Pandemic Recovery: Observations from K-12 Classrooms

While many media outlets point to the learning loss students have experienced during these long months, and others point to the social emotional factors that must be addressed first, teachers and administrators working on the inside, struggle in many ways to keep their heads above water. 

As I am out in my district observing what teachers are living with and working with classes K-12, I can see the toll the pandemic has taken on everyone. It manifests in a million small ways that add up - not all of them are bad. While many will point to the impressive technology skills, the creativity in pursuing individual interests, and the problem solving many students employed to maintain social interactions, these skills haven't always translated well back into a classroom.

Our teachers have always done an exceptional job of meeting a student where they are. In a normal, non-pandemic year, teachers consider a student's performance in the previous years, work to uncover their current interests and discover their strengths and deficit areas. Using that information, teachers can masterfully craft amazing opportunities for students to grow.

Teachers are working triple time to do this as our days seem more normal. They are
employing all of the best strategies they have learned over collective years of experience and are up against variables that are hard to break apart.

What are the challenges? As I move in an out of grade levels in a day I see three big underlying challenges facing our teachers and students that are intertwined: impact of chaos and stress, loss of an environment of relationships, and a knowledge drought.

Challenge 1: Chaos and Stress

In May of 2016, Harvard's Center on the Developing Child produced a 52 page report called "From Best Practices to Breakthrough Impacts: A science-based approach to building a more promising future for young children and families".In the report, researches share that: "Chaotic, stressful, and/or threatening situations can derail anyone, yet individuals who experience a pile-up of serious adversity are often even less able to deploy all of the skills they have in order to cope with challenging circumstances." 

So, what happens when you have an entire population of students, world-wide who

simultaneously experience chaos and stress? What happens to entire communities, who experienced a "pile-up of serious adversity" beginning in March of 2020 when the world shut down due to COVID-19 and then that pressure continued to build as people tried to deal with isolation, fear, political and social trauma? How do these things present in the classroom as we try to find a new normal? 

At times, it seems that there's more chaos and stress.

Challenge 2: Loss of the Environment of Relationships

As we consider the social emotional impact of the chaos and stress caused by the pandemic and more, there was also a loss of typical relationship development. 

The Harvard report points out that:

Children develop within an environment of relationships that begins in the family but also involves other adults who play important roles in their lives. This can include extended family members, providers of early care and education, nurses, social workers, coaches, and neighbors. These relationships affect virtually all aspects of development—intellectual, social, emotional, physical, and behavioral—and their quality and stability in the early years lay the foundation that supports a wide range of later outcomes. These outcomes include self-confidence and sound mental health, motivation to learn, achievement in school and later in the workplace, the ability to control aggressive impulses and resolve conflicts in nonviolent ways, behaviors that affect physical health risks, and the capacity to develop and sustain friendships and close relationships and ultimately become a successful parent.

Even for children who did not experience a "pile-up" of stressors beginning in March of 2020, their "environment of relationships" would have been impacted in extreme ways as school buildings were closed, community parks and museums were closed, and multi-generational family gatherings were canceled to protect the most vulnerable.

The experiences, that happen during an ordinary time frame, during ordinary, day-to-day experiences, has a tremendous impact on the development of school-aged children. As children have different experiences, their developing brains gradually acquire higher level skills:

including the ability to focus and sustain attention, set goals, follow rules, solve problems, and control impulses, is driven by the development of the prefrontal cortex (the large part of the brain behind the forehead) from infancy into early adulthood. A significant part of the formative development of the prefrontal cortex occurs during early childhood, as critical connections are forged between this region and other parts of the brain that it controls. This circuitry is then refined and made more efficient during adolescence and the early adult years.

It is logical to consider that if experience is disrupted for students, as it has been during the last 18+ months, that students will experience a disruption in the development of skills such as executive functioning and self regulation. 

Yes, The Challenges are Piling Up

As I consider the disruption from chaos and stress, and the disruption of the

"environment of relationships" the impact on the classroom is profound. 

Students who found themselves isolated in their own home or distanced in a classroom may find that they are not used to sharing space with others, they use unusual sounds to get attention, or speak at louder levels, which turns into a cacophony of chaos in the classroom. We also see students who are not able to adequately cope with the challenge of a normal school day. They have difficulty lining up, keeping their hands to themselves, talking to a classmate or an adult when they are feeling stressed. They may be experiencing higher levels of depression and suicidal ideation, while schools and parents still try to find mental health workers who can add to their caseloads.

Students in grades K-12 seem to be operating, at the very least on a two year deficit in behavior and the behaviors that are presenting create an atmosphere of micro-stressors in the classroom. We have first graders, who after three months of practicing still can't move into line to the leave the classroom without step-by-step reminders. We have students who have missed out on the long term practice of speaking with adults who are not their parents, and therefore miss social cues, and we have older students seeking community and social recognition by participating in destructive social media challenges. 

When dealing with compounding behaviors and a myriad of complex feelings, of course students will see that their academics are impacted, but maybe not in the way we would think.

Challenge 3: The Knowledge Drought

Along with the loss of the "Environment of Relationships" students also lost out on knowledge rich experiences that typically work to help students build content to self connections. 

In the Knowledge Gap by Natalie Wexler she shares that "The more knowledge a child starts with, the more likely she is to acquire yet more knowledge.” Futhermore, Wexler points out that: “As for comprehension, the most important factor in determining whether readers can understand a text is how much relevant vocabulary or background knowledge they have”

There are numerous studies through the lens of cognitive science that confirm this. For example in 1988, researchers discovered through an experiment using a passage about baseball, that a student's typical reading performance was not a predictor for how well a student comprehended a text; however, the student's background knowledge about baseball was. In another study of high school students, it was found that students who scored low on a test of background knowledge also scored low on a test of reading comprehension on the same subject. 

Much of this research is considered in the recommendation that children should have 1,000 books read to them before they enter school. 

During a global shut down when normal experiences were halted, we see our kids missing out on: museums, zoos, live concerts and theater, libraries, professional and youth sports, vacations to other areas, conversations with multi-generation family members who would tell stories and share historical references at a family or friends potluck - all of the experiences that naturally built background knowledge.

It would make a lot of sense that students - who learned a lot of lessons about
surviving during a global pandemic - might not be able to perform as well on a standardized test that includes a passage about baseball - something some of them maybe haven't had a chance to learn about in deeper context.

For a number of months, many students likely experienced a drought in traditional knowledge rich experiences that they still haven't recovered from entirely. This would be impacting their performance on standardized tests in reading, science and social studies.

Opportunities

This presents us with a number of opportunities as educators to find new ways to connect with student needs.

Going back to that Harvard Report, while it is a report that focused on early childhood development under crisis prior to a pandemic, there are some key takeaways that could be applicable to our current environment.

1. Early experiences affect lifelong physical and mental health, not just learning - we know this, and schools have implemented structures for supporting students in many different ways - these have changed the last few years and our responses to those changes are important
2. Make use of a rapid-fire, iterative approach to considering problem solving. The report encourages the use of micro-trials for implementing a strategy, monitoring for improvement and sharing success. We want to tap into science, and talk to experts - perhaps discussing behavior strategies with teachers at a grade level two years below
3. Achieving breakthrough outcomes for children experiencing significant adversity requires that we support the adults who care for them - this means that we need to be looking at the mental health of teachers and building in systems of care and encourage them to accept coaching support 

When I consider some of the ways that we might work to improve current systems for our students, I see a few things we might focus on as a starting point.

Opportunity 1: Mindfully Create an Environment of Relationships in the Classroom and Beyond

Related to the idea that we should consider the life-long impact of the Pandemic on students we might consider how we can have the biggest impact. While we aren't going to erase the relationship deficit students have experienced as a result of the pandemic, we can use the classroom to practice things more mindfully. This Edutopia article "Helping Students Reacclimate to Being with Others All Day" includes some amazing ideas for building relationships from choosing a partner to help you "coregulate" to using board games (with no technology present) to practice things like taking turns and sharing in discussion. The article also encourages a discussion with your class about the following:

• What does cooperation look like?
• How do we disagree?
• What are the best ways to move from station to station?
• The focus is not on winning but on collaboration and inclusion. What will this look like?

You might also consider employing some of these strategies:

• Start by identifying one behavior that is impacting classroom management and target it using behavioral modification strategies. Create an anchor chart for appropriate behavior and heavily reward the class for meeting expectations.
• Review the BluePrint for Empathetic Collaborator with your class and establish group norms. Post an anchor chart in your classroom and hold students accountable.
• Use homework as a way to encourage students to conduct multi-generational interviews about a specific time period in history - you might use the StoryCorps approach here
• Invite other school/district level adults into your classroom to join in on small group work to discuss different topics - or to play board games- with students and help coach students in group norms
• Hit up those Kagan Structures - they are tried and true and work at all levels - check out the Essential Five to get started
• This Cult of Pedagogy Big List of Class Discussion Strategies is also helpful

Opportunity 2: Build Knowledge through Experiences and Iterative Problem-Solving

This one might take more time and energy, but there are still ways to help build experiences for students. It also may require an analysis of traditional practices to determine if things can be changed or eliminated

During pandemic learning - students were often given choice boards and virtual field trips as part of their lessons. When we came back to school and were forced to distance in rows with students facing the same direction, in large part teaching practice moved to a "traditional" lecture and learn approach because cooperative learning and labs and hands on activities were difficult- if not impossible.

Now that restrictions are loosening and students are getting vaccinated at younger ages, how might we capitalize on some of those strategies that provide students with a bit more autonomy and give them experiences that they maybe missed out on?

As we close out first semester and head into winter break, this provides an ideal time to regroup, recharge and reimagine the classroom environment.

What if we took what we learned about Blended Learning  and tapped into a Station Rotation (or center) model of learning that included a Portrait of a Graduate rotation? 

In this framework, students might work through tasks related to the content area and then extend their learning through an activity, discussion or project that relates to the enduring skills developed through the PoG. It might be structured something like this:

Through this type of lesson structure teachers would have a chance to more frequently speak with students in a Teacher-Led station, helping to model appropriate group norms while getting to know students on a deeper level. Students would also have the chance to extend knowledge based learning through activities that allow them to practice enduring skills related to the PoG inherently working to build that "environment of relationships" with their group.

Another potential place we could infuse more knowledge rich experiences would be in reconsidering traditional homework.

Homework, in recent years has not entirely proven to be effective in helping students with academic performance. Where it may help, is with self-regulation and learning to manage work load.

If we are looking at students and seeing that they struggle with self-regulation and executive functioning because of the stress, chaos and the loss of the environment of relationships, could we use homework as starting point for intervention. 

Teachers are overwhelmed with work - and traditionally we see homework as a hidden stressor for teachers who must prepare, distribute, track down and grade. It's also a hidden (or in some places, not-so-hidden) stressor for parents and students. 

How might we use homework to encourage a stronger knowledge base in students and help them practice self-regulation? Is this where a choice board and goal setting might help? Could this be a place to conduct a micro-trial for intervention? What would happen if it's eliminated altogether? What happens if the shift is to encourage students to engage in Genius Hour extension type learning?

A third potential way we could encourage that knowledge base is for school leaders to work with our PTOs, community, and places like the public library to develop extracurricular programming that helps to engage in building experiences through knowledge. What areas in knowledge do we see the biggest deficits and how can we infuse that into every day living? 

For example, we might refocus lesson design to include anticipatory sets that will help us assess student current understanding. You might also try one of these 8 strategies and get even more ideas here. Finally, you might try to assess background knowledge by using Dialogue Journals. The Dialogue Journal could be something that is added into regular practice with station rotations. 

When you notice a trend in gaps in background knowledge through these strategies you can consider meaningful ways to infuse knowledge based and targeted experiences.

Opportunity 3: Support for the Adults

We are clearly testing the waters of Pandemic Recovery this year. Each teacher and student is bringing a different set of challenges and opportunities to the classroom, and it can seem like a daunting task to try to tackle it. As we dive into iterative problem solving and maybe even some micro-trials, you are not in this alone. There is a network of support in your building administrators, in our District and in our region that we can directly tap into and lean on for support.

And we won't have an impact on this all at once. Sometimes starting with one thing can help you make big gains. If you need help or need to talk it out to get to the main opportunity you want to tackle I can be here to help you.

I'm not promising I have all the answers (or any for that matter), but I can be a second set of eyes and ears and I can listen and learn with you.

As we head into holiday season, take time for yourself: regroup, recharge and refocus on what is important to you in your life and by extension your classroom.