3 minute read
Rethinking Engagement After the Coronavirus
geometrically represented where the students actually stand. Digital platforms can gather together students’ opinions in real time and reflect them back to each other. And skipping together is one of the oldest games of modern times. These are only a few of the ways that youngsters can engage with their learning in and out of school.
Rethinking Engagement After the Coronavirus
The big questions in the end concern how we can apply the lessons of this pandemic to make our schools more engaging places for students. Can we redesign schools so that no student dreads the daily confrontation with his or her enemies? Can we create safe environments that help all students to engage with their learning without being disrupted by their peers? Can we get all teachers to move beyond arbitrary and insensitive grading practices? And can we access and use technology to enhance and enrich teaching and learning in school, rather than undermining or replacing it?124
Perhaps the most important question for this book is, What can we learn of lasting value from this pandemic about student engagement? Some children have savored their time at home with their parents. Many parents have gained new appreciation for their children’s teachers, as they have discovered how hard it is to keep their children focused on their schoolwork when they are restless, easily distracted, frustrated with their downloads and apps, and annoyed by their siblings. Technology at home has sometimes been a blessing for opening access to learning resources, but it has also been a curse of malfunctions and distractions. Schools have been spotlighted as places we cannot do without. Hour after hour, day by day, over weeks and then months, in all but a few places, we have been reminded that the rich social environment that schools and their teachers can provide offers more enduring engagement for children than many locked-down families or any digital devices ever can.
The monumental natural experiment of COVID-19 has brought to all our attention just why it is that we need schools in the first place. In many ways, we see how the precious legacy of free public education for all has been taken for granted. We understand now that we can’t do without physical schools, not just as places for children to be while their parents are at work, but also as places where children are part of a community—and as places to learn, explore their interests, and succeed with the support of certified professionals. Capitalizing on what we have learned from this epoch-defining moment will be key to making learning more engaging, with and without technology, for all students, of all backgrounds—rich and poor, successful or struggling, newcomers or long-standing residents—so that they can be fulfilled and make their own unique contributions to their communities.
After the coronavirus, all of us hopefully will still be thinking a lot more about the value of our essential workers who clean our hospitals, stock shelves in the grocery store, and care for our elderly and infirm citizens. We should be thinking more about the children of these workers, too—about them having as many opportunities as anyone else to enjoy school and be successful there. How can we ensure that all young people, especially those who are most disadvantaged and marginalized, are truly engaged with their learning and with the world around them? How can learning be more fulfilling in the short term and also have lasting value for students in the world and in their lives beyond schools?
To answer these questions, we not only need to advocate for more engagement in schools—we also need to know what engagement truly is and isn’t. We need to know when engagement is being reduced to a distracting process of superficial entertainment, and how, on the other hand, engagement with complex problems can lead to empowerment of oneself and others to build a better world together.
If we are wise, the pandemic will not be an interruption to or departure from the Age of Engagement, Well-Being, and Identity. Coronavirus challenges have spotlighted the paramount importance of well-being, the inequities of access to technology and to learning
opportunities in general, and the human dignity of all members of society—including the families of essential workers. All these insights must strengthen our resolve to fulfill the promises of this fledgling age that include greater and better engagement with learning and life, for all young people, whatever their family circumstances.
