Learning in the Elementary School

thing by far is to be a master of metaphor” (Aristotle, trans. 1975). Metaphors, from the Greek word “metapherein” meaning transfer, are powerful verbal and visual tools in that they can elicit growth and change through their ability to provide frames of reference familiar to the learner, make complex concepts simple, and evoke past emotions. Being such remarkable, expansive cognitive mechanisms (Seitz, 1998), metaphors are common practice among various professionals including education consultants and practitioners, social workers, psychopathologists, corporate leaders, human-computer interaction engineers, software designers etc., and are typically employed to scaffold understanding, foster and support cognitive growth and change.

The value of metaphors in education has been long recognized (Avgerinou, 2011; Botha, 2009; Postman, 1996) not just because of their ornamental or aesthetic function, but also and even more so, for the cognitive claims they make (Hesse, 1983), and for being integral components of most education theories. To illustrate this, let’s point out that of all 70 volumes of psychologist Jean Piaget’s work, just one included the term “construction” as part of the title. Yet, education practitioners know him mostly because of the construction metaphor (“constructivism”). Despite the complex nature of educational phenomena which makes it impossible for any metaphor to capture them in their entirety, it is important to acknowledge that “Metaphor carries epistemic and ideological freight, functions as a vehicle of a world view and provides access to a discipline’s assumptions about the way the world and humankind are structured” (Botha, 2009,

Beam Me Up, Scotty! How Visual Metaphors Scaffolded Understanding Of Emergency Remote Teaching And Learning In The Elementary School

by Dr. Maria D. Avgerinou, Director of eLearning

In his Poetics Aristotle advised us that “The greatest p. 431). Captain Kirk in Star Trek used the popular command “Beam me up, Scotty” when he needed to be transported back to Starship Enterprise. Since then this catchphrase has been used in a metaphorical sense to indicate transportation into a different, more positive state: in my capacity as the eLearning expert that was assigned overnight to tend to the Elementary School’s needs, my goal was to facilitate the transportation (metapherein) of the community not only through sharing research on educational technology and K12 online teaching, but also through the use of visual metaphors that could potentially provide a less stressful, more humanistic lens to that unprecedented, science fiction-like crisis we were experiencing together. Indeed, visual metaphors were utilized at various ES teacher, administrator, and parent sessions: making explicit and articulating one’s implicit mind’s eye, using imagery to tap first into the affective and then the rational side of the brain, I drew on my past experience as an academic who employed metaphors

in the classroom to remove mental, and psychological blocks thus scaffolding understanding and paving the way to cognitive shift in the complex subjects of educational research. Here too I attempted to assist the ES community to come to terms with the unorthodox and unpredictable circumstances under which schooling was occurring, recognize and appreciate their significant role in it, and feel that since they, we are ACS Athens, as President Pelonis keeps reminding us, we can overcome this together!

Playing Croquet with Flamingoes Indeed, the whole adventure of switching overnight to remote asynchronous and then to virtual teaching, with as much arbitrary and unknown as unpredictable and volatile parameters, and with people being called to participate and perform in this erratic scheme of things while dealing with children from the early childhood through to 5th grade, conjures up the most unconventional of all Alice’s adventures in the Wonderland: the authoritarian Queen imposing arbitrary rules and playing croquet with flamingoes while using living creatures as tools in unsafe for them conditions. In our case, initially it became known that schools would close for two weeks, but subsequently this deadline was extended indefinitely. Moreover, we knew that Academy and Middle school teachers and their students were fully immersed in the i2Flex (blended) teaching and learning methodology, thus going fully online would naturally follow as their next move. With the exception of 5th grade, the ES entered the situation as brave yet amateur parachutists. Another unknown was the capacity of the technical infrastructure to suddenly host the entire school’s synchronous activities simultaneously online. Here the metaphor aimed at describing the situation, making the irrational (to the extent possible) rational, and giving a lighter touch to the heavy climate of the lockdown.

The Falcon During the remote emergency teaching that the Covid19 pandemic forcefully created, our school’s response was more than proactive; it was pre-emptive in that it prepared for a potential mandatory school closure before the latter became our reality, and it had already a plan of action to protect and ensure educational continuity. Of course, agile leadership is not new to ACS Athens. The late president Dr. Gialamas along with his then Vice President (Dr. Pelonis) and the late Dean of the Institute (Mr. Medeiros) would always lead this way by example and that is precisely what he expected of his top academic and administrative leaders. Just like the striking speed of a falcon’s decision process and hunting technique, agile leadership presupposes the ability to consciously shift your thinking on the spot according to the requirements of any given situation. It also means being proactive, versatile and resilient even though only some of the parameters you base your decisions upon are known.

Necessity as Mother of Invention and Father of Transformation Yet, this ‘miracle’ did not quite happen overnight. In fact, as I have mentioned before (PTO Newsletter, April 2020) it was innovation by design. Under the leadership and vision of Dr. Gialamas who had read the zeitgeist and invested more in the instructional design and pedagogy, less in the technology of eLearning, I was hired as an eLearning expert in 2013 to develop and systematically implement an educational technology and eLearning strategy toward establishing a blended(i2Flex) learning culture in Grades 4-12. Indeed, we achieved our goal of becoming a blended learning community through the continuous professional development of the faculty on research-led methodologies and applications of technology in the classroom; their teaching, researching and publishing about their blended classrooms (Avgerinou & Gialamas, 2016); the systematic pedagogical exposure of the ACS Athens students to 21st century education frameworks; and, the many information sessions with the parents and the larger community. Last Fall we were able to move even further: we launched ACS Athens Virtual and offered several Academy courses online to our students and beyond. Thus, given the technology-as-a-tool perspective, the blended teaching culture and the evolving context of sustained innovation and intentional excellence (Pelonis, 2020) of our school, it should come as no surprise that over the lockdown, teaching and learning even in the lower ES took place in such astonishingly effective ways.

I strongly believe that what we have collectively achieved is more than the sum of its parts, more than our former and current leadership’s vision and determination, more than my and my team’s leadership, because in my eyes, leadership came from each and every level of the ACS Athens fabric. Our past

and our present have already brought us to a future where other K12 schools in Greece or abroad can only dream about. Let me clarify that I am not just referring to teaching blended in general, or to teaching remotely to survive the current crisis. Necessity is mother of invention, and, as current circumstances have shown, father of transformation (Dede, 2020). Through structured, continued invention, our community of educators and learners has already been transformed. This transformation should not be seen as symptomatic treatment of the current emergency for teaching in the 21st century way has not only met our students’ needs in particular, but it will continue to be there when the crisis is over, to empower them to meet successfully their future college, career, and citizenship needs.

The Tent vs. the Guinea Pig In natural disasters tents are there to provide shelter for those in need and to become the “home away from home”. Here too virtual learning became the tent, the (cyber) classroom away from (the four-walled) classroom, that provided the sense of safety to our children along with the much-needed educational continuity. The concept of the tent also connects to the notion of community which means all should be able to: receive shelter, have their voice heard and their needs taken care of, and finally, all should be able to help from their own corner toward planning for short, intermediate and long-term goals.

The educational experiences provided during the last trimester of 2019-2020, were as always student-focused and research informed. Our sources were among others action research as conducted in the ACS Athens classrooms, extant research literature and best practices in such areas as the K12 online, developmental psychology, child psychology effects in social distancing and home confinement context, screen time recommendations by the World Health Organization, the American Academy of Pediatrics, The State Board of Education, etc. Yet it is important to point out that learning designs were occurring under the “tent” (i.e. keep students safe and minimize educational disruption) vs. the guinea pig (i.e. experiment and see what works) metaphor.

The Four Hats of the Virtual Teacher or Flying the Plane while Building it Four major roles of the virtual teacher have been identified by Bonk, Kinley, Hara, and Dennen (2001)– pedagogical, social, managerial, and technological. The pedagogical aspect is manifested through the role of facilitator or moderator. The social aspect is manifested through the teacher’s creating a friendly and nurturing environment or community feel, exhibiting a generally positive tone, fostering some humor, displaying empathy and interpersonal outreach, and personalizing with discussion of one’s own online experiences. Activities such as coordinating assignments, managing online discussion forums, and handle overall course structuring reflect the managerial role of the teacher. Finally, the technological aspect is revealed through the teacher’s assisting the student with technology issues, diagnosing and clarifying problems encountered, notifying when technology is out of order and having a back-up plan for it, and explaining limitations.

Teachers who have received professional development, are fully aware of these roles and typically have developed the requisite skills before entering an online classroom. In sharp contrast, when our ES teachers were called to teach during the pandemic, walked in it without having previously received online teacher training. Nevertheless, they still had to wear the four hats. And they did! Once a teacher, always a teacher no matter in traditional, or remote emergency classrooms! Here the metaphor served to describe, explain and help them see for themselves the wonderful things they were doing for the ACS Athens students so their efforts would be affirmed, and their motivation sustained. The metaphor also helped to frame and guide the professional development the ES teachers were receiving throughout the last trimester.

Deus ex Machina, Swiss Army Knife, or simply Bond, Parent Bond! When the 2019-20 year began, no ACS Athens parent signed up for regular homeschooling or online schooling. However, during the lockdown they (we!) simply found themselves in such position! As a result, they had to reinvent themselves and to become the deus ex machina (από μηχανής θεός) of the ancient Greek drama, the Swiss army knife, the James Bond of online homeschooling with an almost equal share of teaching with our teachers. ACS Athens parents co-shouldered the teaching, supported the learning, were professionally developed via numerous online meetings, shared feedback on a constant basis via various platforms, and they thus helped fine-tune the design and implementation of the 5-phase process of the ES (Avgerinou & Moros, 2020). The specific metaphor was intentionally shared at ES parent meetings (per grade) during the teacher appreciation week last May in recognition of their tremendous support of the school community as determined and tireless co-teachers of their children.

“Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore” And finally, here is my last metaphor in the words of Dorothy to her dog when she arrived in Oz: “Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore”. Though I have been in the eLearning field of research and practice for over two decades, my feeling since March has been that the on-the-spot pivot and transformation are here to stay. Things have changed on a more permanent basis that we would expect or like to admit. So, we are not in Kansas anymore and our students will be living in a post-Kansas world. The question is: how do we best prepare our students for life in this new world? What’s a priority? Skills, or knowledge? What kind of skills? What kind of knowledge? And, what concepts such as preparedness and successful performance would mean for our teachers from now on? Finally, “How can ES parents become successfully educated toward understanding the 21st century education frameworks and associated student skills (Kirschner & Stoyanov, 2018), so that they can better support our curricular decisions?” (Avgerinou & Moros, 2020, p. 588). In closing, I wonder what metaphor could capture the type of leadership it took to move everyone through the unknown in such a seamless way. Preparation from the past is good but when people feel panic and insecurity it may all go out the window unless someone is conveying confidence and vision and providing the experts in the right places to give direction and skill. What could possibly be the metaphor that could reflect the adverse conditions psychologically, practically, financially, strategically that our current President, Dr. Pelonis carried on with? The response comes in her own words: Athena or Nevertheless, She Persisted

By Dr. Peggy Pelonis, ACS Athens President While Poseidon struck the rock and out came a spring and horse symbolizing power and physical strength, Athena’s strength was wisdom: she created the olive tree symbolizing wisdom and prosperity.

So, while there was chaos, I had a vision and strategy. The challenge was to keep everyone focused on the vision and not on the chaos. This took a lot of continued individual work with each administrator, and group work with teachers and other education specialists.

It was important for everyone to believe in a new vision but more important for each to believe in themselves and to rise above the fear; building this resilience was key. Then moved on to placing experts in key positions to guide the specific process. Then made a point to keep parents in the loop so we could have objective feedback via surveys. Keeping student feedback central via focus groups and making sure to be involved with the international school Head community was also paramount so as to see what was happening internationally. I was invited to give