social emotional peace that forms

the core of human learning

but there’s more to fixing it than

adding recess back to the dozens of

schools in chicago that don’t have it

anymore

we will need social workers nurses and

counselors

in every school so much

we will need them as we try to help our

students feel safe

process their trauma and their grief and

find their way back to school

to support our students we will also

need smaller class sizes and adequate

staffing across the building

something teachers have demanded again

and again with the overwhelming support

of our students parents

we will need art class more than ever

and physical education and music

programs and computer science

and if wading through conspiracy

theories on the internet for the last

few months has taught us

anything it’s that we need to put a

librarian back

in every school right now

finally let’s rethink assessment

we can dial down the testing a lot

elementary school students in chicago

spend up to 10 percent of their school

year

just taking standardized tests we don’t

know how many hours of real learning are

lost preparing for those tests

but we know that the test prep software

alone

costs chicago about 10 million dollars a

year

how much more could we do if we got that

time and money

back and do we have to go back to

obsessively quantifying everything a

student attempts

weaponizing grades as a means of

compliance and reinforcing inequity at

every grade level

or can we keep considering alternative

models like proficiency-based grading

programs

and stop making school about scoring

better than the kid next to you

150 colleges and counting are now test

optional for admissions including

nyu the university of chicago and the

entire california state system because

they know

there’s more to a student than a gpa and

an sat score

you know who else knows that the

students themselves

if we are having conversations about any

of this and not authentically including

and empowering students

every step of the way we’re not having

conversations about any of this

we have a moment now a short moment and

so much to get done

before the comforting chorus is a back

to normal get too loud

when we can take what we’ve seen and

experienced plant our feet

and demand better we can make a system

as massive as chicago

pivot to better serve our students their

families

and our communities if three million

teachers can relearn their jobs in a

weekend

we can change school systems to better

fit what we know

and what we’ve known for a while now and

if we can set clear expectations for our

students

we can do the same for our school

districts and our cities

i want to go back to school i can’t

wait to go back to school i miss the hum

of the hallways and the weird energy of

a room filling up with sophomores

and a better kind of exhaustion from

putting my heart and my guts into what i

love doing every day

but we can’t miss this moment we can’t

let go of the mantra

that we are in this together so don’t

tell us

what is or isn’t possible don’t tell us

it’s too hard or too expensive or too

aggressive

it’s been our job since the start of

this pandemic no

it’s been our job since always to make

what seems impossible

really happen and when the stakes are

this high

and the evidence is this clear it’s our

only option