By Jesse Markow and Sarah Ottow 

As the pandemic wanes, us educators imagine a new normal for our schools going forward. However, going back to “normal” is not acceptable since the pre-Covid status quo in schools was not working for all learners. Throughout the last year, we have learned so many lessons about equity and access and student success that we suggest we collectively take a step back and really consider what we value, building a new future in schools that works for everyone.

The Whole Child and The Whole Teacher

Our global society has been exposed to the collective trauma of a life-threatening pandemic which has amplified the already existing inequities both in the US and across the world. In schools, teachers are leaving the profession at an alarming rate and, for those who are sticking with their chosen career path, are upskilling at a rapid rate to meet the needs of remote learning and teaching in a public health crisis. 

With all of that said, what can we learn about a more student-centered approach going forward? Can we more intentionally reach the whole child and support the whole teacher? How can we be sure we are not just doing what we are so good at in education--checking the boxes, jumping through the hoops--but learning from this intense time to build a recovery that takes into account the whole person in teaching and learning.

Lessons Learned

In conversations with educators Sarah coaches and connects with across the US and the globe daily, she has asked them what lessons they have learned during this pandemic. The responses have included the following:

• Kids that already have skills and supports developed and integrated into themselves are doing better than those who don’t.

• Students have lost playtime/socialization with their peers that has had significant impact and we need to make sure that addressing that should be front and center.

• We don’t want to penalize students for this pandemic but it feels like we have had to because they aren’t all able to reach the set standards.

• We are programmed to help and we can’t help in the ways that we have in the past 

• Why can't we make “wellness” house contacts for the families?

• Students are missing out on core skills, id est, feeling confident, respectful product members of society. Shouldn’t wellness be our focus? How can we expect students to meet academic goals if we don’t meet these greater needs first?

• I can’t pour from an empty cup. My mental health is suffering as a teacher. How are we helping others if we aren’t helping ourselves?

Looking ahead, we need to focus on practical solutions, not only to address what has been lost, but also to articulate what we have learned and what we have gained this year. We have learned so much, including the following:

• We need to make sacred time for connection, empathy and support for all parties involved, students, families, staff. 

• Bringing technology into learning can do wonders if done in a balanced and responsible way. 

• Academics can’t take center stage at the expense of social emotional wellness and relationships. 

• A hyper-focus on some data like quantitative large-scale assessments isn't as important as collecting qualitative data to answer essential questions like, “How can leaders make sure all teachers feel supported and connected to our larger mission at school?” and “How can all students feel valued, feel seen and feel part of our school community through any learning modality?”

We Measure What We Value

With all the talk about “learning loss” mainly referring to academics, we have to wonder what do we really value in school and, moreover, does it even matter if it doesn’t get measured? The answer is that we have to measure what we value...if we don’t measure it, we need to find a way, otherwise, we are operating as factories that produce students who are only judged on their academic skills, not if they are a good person or not, not if they are stand up to injustice, not if they are confident, empathetic and able to communicate in a global society. If we don’t find ways to measure what we value, we can also be over-focused on proficiency versus the much more helpful data point of growth over time.

Data doesn’t have to be a four letter word that only refers to how schools are judged, how teachers are evaluated and how students are labeled. Data can be a rich, multidimensional set of information, both quantitative and qualitative, to inform our work through a more comprehensive approach not just through reactive triage. Just like a holistic health care plan treats the whole person, as educators, we need to teach the whole learner--and support the whole educator--to make sure all needs are being met so that one can not just survive but thrive!

From one English Language Learner Specialist:

I was hoping that pandemic would help us prioritize the social emotional needs of our students, but when we came back in person, two weeks later we started ACCESS testing, followed by academic testing, and next will be district benchmark testing.

We all know that kids under stress have trouble learning so why do we need to measure what they learned or didn't learn during a pandemic? The data will not be meaningful especially when some students are taking these tests remotely. These standardized tests don't often show what students actually can do. So many skills students have learned won’t be measured; like how to create a poster in google slides! The formative data that teachers have shows the place where kids really are, and for many, social emotional learning is what they need to be ready to access learning at the next level. 

It's ok to let go of this hyper focus on big data and large-scale testing to shift the focus to other measures. As teachers tell us, being healthy and happy and safe is more important than meeting standards. What’s more, we could integrate standards that go beyond academics, ones that focus on identity, agency and social emotional wellness. At Confianza, where we coach teams to integrate social justice aspects that include social emotional learning, Sarah finds herself almost having to “give permission” to leaders and teachers to bring in other aspects to the classroom, not just the core standards, when, in fact, we can do two things at once. We can indeed 1) Teach core skills and 2) Honor the whole child through an equity lens. If we do this effectively, we can even measure this more integrated way of educating students. We refer to Victoria Bernhardt’s Multiple Measures of Data approach to support schools in looking behind one measure or one sacred test score to multiple measures that can capture a more accurate picture of assets, needs, and, most importantly, growth.

We Value What We Measure

Since we know that any sort of testing, be it formative, interim, and summative, requires investments of time, money and instructional time, where is the value in making those investments? It’s common, and in many cases, understandable, that parents, educators, administrators and others would like to have less testing and more instructional time, because the ability and commitment to using the results of testing, yes, even formative, is scarce. In other words, there is little expression of valuing what is measured. Testing is not only students providing evidence of what they know and can do.

Testing is also training educators to analyze test results, formulate hypotheses as to what those results may indicate, create plans for acting upon those hypotheses, executing their plans, and understanding the effectiveness of those plans create the added value of testing. And what better time to try this, especially with summative results as there are no accountability measures being applied this year?

Summative results focus funding and efforts from the state level. Analyzing data on the summative can be more useful than primarily focusing on accountability. Educators can do multiple data analysis on this big data in order to make it more meaningful. In addition, families may not see summative data as valuable if we don’t make this data meaningful to them.

Furthermore, educators can highlight formative and interim assessments to be just as important as summative assessments. more results provide feedback on effectiveness of the teaching, as well as student learning. Encouraging a mindset on how assessments can change teaching is important here while paying attention to how students are learning. Specifically, educators can be open to changing the lesson and trying new strategies to engage students, not just focus on compliance and the act of testing as something separate from classroom instruction. We need to value testing and assessment as a process to learn from, not just an event. We can shift from, “My students are taking X test this week.” to, “What data are we gathering that can inform my instruction to ensure that every student learns?”

Finally, as discussed above, we need to focus beyond quantitative data as the only marker of growth to more qualitative measures, measures that teach us about perceptions, attitudes, values, beliefs and experiences critical to teaching and learning. This kind of data is not always as seen as actual data yet it is. As evident by the examples shared above about lessons learned from the pandemic, this qualitative data is greatly informative, valid and key to integrate alongside our more quantitative measures. It’s time for more balance and focusing on what we really value in schools.