Pandemic Learning

Let’s talk about the suffering of American schoolchildren, shall we?

Until the 20^th century, children were entitled to a rudimentary education of reading, writing, and arithmetic. Most families could not spare their children’s labor—bodily labor on the farm, wage labor in the factory—so basic literacy was the maximum they got.

During the Great Depression, Americans started implementing universal high school education. Not because they really believed in the benefits of a superior education, but as a way of keeping youth off the job market. If they were in school, they would stop competing with grown men for family-supporting wages.

But that’s all taken care of right? That’s history.

Consider also these conditions that continue into the present.

Local municipalities and states denied African Americans the resources to run adequate schools. Buildings were ramshackle, teachers taught 100 children in a classroom. After the Brown I and II decisions, black children had better access to schools that had been built for white children. But African Americans and other families of color often have to make a trade-off: send children to schools built around white children so they can learn in well-resourced conditions, or keep them in a culturally-supportive, close-to-home environment where they are not subject to racist hazing and daily micro-aggressions.

Children with disabilities received either no education or entirely segregated education until the Americans with Disabilities Act meant they were entitled to education in the least restrictive environment. Even now, however, because schools cannot be bothered to implement Universal Design and the states have not quadrupled educational funding, they continue to learn on the margins of an educational system built for neurotypical students.

What of gifted/asynchronous learners? The schools have no obligation to meet their educational needs. The states have chosen to build schools around the learning needs of children of normal intelligence who meet a suspect set of developmental norms. They cannot have access to academic content appropriate to their intellectual gifts until their behavior meets the age-related criteria specified by developmental psychologists. Some gifted/asynchronous learners suffer their entire educational careers in schools that are built to prepare children for work and careers rather than for curiosity, wonder, and learning.

Some children are natural nightowls. Leave them alone and they will do their best and most creative work between about 10 p.m. and 3 a.m. But can they have a school experience that encourages them to learn? No, because school has to start at 7 a.m. so that student athletes are not denied the opportunity to practice and compete in the afterschool hours.

So, forgive me if I am not entirely sympathetic to the complaints of parents whose children would learn better in the school building than through temporary virtual learning. Your children are operating in a context that has simply not prioritized education for all students. Here in Wisconsin, the state and the public have decided that keeping tavern owners in business and going on with church services and weddings are all more important than keeping children in school buildings. They have taken this decision even though the entire planet is dealing with an emergency like World War II that requires everyone to sacrifice in order to keep our health care system functioning.

If you want an educational system that spares your child the indignity of learning from the comfort of home instead of with the direct supervision of teachers, then you have to work to build a system that prioritizes the education of all children. Because we haven’t had that yet in America. Maybe it’s time.