Week 7: Will schools acknowledge where and how they failed during the pandemic?

 Mcleod makes a strong point about our educational system needing to look inward after the pandemic. " In the summer months of 2020 (here in the United States), school leaders had an opportunity to learn from the mistakes that they made in the spring and do things differently in the fall"(Mcleod, 2021). Instead of accessing what went wrong in the Spring, most districts frantically tried to figure out what would please parents. After a year of panic teaching, will districts look back and acknowledged where we failed our students, educators, and parents and make changes for next year?

What are some changes you would like your district to make for next year and what are some things that worked this year that it should keep?

http://dangerouslyirrelevant.org/page/2

Comments

  1. Jessica GilkeyFebruary 17, 2021 at 3:56 PM

    Tara,
    I find this such an interesting topic. I feel like my team and I have questioned the decisions of our district for months now. We have yet to return to in person and have been completely virtual since March of 2020. However, our district was able to get a majority of our schools to become 1:1 with technology. This is something we have been begging to have for years. Why is it that it took a pandemic to get the necessary technology into the hands of our students. Next year, I would love to see our district value the purchase of technology, and much as they value teachers constantly attending professional developments on technology we may or may not even have.
    (Week 7 response)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tara ThompsonFebruary 20, 2021 at 1:51 PM

      Hi Jessica,
      I really think districts are not broaching the subject enough. We are teaching in panic mode, with little planning for the future. I am lucky that my district was 1:1 well before the pandemic. However, we still fell short in areas when the the pandemic hit, and are still struggling in areas too. I also, do not see them addressing these issues, just surviving right now. It will be interesting to see what districts expect of educators over the summer and what the plans are for next year.

      Delete
  2. AnonymousFebruary 27, 2021 at 1:58 PM

    Hey! I worry some schools will focus on this, whereas others won't. I think each district needs to come up with a universal plan surrounding SEL when students return to help students cope with the effects this pandemic has brought.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tara ThompsonFebruary 27, 2021 at 3:15 PM

      Hi,
      I agree SEL needs to be integrated into the curriculum more. However, we have been in school since August. I worry that all of the great technology integration we have been using during the pandemic is just seen as a band aid and not a tool that we can use going forward.

      Delete

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