What Is Quarantined Education Teaching Us, Part 2

Some students find themselves more productive during e-learning, and some find themselves less so according to this decidedly unscientific study that I discussed in an earlier post.  I have questions about the usefulness of data-driven studies in a field like education, but that is a topic for a different article.  My uncertainty regarding such methods does not, however, prevent me from offering an equation and a discussion of it.  A lower student-teacher ratio plus less time spent in class plus more independent learning can equal true education.

I've lost you already, haven't I?  If I didn't lose you at "lower student-teacher ratio," then I surely did at "less time in class."  We all know that the best learning environment is one with the lowest possible student-teacher ratio, right?  Countless articles like this say so.  Then again, countless articles like this one say the opposite.  Of course, we can all agree that students need more time in class.  There are, after all, countless articles such as this, that support the notion.  Yet there are countless articles like this one suggesting the opposite is true.  The seemingly infinite number of articles on both sides of these two points is one of the reasons I question the usefulness of certain kinds of research in education, but as I said, that is for another time.  For now, I want to discuss the components of my equation and one all-important word.

Students want to ask questions, but they don't want to feel foolish doing so, and we will never create a classroom environment in which all students can achieve this.  No matter what or how many procedures we establish, students are people, and people care what others think about them, and if knowing something is valuable, as it must be since we award those who know things on tests and assessments, then not knowing something must be of less value, and what demonstrates not knowing something quite like asking a question?  We can pontificate all day long about the value of asking questions and the importance of failure as a part of growth, but deep down, at a gut level, none of that matters for most students under age eighteen, and perhaps for a large number above that.

I am the first to write glowing paeans of praise about students who ask penetrating questions in class, but I also know that there are students who will ask their questions only when in a small, after school environment, or one-on-one with the teacher between classes, or from a certain distance through email, or via the combination of comfort and distance afforded by something like Zoom.  And I also know that it is too easy for students to indicate understanding in a larger class when that simply isn't the case.  Perhaps they do so because they do not want to seem foolish or do not wish to be the one who drags class out by asking something, and because of this, it is too easy for teachers to assume understanding and to move on.  In short, then, a smaller student-teacher ratio is better for some, perhaps even many, students.

The same is true for spending less time in class.  We can certainly line up the studies and provide our own experiential evidence to support the claim that more time in class is required for success, and indeed this may be the case for some.  For others, however, it can be not only a waste of time, but an experience that dims and dulls their creativity.  Before the days of increasingly locked-step conformity demanded by standardized tests and their curricula, teachers could allow students to work at their own pace.  If some finished early, they could work on other matters, whether for that class or another, as the teacher spent more direct time with those who needed it.  Undoubtedly this is still the case in some, hopefully many, classrooms, but this sort of half-guided, half-independent learning is increasingly vanishing from our landscape, in part because of the aforementioned standardization of so much of education, but also because of teacher evaluation tools that require everyone in the room to be actively engaged in one particular activity all of the time.  Students quietly reading for another class are seen as being off task, and this results in a tick in the wrong box for the teacher.

In any given class, there are students who simply need less direct instruction and less practice with the material to achieve mastery.  If there is one thing that quarantined education is teaching us, it is that students are quite capable of achieving what is required and then doing something else. For them the result is a much healthier study-life balance, one in which learning and living are not so artificially separated.

This leads to the third element on the left side of my equation, independent learning.  There will always be students who go through the motions of learning, just as there will always be adults who merely go through the motions of life.  Yet when given the freedom that less time in class brings, many will discover or rediscover their natural curiosity and love of learning.  And while that may not hold true in every class, it will hold true in some.  I have talked with fellow educators and can bear witness myself that there are students who, during this time of quarantined education, are asking the truly curious questions and exploring ideas of their own inspiration that they simply would not have if they had progressed like a can of soup down the assembly line of their traditional day.

All of this, I contend, can lead to true education, one in which students and teachers embark on a shared journey of discovery that is sustainable, every widening, and of more value than one that produces fact-recalling automata that are less efficient than a basic search engine.  Yet the most important word in my equation is "can," which is related to words like "may," "perhaps," and "many" that I have used throughout this piece.  These are words that suggest vagueness, and we don't like that very much, for ours is a data-driven society that worships at the altar of the hard sciences.  Human beings, of course, are known for their refusal and even inability to fit into narrow categories.  Will all of the things I have suggested work for everyone?  They will not, just as no other curriculum or program or educational theory will do.  They are simply ideas to work into the mix, to make available as we seek to provide the widest variety of opportunities for human beings in their education.  That there is a wider variety than we have imagined may just be the greatest lesson that quarantined education has taught us.