Virtual Education and Feeding the Cats in the Age of Covid-19

At the time of this writing, U.S. cases of Covid-19 has passed the 200,000 mark with over 4,700 deaths (only 3,000 died on 9/11). Yesterday, in the state of New York alone, 373 died. According to New York Governor, Andrew Cuomo, the mountaintop is still 14 to 30 days away. It’s going to get far worse before it gets better.

South Korea was prepared for the pandemic and their students return to school on Monday (April 6). The key to the response was total lock-down and testing, testing, testing. This can not be overstated, we could be sending our kids back to school next Monday.

Our government was criminally unprepared.

On February 26th, our President said, “Because of all we’ve done, the risk to the American people remains very low. When you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero. That’s a pretty good job we’ve done.”

Yesterday, March 31st, Donald Trump informed Americans that we can limit coronavirus deaths in our country to 100,000 to 200,000… if we do everything right. Unmitigated, we could lose 2.2 million lives.

We are living through historic times.

Feed the Cats?

Feed the Cats is a system of training sprinters that has grown into something bigger. I’m honored that teachers from all over the country write me with ways that they “Feed the Cats” in the classroom.

What would you do as a virtual teacher?

Leave it to a great teacher to reach out and ask a retired teacher, “Two months out of class. What would you ask of your students?”

John O’Malley sent me that text this morning.

The easy thing to do is to require what is required. Consult the curriculum. Assign the chapters. Send out the worksheets. Check the all the boxes. Standards. Objectives. Multiple Choice Tests. It’s always easier to go with the default. It takes no thinking, no creativity.

I answered John’s text within a couple minutes. I probably took into account that John O’Malley is a high school English teacher. However, as a Chemistry teacher, I would follow the same prescribed outline.

This is what I would ask of my students…

Read something challenging. I read War and Peace a few years ago. I bought the Cliff Notes. I’m not sure that I agree that War and Peace is the greatest novel of all time, but I’m proud that I read it. The size and scope of the book made the process similar to running a marathon. I was a finisher. I’m proud of it. You don’t have to read War and Peace. Read Harry Potter. Read The Stand. Read A Song of Ice and Fire. Read Outlander. Read Clan of the Cave Bear. Whatever you read, YOU GET TO CHOOSE IT. Build your own house.

Write a story and share it. It can be a memoir of your preschool years. It can be a fiction. It can be humorous or sad. You can write “The Pandemic: My Life”. Write about your parents. Write about your best teacher, or your worst teacher. Write about virtual learning. Share it with a friend or your teacher. Whatever you write, YOU GET TO CHOOSE THE TOPIC. Build your own house.

Read the same book as someone else at the same time. You can make it a group reading, like a book club. Exchange your thoughts in writing. YOU GET TO CHOOSE THE BOOK AND THE MEMBERS OF YOUR BOOK CLUB. Build your own house.

Find five songs from five different artists. Copy and paste them into a document. Find meaning. Write about it. Share it with a friend, a group of friends, or your teacher. YOU GET TO CHOOSE THE SONGS. YOU GET TO COME UP WITH THE MEANING OF THE SONGS. THERE ARE NO WRONG ANSWERS. Build your own house.

Take your camera or iPhone and go on a long walk. Go to a park or nature preserve (solo, social distancing). Write a photo essay. Write your first-ever blog. Share it with a friend or your teacher. YOU GET TO CHOOSE THE PICTURES. YOU GET TO WRITE THE NARRATIVE. Build your own house.

Interview someone in depth, get them to open up. Write the good parts. Share it with a friend. Share it with your teacher. YOU GET TO PICK THE PERSON. YOU GET TO PICK THE QUESTIONS. YOU DECIDE WHAT’S WORTHY OF YOUR TIME. Build your own house.

Do a series of science demos. Video them. Explain them in writing. Share them with a friend or your teacher. YOU PICK THE DEMOS. YOU DO THE VIDEOS. YOU WRITE THE EXPLANATION. Build your own house.

But what does the teacher do?

As teachers (and coaches) our objective should always be to TEACH YOURSELF OUT OF A JOB. The master teacher lights a fire with their students and that fire continues to burn with or without the teacher. Education becomes self-driven, not teacher-driven. #BuildYourOwnHouse

The students of great teachers “GET TO DO THE WORK”. Just one letter separates “GET TO” and “GOT TO”.

In modern education, highly paid administrators are forced to act as “accountability hawks”, making sure every kid is getting the prescribed education mandated by the district curriculum.

I wrote this to my department chair a couple years ago…

“My fear is that education will continue towards standardization. Someday teachers will read from a daily script and use standardized PowerPoints. Teachers will hand out standardized worksheets and provide standardized study guides preparing kids for standardized tests. Schools will proudly publish the data in the spirit of accountability. Students will, of course, hate school and cheat at every opportunity. The good news: every kid will have the same experience. Education will be reduced to the lowest common denominator.”

My department chair did not answer my email. It’s hard to defend the indefensible.

But should a teacher still get paid for this laissez faire approach to educating kids?

This approach is not easy. This approach takes work and creativity. Selling work to kids… who wants that job?

Teachers must MODEL academic curiosity. Teachers must share the books they read. Teachers must write. Their quest to better themselves must be shared. For example, who wouldn’t want to read John O’Malley’s take of U2’s, “Where the Streets Have No Name”?

Secondly, teachers must read the shared work of their students. I’m not talking about grading the work (I hear that virtual school will have no grading). I’m talking about having a genuine interest in the work of students. Take that times 150 and you have a full-time job.

Regardless, this will not be easy. Greatness is never easy. Excellence doesn’t just happen. Memorizing trivia will never create interesting and interested adults. The pandemic allows us to try something new. Let’s light a fire.

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By Tony Holler