When Will McDonough was a little boy, he loved to learn. In fact, he still does. Will is a teacher now, and every Thursday he writes about something he's learning in the classroom. He's pretty busy, so he takes just 30 minutes to free write; then, regardless of how polished the ideas or mechanics might be, he publishes it. It's incomplete. It's a start. And it feels good.
"NOW this is the law of the jungle, as old and as true as the sky,
And the wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the wolf that shall break it must die.
As the creeper that girdles the tree trunk, the law runneth forward and back;
For the strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the pack."
-Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book
I’ve never liked the idea of “back-to-school.”
Don’t get me wrong, I love school. In fact, I am probably one of a small minority of folks who has actually never dreaded September. Even middle school. Even when I had braces and acne.
I couldn’t wait for the crisp, foggy mornings of autumn and that first day of school.
Loving school, I now realize, was somewhat of a privilege. I love people and I love learning, sure, but I have also been truly blessed by great teachers at really incredible schools throughout my life.
What I haven’t liked, though, is the direction of “back-to-school.” Let me explain.
For me, there has never been anything that goes backward. It’s the word that’s wrong. A return to school is 100% forward, it’s all progress, it’s all fresh. So really, it’s the backwardness of back-to-school I don’t like.
Retired Independent School Head, and one of my former bosses, Peter O’Neil used to say that no school has ever existed twice. Each year, he explained, the school is created entirely new. While the space is the same, the dynamics and relationships, skill sets and growth, the class rosters and staffing assignments have all changed, transformed, evolved, and been reborn like a Phoenix rising in thunderous renaissance from the dormant ashes of a summer away.
Nevertheless, whether forward or backward, old school or new, this year is different.
Blended learning, Hybrid models, Distance Learning, “Maskademics,” “Zoomschooling,” “Quaranteaching,” have changed everything.
No matter how students and teachers are returning, nobody is going back to the same space. The space of school, itself, has transformed into something new and unknown. The spaces of student-teacher relationships have changed; as have parent-teacher partnerships, and collegial bonds between teachers. Friendships will look different, and the space held for a student who needs an empathetic ear, or some encouraging eye contact is different. With mouths hidden behind masks, the only smiles we can extend will likely be exchanged over Zoom.
We are navigating new waters, climbing mountains through thick fog, brambles scratching our legs, and nightfall masking our way. Certainly, there will be beautiful moments of euphoria as we see breaks in the trees, find our rhythm, and celebrate summits; but just as seafarers and bushwacking mountaineers face adventures in the unknown, we too will have tools of navigation.
The stars followed by ancient mariners will be our students. They will guide us and we will, in many cases, follow their lead. Of course, there are safety measures that are urgent (as there are in the sea), but the direction is clear. The direction is onward.
We have a compass, too. Our compass holds true to our learning objectives, our lesson plans, and our curriculum…but the students outweigh them. Compasses break, they fall into the sea…the students are constant, they are our stars, our guiding lights.
We are not going back to anywhere this fall. We are going onward, chasing the horizon with our eyes to the heavens.
Over the summer, Katie Reilly wrote an article in Time Magazine outlining the reality that some teachers are electing to retire instead of returning to the classroom this fall. And while this is an occurrence every year, this year feels different. EdWeek Research Center surveys even went so far as to suggest that 65% of educators said they want school buildings to remain closed to slow the spread of the COVID-19 virus and with many teacher’s unions around the country threatening to strike this week as students return, the future is uncertain.
Parents are struggling to support their children at home as many of them scramble to scrap together child support and a learning-from-home model that is stimulating and effective. Last spring, studies suggest that children suffered significant learning loss during this period of remote schooling, worsening the achievement gap between affluent and low-income students.
Even before the virus, though, dating as far back as 2017, estimates were that as many as 200,000 US teachers were leaving the profession each year, and that over 50% of classroom instructors did not stay in the field after their first five years.
The reasons for this are many, of course. Some articles have cited lack of respect, administrative red tape, exhaustion from unreal expectations, standardized test fatigue, low salaries, student loan debt, a desire to do something new…the list is endless, and — of course — it differs dramatically depending on the environment and circumstances of the teacher.
But you know what I’ve never heard a teacher say?
“I just don’t like the kids any more.”
Nope.
People tend to get into teaching because they care about kids. But these are unusual times and we are not heading back to do the jobs we signed up for last February. Still, I imagine for any educator weighing whether to return to the classroom, whether online or in person, their hearts are being tormented with the stress caused by their love for their students.
There is, of course, a silver lining for those of us who have spent the summer preparing for September. Teachers are learning more than they ever have before, and they’re learning and working harder for one simple reason. It’s not the pandemic, it’s their students.
The word disaster comes from two Greek words, dis-, meaning apart or away, and astros, meaning stars. In essence, to the seafaring Greeks, the greatest disaster was a night without stars. That is how teachers feel about their students.
The work they’re doing, too, is not just wiping tables and reminding students to put on their mask, or scheduling Zoom calls, or managing groups of students who are physically present and sitting in their bedrooms; no, the work is about ensuring that students are cared for, connected, and supported. It is asking of ourselves, Is there a better way to be doing this? We have become culturally attached to the phrase “Back to School” in this country, but I believe the circumstances call for something new.
It is September 1st. We are heading onward to school, navigating the unknown in pursuit of our stars. This pandemic is, indeed, an epic challenge for us all. Yet as teachers and students return this month to spaces of learning, both online and off, we do so with courage. We are boarding our ships together, and with a clear bearing ahead, we call into the winds that fill our sails, “Onward, ad astra!” Onward, to the stars!
[Note: this piece appeared on Medium.com on 9/1/2020]
