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