Something to consider about K-12 education during a pandemic, or any time really.

[Pacifist Patriot]

The caveat to this post is that I am addressing a very narrow topic concerning education. I recognize it does not take into account the real inconveniences and hardships families are facing with their children at home.

* child care for those with younger children who have to leave the house to work
* children under foot for those working at home
* trying to feed and keep the roof over their children's heads for those who have lost their jobs or are under-employed
* dysfunctional family environments posing physical, psychological, and emotional risks to the children
* special needs children not getting the individualized education and attention they require

In this post, I'd like to expound on just one point in this fantastic post by a teacher. https://www.democraticunderground.com/100213709325. Please read it if you haven't already.

"We’re going to be facing kids who are dealing with layer upon layer of trauma, we need to make time and space for that, so stop telling me kids are behind. They’re not any further behind than anyone else. They’re behind some arbitrary lines we drew in the sand so long ago we’re not sure we remember why we drew them."

Let's talk about the notion that missing out on a fully functional school year in a classroom setting is going to put America's school children behind in their education.

In a word. Bullshit.

First of all, the teacher uses a key word. Arbitrary.

While our progressive curricula across the country are by and large quite similar, they also differ from school system to school system. What a fifth grader learns in Virginia is going to cover the same types of material at the same general level as a fifth grader in Oregon. Except maybe the fifth grader in VA's social studies class this spring is focusing on US and VA state history while the OR kid's social studies class is getting an introduction to the Sumerians, Greeks, and Romans. This is a real world example by the way, and any kid or parent who has relocated during a school year can attest to these abrupt changes when plunked in the new school, especially mid-year.

I graduated high school after attending six different schools in six different systems. I had the ancient civilizations drilled into me and never encountered substantive US history until 7th freaking grade because each school system I transferred to had world history in my grade's curriculum.

My high school science department's standard progression ran like this:
9th grade - Physical Science
10th grade - Biology
11th grade - Physics
12th grade - Chemistry

My children's high school science department's standard progression:
9th grade - Biology
10th grade - Chemistry
11th grade - Physics
12th grade - Specialized Elective Subject

For reasons I won't get into as they are irrelevant, I home educated my first two sons K-8 and my third son K-6. We were a hybrid of structured and unstructured schooling methods and probably put in a grand total of maybe two hours every day of what most people would consider education. Not really grasping what those arbitrary lines might be, I was terrified when I enrolled them in school that they would be "behind."

They weren't. The first two graduated high school with AP diplomas and the third is going into his senior year with even higher grades and SAT scores than his brothers. The eldest graduated FSU magna cum laude last year and the middle child was on the President's List at FSU both semesters of his freshman year.

I'm not saying that to brag about my kids (mostly). I say it because when spread out over 13 years, these arbitrary lines don't matter. I say it because kids are inherently curious. If you put educational materials of any kind within their reach, they'll do something with it. Maybe it won't be the stuff we think they should be learning at that time, and maybe there are subjects and concepts we need to push them in a little (math in my household). In the long run it isn't that big of a deal.

Now let's talk about gaps in education instead of unaligned curricula.

How detrimental is it to give kids a "gap year" when they are 5, 10, or 15? Why do we think it normal that most of the kids walking across the stage at high school graduation are 18 years old? Does it really matter if they graduate at 17, 19, 20?

Yes, children will probably lose some of the material they learned previously if they aren't reinforced during the gap. But what they are most likely to lose are facts, not concepts. My dad lost most of his fourth grade year to polio. Instead of holding him back, they put him in with his classmates when he returned to school. He struggled a bit in the first few weeks, but then settled right in and graduated with them eight years later.

What I'm trying to inelegantly say here is that a concern about children "falling behind" in their education need not factor into the equation when making decisions about whether to re-open schools at the public policy level or send our children to school at the family level. We can, and should, make this a public health and safety issue first and foremost. That includes addressing the infrastructure at our crumbling schools, making sure families have their basic needs met, bridging the digital divide, getting materials into students' hands, and as the teacher in the post linked above said, "we need to meet our kids where they are."

When it comes to whether or not their overall education will suffer if students are not sitting in a classroom for 18 months in 2020-21, I can assure you that in most cases, the kids will be alright.

Congratulations if you made it to the end, climbing down off my soap box now. Be safe everyone!