The world shifted and high school students were tossed into an unfamiliar, isolated, and stressed outer space. This out of world experience was void of personal touch, connection, and support from their "oxygen" (A.K.A social peer circles). Parents locked behind home office doors of exclusion attempted to continue to work in familiar surroundings connected with a virtual workforce riddled with fear of potential termination. Students of all ages shifted from a structured, predictable, and routine environment into a foreign virtual world. This one change of environment came without instructions, time for preparation, discussion, or warnings. Few knew how this would affect the social, physical, emotional, and relational well-being of every individual. One day, one virus, and our "normal" changed. We engaged in conversation muffled by masks, our expressions hidden by these face coverings, and limited physical contact became uncomfortable. Physical contact became an act to fear and people were viewed by others as potential petri dishes of the "dreaded Covid."
In education, some students have returned to school buildings, while others remained at home navigating the unknown waters of virtual learning. A division begain as students in the school building murmured feelings of resentment toward their fellow classmates who remained virtual students at home. Resentment that students who have chosen to stay virtual have it "easier, better, cheat, sleep all day," and basically, are not really "in school." And, yet, virtual students struggled with time management, distractions, environmental disruptions, and pulls by some families to work more hours since they "have all of this time."
Teachers are struggling to connect, engage, and encourage participation of virtual students with students in their classroom. Frustration and discouragement is their daily bread. The resistance is strong as virtual students are surrounded by every reason to disconnect, settle back into their bed, turn on their video game, or just head to the kitchen for a meal. Virtual students have now experienced freedom to move around, drive to the coffee shop, go to the gym, and design their own schedules whether or not academic success is important. Academics became an afterthought for many and parents are struggling to keep their students academically sound. Will virtual students adjust back from this unstructured, unorganized, and non-demanding schedule without major social, emotional, and academic repercussions? Empathetic, yet, realistic administrators are thrown into a sea of uncertainty as to whether students will reach the graduation finish line. Those that do, will they be properly prepared for college or a career? Stress.
Stress was a word that no longer seemed intense enough to describe the enormity of the physical and psychological effect that a socially distant society felt. So, what do we do with this giant creature whose tenticles have reached into the hearts and minds of folks of all ages. We have become comfortable, lacking flexibility, grit, and resilience. Now is the time to begin to look anew inward and seek to strengthen our flabby resolve. Students and parents alike have the opportunity to build this new hybrid world together with educators, administrators, and the rest of the community and make it something uniquely special.
Maybe it took a virus to tear down the walls of academic tradition, in order to build the walls of academia from an innovative perspective. A new institution more intuitive and aligned with the advances in technology, industry, and scientific discovery! What if education as we know it was meant to be completely turned upside down to accommodate and educate students using new methods, technology, and virtual innovation that prepared students minds for the next millineum. This is the time to take a new fresh look at the possibilities to ignite an exciting change in how we educate our people!
Gymnastics used to progress from simple sommersaults, cartwheels, and rolls to more advanced moves. Now, gymnasts are flipping with more rotations at much younger ages than humanly thought possible only a short time ago. Maybe our educational system needs to move beyond its archaic limitations and expectations. Transformation not by pouring more into an already ridiculously saturated set of standards. No, we know so much more about how the human brain functions than ever before and the significance of human relationships in brain development. Let's delve into the possibilities and not look back. Let's look with fresh eyes ripe with innovation, technological advances, interactive experiences, and more diverse perspectives. This is our golden opportunity to come together as a nation, a people, to join together, and set a new agenda for education. Let's pivot toward the future and see this virus as a catalyst for transformative change in educating our people.
Let me know what you think? Let's become more effective and efficient in educating our children! Let's streamline education, make it more relevant, interesting, innovative, use the advances in technology and neurology. The way we educate our children needs to catch up to the advances in medicine, technology, animation, and innovation. No wonder kids are stressed out, depressed, anxious, and struggling with mental health issues. We are expecting our children to spend all day in an archaic academic unstimulating world after being immersed in a highly advanced, technology driven, and neurologically stimulated world.
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