🧭This school year’s return to learning in a hybrid format launched our collective journey- our great Voyage of Discovery. What have we discovered so far? Some tools work better than others, nothing about our business is well-suited to a sudden remote shift and, while teaching is exhausting and depleting in a normal year, teachers have found another gear to meet the ever-evolving needs of their districts, schools, and learners. But to make it last... “We’re gonna need a bigger boat.“ Hoist the sails and batten down the hatches for a metaphor-rich adventure!
🛶⛵️ All in the Same Boat?
I’m not sure where I saw it first on Twitter, but my go-to quite for our circumstance is that “we’re not all in the same boat, but we are in the same storm.” Whoever hatched this idea nailed it. We have a shared storm but all with our unique strengths, skills, constraints, and tools at hand. Issues of equity and opportunity have been thrust into the light for districts to address in order to meet the needs of its learners.
🎒Passenger List
We are eight to ten weeks into hybrid learning and so far it’s been been a personal and professional rollercoaster for every educator I know. We’ve shifted and cycled our thinking from impossible to imperfect and back again as expectations and objectives have continued to ever end as well. We are in different boats to be sure, with or without experience, equipment, or even an adequate crew, but we all have a responsibility to our passengers. Our students still require our best, and their itinerary is clear. Our job is to deliver them safely. Unfortunately, it feels like so much progress and emphasis on things like SEL, executive functioning, and even innovative instructional strategies have been stowed away on this particular nation-wide journey.
For the most part, students have been amazing (remember my world is elementary), but I do wonder about the aftermath. When all the dust settles, and we somehow return to something like normal, how much damage-control will be necessary, and how much re-learning and recovery will be required? Pediatricians and researchers are already finding anxiety and stress surrounding pandemic hybrid-learning, seeing more patients with symptoms related to these more than patients will the illness itself. Our learners’ mental health should be our largest recovery effort when we begin to emerge from distance/remote/hybrid instruction.
📜Uncharted Waters
We’ve heard this one a lot! That’s true, but the idea of uncharted waters or an unfamiliar landscape shouldn’t be used as a cop-out. We have highly skilled colleagues who know their jobs in their bones, even if the methods for doing them aren’t quite evident. Clear and accessible navigation tools are needed now more than ever to calibrate, communicate and celebrate student learning. Leadership requires both recognizing and responding to this evolving situation with equally evolving and adapting instructional methods and structures, staffing, assessment measures, schedules, and budgets.
🌌Guide by Stars
We need to rely on the constants of education, whether it’s professional networks, mentors, resources, or teammates. Good teachers always find and follow their guides. Look for the beacons to lighten the dark, chart the path, and have weathered storms before. Here’s a hint, they provide just as much support in fair weather and daylight as they will in the storm.
🗺Check the Maps
The maps and curriculum guides may not have changed, but the ways we meet the guideposts have turned upside down. Whether it’s a revision of benchmarks or shifting of those guideposts, flexibility and creativity in how we capture learning and assess progress will keep us all on course.
🌅Light on the Horizon?
Not sure we’re there yet. I think it would be more accurate to say that the fog is clearing very gradually and educators are beginning to find their horizon and chart their course.
Frustration and exhaustion have begun to mix with anticipation and inspiration. As digital learning skills and strategies become more routine, teachers are adapting their practice and student learning experiences to our circumstance, and amazing things are happening deep in the fog of our current storm.
I’ve observed teachers who may have been most fearful or even paralyzed by the overnight overhaul developing or returning to routines and familiar landmarks that have always decorated the landscape of the school year. A return to “normal” is not in the cards anytime soon, but moments of familiarity and return of effective practices through a new lens will always provide a brighter sky.
🔭Use Your Spyglass
It can be easy to feel overwhelmed, overburdened, or overworked. Looking (and thinking) forward is important to maintaining momentum and remembering that our business (even in a non-pandemic year) is a journey, however many dips and swells we go through. I bring up the idea of a spyglass as a reminder that the landmarks and guides we look for may be out of reach or out of sight, but they are still out there.
🙋🏻🙋♂️🙋🏽♀️All Hands on Deck
Last spring saw a lot of treading water and skillfully managing to “stay afloat,” but we are all in a better place than we were then. That being said, it can be fair to feel like we are still taking on plenty of water. I’ve seen every staff member constantly scrambling and responding to every call to fill leaks and plug gaps. Some are small leaks that can be filled through schedules and supplies with others are wider gaps, like the remote gap that teachers and districts are working to fill with creative and engaging synchonous learning lessons.
⭕️Man Overboard!
Keep the life-rings handy and keep an eye on your crew mates. Look for signs of fatigue and help with the heavy lifting, whether it’s connecting cables, co-teaching a lesson, or carving out 20 minutes to reimagine a favorite lesson or activity to be redesigned for hybrid instruction. Similarly, don’t wait to ask for help. Reach out to teammates, admin, or coaches. Nobody is expected or able to navigate this journey well, much less independently. For the more isolated or reserved educator, feeling lost at sea is a very real possibility at times!
👑⚜️⚱️Collect Treasures
An important part of any journey (and this is certainly a voyage of discovery) is the joy in sightseeing, and collection of souvenirs or treasures to celebrate moments. Educators always benefit from shining the spotlight toward surprises and discoveries, and learners certainly shine in the moment. Keeping a journal, noting small successes, and reflecting on both personal and professional growth would be a helpful record of extraordinary measures in response to extraordinary times.
🍾Bon Voyage!
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