It Depends

Two weeks ago, I shared an article about virtual learning and how teachers, principals and districts are debating the question, “When and how often during the school day do my students need to see me?” (Article link) I have been debating this question for several weeks, asking other school leaders, checking in with teachers and asking families what they thought. As you could guess, everyone had a different perspective and varying ideas.

Approaches ranged from, “We should meet with children everyday for X number of hours.” to “Children, families, teachers…everyone is experiencing hardships right now.” I started to notice the pattern that virtual learning, though extremely different because there is less social connection, needs differentiation just like school-based learning.

The differentiation looks different than the typical adjustments educators have made in the past. Instead of teaching kindergarten students to count one-to-one using bears on the carpet, we are having them touch and count the bears on the screen. Guided notes are being sent home in the mail, rather than teachers delivering them to each student at the door. We are all trying to adjust to the new accommodations we need to make for our students.

Teaching requires many adaptive skills and there are few absolutes. To summarize, it depends. It depends on the teachers, the students and their families, the resources that are or are not available in the community. Teaching is messy, adaptive, exciting, difficult and gray. This has always been true and will continue to be true far past our current reality.

The more urgent question is, “How do we ensure that when we are making our accommodations for our virtual classrooms, that we are not unintentionally widening the opportunity and access gap for our students?”