I don’t know the learning needs of our children when their learning moves out of the school buildings.
“Content delivery” might work for a few of our students, but real learning requires so much more from us. As Cathy Fosnot taught us, “If there is no learning, there has been no teaching.”
As educators, how will we even know when learning is happening as we “teach” from a distance?
The pedagogy needed now is complex and new, but we know the starting place. The starting place is the home. Unless we ask those in the home what they need, we can’t know what our “teaching” work will need to look like.
The Getting Smart Podcast tackled the question of how to support families when learning moves into the home environment. Guest and parenting expert Rachel Wigglesworth shared her thinking about co-constructing routines and boundaries, empowering kids to own their learning and advocate for themselves, and what to do when it isn’t going well. The conversation reminded me that every home situation is different, and that while the pandemic is a world crisis, it also presents opportunities.
There is no better time to
a) listen to our kids, giving them agency over their learning, and
b) involve our families as true partners in their children’s learning.
I’ve shared my notes from the podcast below, but it’s really worth your time to listen to the conversation, while asking what it is that educators need to do to ensure we are supporting our kids in the best way possible during this pandemic.
Featured Image by Leah Bohm on Unsplash
Day 2: #the100dayproject
Resources:
Getting Smart Podcast, March 18, 2020: With Parenting Expert Rachel Wigglesworth.
#the100dayproject
- Day 1: Are you willing to be disturbed? Are you willing to think differently about what learning can be?
- Day 2: We no longer know best. It’s time to ask children and families what they need.
- Day 3: The long game. How are we thinking about shifting what learning looks like while schools are closed?
- Day 4: How can we turn what we want to teach into questions children want to answer?
- Day 5: How do we organize our response to this crisis so we can focus on our wellness, and the tasks that need to be done right now?
