From Achievement to Engagement
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many systems would otherwise have been preoccupied with at the time the pandemic hit.101
When everyone returns to school, then, it’s not necessarily going to be a glorious reunion with engaging and innovative learning. Nor will it mark a reluctant abandonment of superior home-based alternatives, either. For many students, teachers, and parents, when the health conditions are sufficiently safe, going back to school is mainly just a blessed relief—a return to some semblance of normality, being part of a community, getting back together with friends. Back to School—But Not as We Knew It
As the COVID-19 lockdown stretched through into the fall and winter of 2020, pressure mounted to get children back to school. Once safety considerations have been ensured, getting children back to school really does matter. Schools play a vital role in smoothing out the extreme peaks and troughs that define the differences between family circumstances. When privileged families get more and more exclusively involved in their children’s education, educational inequalities increase. Richard Rothstein, Senior Fellow at the Haas Institute at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, wrote an article, which appeared in The Washington Post, on “Why Covid-19 Will ‘Explode’ Existing Academic Achievement Gaps.”103 He pointed to research findings predating COVID-19 that indicated how “children whose parents can more effectively help with homework gain more [academically] than children whose parents can do so less well.”
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Then there are Andy’s twin granddaughters and his grandson. When he asked them to draw what they missed about school, none of them drew things that depicted their learning or even their teachers. Andy’s grandson drew a picture of digging up worms with his friends. One of the twins drew a slide out in the yard. Then the other one sketched an image of herself, with two figures, that represented what she was not missing at school. “Who are they?” Andy asked. “My two enemies,” she said. Life in school isn’t always all that it’s cracked up to be.102
