What If We Focused on Each Child
As I write this, I am sitting at an early morning weekend swim club meet. “Thing 3” has always enjoyed the water more than her 3 other siblings or either parent. She heard about a local swim club and just had to join. This is the same one who wants to be either a veterinarian or a WWE wrestler. She is not the only one of our four that has each of their own favorites, dislikes, and activities. “Thing 1” wants to work with cars and does his schoolwork because he must or “just to get it over with”. “Thing 2” is the stereotypical “good student” who hates to make mistakes and wants to be the next Ruth Bader Ginsburg. As for “Thing 4”, our last elementary student, she says “I have time to think about that later.” Despite having the same basic genetic code and being close in age, they are so very different. That got me thinking even more about how we still do school despite the uniqueness of every child.
I’m fortunate to get to work with schools and educators from around the country and even on other continents. Whether I’m in the South, West, at home in Buffalo, or on a call with educators from Saudi Arabia, the themes are nearly identical. Parents, educators, and community leaders want each child to be successful, to find their passion, to be in good mental health and well-being. But this usually stands in contrast to how states, districts, schools, and classrooms are structured.
It’s no secret that the vast majority of schools operate like they always have. Everything operates on bells or class periods, all students in the class are grouped by age and all learn the same content at the same time. Yes, we do have flashy new digital panels on the walls to replace chalkboards and devices at each desk to replace textbooks and notebooks. When the technology is used as a simple replacement, how are we really meeting the individual learning needs of each child when the basic structures remain unchanged? Now, I’m not talking about just making changes to how the day is scheduled for the sake of change. My thoughts quickly drift to how we structure learning when the outcomes so many crave is to meet each child where they are at a given moment in time.
If the detrimental effects of the pandemic have taught us anything, is that there are other options. We should take from the best and most impactful strategies to create meaningful learning where the focus is on the growth of each individual child not on a system. Schools, parents, and educators had to adjust quickly to not being in person and to using technology in alternate ways to meet instructional goals. Of course, there were issues. Anytime a change is forced in such a short time, some will be quicker to adapt and even excel while others struggle. This goes for the students but more importantly the adults. We don’t give kids enough credit. They are much quicker to accept new ways than most of us. For example, give a child a choice of what to watch on TV, they will quickly look to see if YouTube is available. They want content that is interesting to them, right then and there. With so many choices and options at their fingertips, no wonder kids are bored by the sit and get lecture method still so prevalent in classrooms. Let’s be honest, we were also bored by most of those classes as well. The classes that weren’t boring was often because of the teacher, how they were able to make the content interesting, and that we could tell the teacher cared about us and our individual learning. If done well by educators and supported by school leadership, technology can unlock individualized or personalized learning. There are teachers making this happen every single day but they are far too few in number.
I believe we are at an educational crossroads like no other. The gains that were being made to close the achievement gap have mostly reversed and enrollment has dropped. School attendance is an even greater issue that was before. The pandemic has made a lasting negative impact on learning, on our children. I believe we can alter this paradigm by taking on the barriers that get in the way of making meaningful changes to curriculum, learning and assessment by focusing on what matters most, the needs and dreams of each individual child. We can build systems and structures to make it happen if we are willing to challenge our own personal beliefs of what learning “should” look like.
