Resilience has become a buzzword throughout the pandemic. I’ve used it myself – admittedly we need to cultivate resilience in ourselves so when we are faced with adversity we are better able to work through the emotions that accompany hard things. But what about our school systems? Resilience is a good thing, right?
Is it?
Even though I’ve always had a separate definition for resilience as it relates to humans (read it here) resilience is typically defined as the ability to bounce back after an adversity or trauma. Organizational resilience is defined as, “the ability of an organization to anticipate, prepare for, respond and adapt to incremental change and sudden disruptions in order to survive and prosper.” So, obviously we want districts to have been successful over the pandemic in teaching our students, and I believe that we can safely say that teachers/administrators/school districts did what very few other professions could have accomplished in the way that they adjusted to what their students needed. But, do we really want them to go back to the way they were before?
In this way, in looking at the future plans of districts I’ve worked with, it appears that they have a resilient system. They are going back to exactly the way they were operating pre-pandemic. We had the option of disrupting education entirely and we are, systemically, focusing on bouncing back. Why? Because we have always done it this way. Even the online schools and programs I see people creating are based on the not necessarily best practices of pandemic learning. Proving that in some ways, even pieces of the pandemic will be resilient.
Instead, we need the systems version of post-traumatic growth. We need to take a hard look at the things we’ve learned, the strategies we’ve tried, and the change we were able to accomplish and lean into that. For example, we’ve learned that:
Hybrid learning should never be a thing. Hybrid learning (where the teacher is teaching synchronously to an in-class group and a group online simultaneously) does not work. It is the instructional pandemic strategy, bar none, that produced the most burnt out teachers and I’d venture to say, the most disengaged virtual students. It could be argued that it was necessary as a bandaid but should never be replicated as a real way to teach. BUT, we did learn that a blend of synchronous and asynchronous content with regular student checkins and engagement meant for online learners did work for some students. Many teachers saw the benefits of adding in voice, choice, and pacing options for learners. That could be something we bring forward.
We were reminded of how important relationships are with students and the struggles that they may be enduring at home because, in many cases, we could see those struggles first hand. We realized that our students did not have the capacity to learn when they were suffering from overwhelm and mental health issues, just like teachers may have struggled to teach when they were doing the same. In other words, we learned that discussing learning gaps is not only demoralizing to the teachers who worked overtime during the pandemic to help their students, but that learning can’t happen until the emotional gaps are filled. And we can bring this forward by focusing on social-emotional learning and trauma support as we start the new year (and every day after that).
We were shown how quickly money can be reallocated elsewhere for the greatest perceived need, how a massive change in scheduling can have a positive impact on teaching and learning, and how freaking awesome teachers are at their jobs and yet they are in need of emotional and mental health support as well (also a pre-pandemic issue).
In many cases, I’d say the districts that I’ve worked for and with are resilient. They are able to go back to exactly the way they were prior to the pandemic. But, is that what we want? We have a catalyst to stop doing things just because it’s the way we’ve always done them. How can we better use what we have learned to, at minimum, change the status quo? Or are systems going to lean into their resilience and stare in the rearview mirror until they crash? There are pieces of our system’s post traumatic growth that we can capitalize on to move forward and if not cause a disruption, at least shake things up a bit.
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