California teachers have had time in distance learning—more than they ever imagined— to crystalize their thoughts about teaching during Covid.
How did the pandemic affect students and relationships with students and families? How did it affect their outlook on teaching? How might schools be structured differently based on what you learned from distance learning?
In today’s EdSource, teachers reflect on the past year. In the latest findings of a survey of 121 California teachers by the Inverness Institute, a research organization, teachers were asked to give advice to their colleagues. And in a short video, members of EdSource’s Teacher Advisory Committee responded to questions we asked earlier this month: How would you organize school for the first two weeks of in-person instruction? What have you learned from distance learning you would like to incorporate when you return?
The teachers in the Inverness survey broadly represent California teachers’ ethnic diversity, geographical distribution, subject expertise and grade level.
Inverness chose them from a pool of veteran classroom teachers who have participated in school improvement networks and leadership programs. Inverness provided anonymity so that they could speak candidly.
Several themes emerged from hundreds of comments: Teachers shouldn’t be too tough on themselves; distance learning is hard. And while, out of necessity, distance learning forced teachers to cull the most essential lessons and standards, selectively focusing on fewer lessons in more depth could offer a model for when school campuses reopen.
“The one thing that I have learned is that you cannot cover everything that you would normally get in the classroom in distance learning. Distance learning is an opportunity to rejuvenate lessons for students and be more open to project-based learning,” said an Inland Empire teacher at a middle school with 96 percent low-income students.
“Figure out what is most important for your students to learn and teach them that,” said a teacher in a middle school with 85 percent low-income students in the Central Valley. “You don't have time for all the extras. Also, take the time to form connections and allow your students to get to know each other.”
“Less is more,” wrote a teacher in a middle school with 79 percent low-income students on the Central Coast. They then added: “I’ve learned to drill down to the most essential skills/standards that I feel need to be taught/learned. I’ve learned to not give up on collaboration time for students to work together even if some do not participate. I’ve learned to be patient and kind and offer extra help sessions even if nobody shows up.”
In earlier survey briefs, many teachers emphasized the instructional, technical and social-emotions challenges of distance learning. But, looking back, some teachers pointed to benefits. Here are three examples:
“When I introduce an assignment, I allow students to choose a breakout room. They can stay in the main room if they want to work through the assignment step by step with guidance from me. They can join an ‘open group’ room where they work together with mics and cameras on. They can join a ‘quiet group’ room where they work together through typing in the chat. Or they can choose a solo room to work independently. As long as students are completing the work, they have the freedom to choose,” wrote a teacher in a middle school with 39 percent low-income students on the Central Coast. “This is much more difficult in person in a single classroom, so I think it’s important to recognize the challenges and the opportunities that distance learning affords.”
“I learned that there were some advantages to having students complete work online: the ability to respond more instantaneously with more comments, to engage with them more regularly on a personal level without the demands of classroom management,” wrote a teacher in a North Coast middle school with 50 percent low-income students.
“In the classroom at times there are time constraints. Through distance learning while doing independent work, students can have as much time as they want to complete work. Also, for some students that have social and emotional issues, distance learning works best,” wrote a teacher in an elementary school with 95 percent low-income students in the San Diego area. “Education needs to stop operating from 'one size fits all,' and we also need to start making usage of more technology.”
EdSource’s inaugural Teacher Advisory Committee consists of about a dozen teachers and meets periodically to discuss issues affecting the classroom and the teaching profession. In the last meeting, members reflected on the past year and how they'd welcome students back during the first weeks of school. Several said the pandemic reinforced why it's critical to listen to teachers, parents and students. Others said Covid offered the chance to rethink instruction and learning to better serve students.
“I check in with my third-graders regularly. A lot of the learning that we've done this year—how to use technology, how to be patient and support each other and have compassion and empathy— I think my students understand really deeply,” said Meghann Seril, a third-grade teacher at Broadway Elementary in Los Angeles Unified. “It’s important to hear from them because many of our kids are actually enjoying (distance learning) and have been more focused and have had different learning opportunities that we could not provide in the classroom.”
“When we go back, we’re going to play distance kickball. I’ll bring in my large screen TV, and we’ll just dance within our areas. At least in my class, we're going to build that family and community that we didn’t have a chance to build,” said Jose Octavio Rivas Jr., an AP physics and electronics teacher at the Lennox Mathematics, Science and Technology Academy in Lennox, south of Los Angeles.
“We always knew the inequities were there, but with Covid, it was really highlighted. We got to see everything on a broad spectrum of how we neglect certain populations. Moving forward, my hope is that we can start really recreating systems of practices that actually do help students, do help families," said Gwendolyn Delgado, a 10th-grade history and English language learner support teacher in the William S. Hart Union High School District in Santa Clarita.
This article originally appeared on EdSource.
They learned that zoom and google forms is a miracle of the internet age, now they don’t even need to scan the trons anymore or make an effort. That and they can’t wait for the next “pandemic.”
At least with Zoom they know the first letter of the kid’s names in their class.
What an absolute joke this article is.
When are you going to do the real work of quantifying the damage these teachers have done to these kids? The lost years, the suicides, the regression, the detachment, the drug abuse, the porn abuse, the future poverty? And yet there unions want to cling to government coercion that makes these kids tied to their incompetence, their racism, their failure and not free up tax payer money to those who can do, want to, and do better.
How do you live with yourself propagating this propaganda?
“Teachers are incompetent morons who can’t do their jobs, also when will they apologize for the learning loss suffered this past year!!”
Shoulda paid more attention to your teachers, you might have learned something about making logically congruent arguments.
Speaking of paying attention to your teachers…. Who are you quoting? Or are you paraphrasing?
Because I don’t see that anyone actually said that. But I could be wrong…..
I’m clearly paraphrasing Kulak, but if you’d prefer:
“They learned that zoom and google forms is a miracle of the internet age, now they don’t even need to scan the trons anymore or make an effort… At least with Zoom they know the first letter of the kid’s names in their class.”
“When are you going to do the real work of quantifying the damage these teachers have done to these kids? The lost years, the suicides, the regression, the detachment, the drug abuse, the porn abuse, the future poverty?”
There, is that better? I’ll use MLA next time.
That does clear things up. I guess you and I see things very differently. After reading the actual quote I would have never come to the same conclusion of it’s meaning as you did. In fact, I would very much be interested in answers to the questions in the second paragraph of the quote, wouldn’t you?
How would you describe “they don’t have to make an effort or learn their students names” if not “they are incompetent and can’t do their jobs”? I’d love to hear alternate explanations.
Jelly bean,
Oh, goodie… a slow one.
Let me break the logic down for you so you can understand.
Pre-Covid
Public School Union Teachers were failing black and latino kids at alarming rates as demonstrated by the so-called “Achievement Gap”, or what I refer to as systemic racism.
While it could be debated, academic achievement is a strong indicator of future success, particularly in raising someone out of poverty in the United States. I would not hold it against you if you thought differently. Obviously, teachers don’t think so as they deny their culpability in inequitable outcomes.
Many attempts have been made to close this said gap, with significant progress made in voucher and charter school implementation in blue cities, and where they were implemented, there was some closing of achievement gaps. Also of note, there were very long lists for lotteries to gain access to these schools by the poor in NYC.
Disturbed by this threat to their gravy train, the teacher’s union agitated politicians to begin cracking down on such attempts at leveling the playing field without a real plan to change any outcomes within their control. They were successful in NY and California, not sure where else.
While rich tech types push for more tech in other people’s schools, they know better for their kids. They put their kids in private low-tech or no-tech schools. They know unsupervised screen time leads to lower educational outcomes, encourages porn and youtube browsing and video game playing as well as other distractions, and frequently siphon eyeballs to social media, which is a toxic cesspool. And they should know, they created them and tap into cognitive science to keep their thrall’s focus. They know the only thing you should do as a kid with a computer is program it.
Teens require socialization with their peers to properly develop and frequently do so at the cost of spending time with their family. Due to our granting the monopolization of child care to the public school teacher union, a place of power they have fought and covet, most of those relationships happen in school and at school-related activities, lick band, sports, and drama.
Results of the union mandated school lock-outs
The achievement gaps have grown, but they won’t share by how much, which is telling. Just fluff BS like this article and “oh we stopped giving Fs, aren’t we nice”
Minorities are dropping out of school at higher rates than what were already high rates.
They have stopped giving Fs, which must have been legion mostly, to protect their funding and as a way just how bad things have gotten.
Social detachment is sky high and the deterioration of the mental health of students is beyond a crisis, but we don’t hear much in terms of numbers or impact.
All teaching is done via screens, which is the worst way to learn, over internet that is disproportionally worse for minorities, a fact they knew pre-Covid.
Video game, porn, youtube distractions are impossible to measure or control. Teachers have complained about low attendance, lack of attention and engagement, and know the kids are just logging on to Twitch (MS owned) and playing multiplayer games. If they capture that data, just like Fs, funding is at risk, so you won’t hear about it.
Kids are isolated at home with working parents, sometimes just one, are not playing sports or engaging with other kids at staggeringly high rates.
While our “progressive” leaders force the kids to attend public school and force them to learn via “Zoom” and Google Forms; they drop their kids off to In-Person Private School, re Newsom and the Berkeley teacher union leader.
In conclusion, public school teacher unions have been a failure to our communities for decades. But even then, some were falling through the cracks in the system and succeeding. Those numbers of survivors will be lower because of their selfishness and lack of science-based decisions exhibited by the public school teachers union and these extended lock-outs. Moreover, they have forced kids not to use pencils and paper and at least learn the old-fashioned way, they leaned into technology they know doesn’t work. Worse of all they denied social outlets to the people that need interaction the most by not allowing after “zoom” activities on campus.
Teacher unions and the systems that they control are a disaster that has failed our kids in the past, they failed them during COVID, and they will continue to fail them until they come clean on the fail out from their selfish decisions and address their hypocrisy and self-delusion.
Is that slow enough for you to follow?
Jelly Bean,
“At least with Zoom they know the first letter of the kid’s names in their class.”
Are your kids attending class via zoom? If you did you would know what I am referring to here. Look at any “classroom” under this lock-out and all you will see is a teacher and a grid full of capital letters. Those letters are the first letter of the students names.
Keep in mind many of these teacher have never seen anything of their students other than this letter as this nightmare started last school year. Unless they know them prior to last year, no teacher knows their students in a real human way.
Just let that sink in.
Lol, you’ve written 1000 words that basically amounted to “the food is terrible, and such small portions” and still lack the self-awareness to see why that’s so funny.
All on an article asking teachers what they learned from this past year. We get it, you hate teachers.
I guess long and short form is wasted on you.
How about the shortest possible version?
I could care less about teachers, I care about kids and society and the poor situation they and we are in, which unions have created and made worse with COVID. Just because you failed with a 64% doesn’t mean you can’t do worse, get it?
Or will you continue to be willfully obtuse?
So teacher’s don’t care about kids or society? Again, we get it, you hate teachers. Just admit it, this is a safe space, it’ll feel good man!
Dude, you have reading comprehension issues.
Unions don’t care about kids or society.
Any one teacher can have whatever feeling or concerns they want.
I once could give zero Fs about unions. My middle school kids get straight A’s in high school level classes and take AP classes online. I have already purchased both of them a house in case they can’t make it on there own, they know more languages than I could ever learn and play the Bach duets on the violin. They are so far ahead of me, its beyond my comprehension. I do actually know their teachers and their principal and they say these lock outs are BS, pointing out kids don’t spread it and teacher only catch it when they don’t follow protocols.
But that is not the problem, they have to live in a world that these unions are a major actor in forming. And that is one in which being latino, black, and now Pacific Islander is increasingly becoming a life sentence of rent/wage servitude to a greater extent than today. Making my kid’s future a more divisive, bleaker one than even now, because success is better enjoyed with company and resentment is an easy choice when you have no other.
This dystopian future is largely due to unions, who admit they have failed but continue to cling to their power claiming somehow they will get better results in the future doing the same thing they have always done, just with more intersectionality and pronouns.
Yet, with COVID, unions have somehow made these kid’s future worse, and when given a chance to reflect on the damage they have wrought, they say “we aren’t giving out Fs” and publish this puff piece, attempting to put a good face on the turd they laid.
I love teachers. But I agree with Kulak, schools have utterly and completely failed our children during the pandemic, to the point that people need to be held accountable for the damage they caused. But who? The teachers themselves? The teachers unions? The school Boards? The County Supervisors? All of them? In my opinion it goes all the way to the Governor’s office. I think criminal proceedings should determine if the Governor, the County Board, and Sara Cody exceeded their authority with these lock downs, and if so they should be prosecuted. Just like when a police officer exceeds his/her authority to detain people.
So okay, now we’re getting somewhere. Groups of teachers working together (also known as a union) don’t care about society or kids. So we’re left with three options: 1) you think teachers don’t care about society or kids and that is why their unions don’t care about society or kids 2) teachers are too dumb to realize they are being bamboozled by the evil unions or 3)teachers are cowards who live in fear of retribution from the union bosses. Either way, it’s pretty clear you have zero respect for teachers. Again, you can say it, it’s okay, no one’s going to report you the principal for thinking teachers are beneath you!
My words are sufficient, you don’t and can’t speak for me so stop trying to put words in my mouth.
The union needs to answer for the fallout they created, first by quantifying it, then explicitly addressing it with measurable objectives, and then be accountable to those objectives.
Like everybody else in the real world.
Something they refuse to do because one, they don’t have to with the help of a captive media and sarcastic trolls like you and two, actually being accountable for something will unnecessarily lower their negotiation position.
They don’t answer questions, they only make demands and donations.
Why any teacher does one thing or another for whatever reason is unknowable and futile, anything more is mind reading.
“Why any teacher does one thing or another for whatever reason is unknowable and futile, anything more is mind reading.”
Well, it’s not unknowable, there’s an instituted group of teachers that tells you what’s important to them. It’s called a union. But you don’t like what they have to say. Because you don’t respect educators and their opinions.
Again stop putting words in my month.
If you teach down to minority kids or think it is somehow not your fault that so many more black and latino drop out or can’t meet grade standards in the system you run and control, if you think its okay just to erase Fs or socially promote to keep your funding, if you believe the delusion that switching to screen only learning at home alone is as good as in person, or you think your lack of desire to follow safety protocols is more important than teaching in person and allowing kids to mentally and emotional develop with other kids their age, as is the teachers unions position, then you have a lot to answer for because I could not disagree more and do not respect those positions.
The union has been given unprecedented power and has repeatedly abused it as shown in the achievement gap, among other issues. You would have to ask a teacher to explain why they support the union and they would have a lot of explaining to do, not me, I don’t run the school or the classroom. And I can not read their minds as I have said. I have grilled administrators at one of my kids private schools on the use of technology, citing many studies on its negative effect on educational outcomes and after about an hour of equivocating they conceded my points and said tech makes it easier for teachers to grade and the teachers won’t give it up. And that’s at a private school. Google forms is far easier than grading fill-in the black, short answer, or essay recall-type answers written in pencil and pen every day of the week. Its also easier to cheat and forget on recognition-type questions.
So if unions take these position am I supposed to assume that all teachers are okay with:
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sdut-defeat-of-calif-teacher-bill-shows-union-power-2012jun28-story.html
or:
https://www.chicagonow.com/publius-forum/2010/12/child-molesting-teacher-cant-be-fired-thanks-to-union/
or:
https://www.eagnews.org/2013/12/parents-are-stunned-that-the-teachers-union-is-seeking-a-10000-severance-for-the-teacher-who-molested-their-son/
Are the actions of the union the aggregate sum of the teachers then as you propose?
Maybe not…
https://www.americanexperiment.org/teachers-agree-teachers-unions-make-it-harder-to-fire-bad-teachers/
Maybe you should start thinking more for yourself and stop trying to speak for others.
“If you teach down to minority kids or think it is somehow not your fault that so many more black and latino drop out or can’t meet grade standards in the system you run and control, if you think its okay just to erase Fs or socially promote to keep your funding, if you believe the delusion that switching to screen only learning at home alone is as good as in person, or you think your lack of desire to follow safety protocols is more important than teaching in person and allowing kids to mentally and emotional develop with other kids their age, as is the teachers unions position, then you have a lot to answer for because I could not disagree more and do not respect those positions.”
Right, so when teachers tell you about these things through their unions, and how to properly address them, you do not respect their positions. If a doctor told you what to do about something there’s a good chance you’d listen to them, but when teachers do, they can be ignored because they don’t deserve that same level of respect BECAUSE YOU DON’T RESPECT TEACHERS. It doesn’t require me putting words in your mouth, they’re coming out perfectly fine on their own.
The real issue here is that hating teachers is gauche, so you feel like you need to equivocate, or refer to “the union” as though it wasn’t made up of the very same people that you clearly have no respect for.
Teachers aren’t telling me those things through their unions, they are fighting the reporting of them all the time. Under pressure they concede it. And their solution is to blame the parents, saying they are too far behind by the time they are 5 years old because blacks and latinos “don’t talk to their kids enough”, except at charter and private schools were they miraculously catch up. They were even pushing in the 2020 Sec of Education to send teachers to kids homes to read to them because they asserted that the latino and black parents don’t or won’t. That’s the union for you. If all teachers believe that, then maybe there needs to be a reckoning with the equity division.
“The real issue here is that hating teachers is gauche, so you feel like you need to equivocate, or refer to “the union” as though it wasn’t made up of the very same people that you clearly have no respect for.”
Again with your assumptions, mind reading and speaking for me. Not only do you have reading comprehension issues, I think you have basic logic deficiencies. You get to think and speak for yourself, not assign your thoughts/assumptions on me and put words in my mouth. The one here who is disrespectful is you, as I have asked you to stop that exact thing and you continue to do so.
I wonder how teachers feel about Vergara v. California, in which the three union driven statutes Permanent Tenure, Dismissal and Last in First Out where challenged by 9 public school kids. Do teachers really think is is equitable or right to shuffle incompetent teachers to the poorest, worst performing schools because they can’t get fired? Or is that just the union, as I suspect. Challenged with the data, I don’t think one teacher I have ever know is cool with that.
“On June 10, 2014, the court ruled that the statutes at issue produced disparities that “shock the conscience”[11] and violate the equal protection clause of the California Constitution.”
They found, among other things:
“Based on a 4 year study, Dr. [Thomas] Kane testified that students in LAUSD [the Los Angeles Unified School District] who are taught by a teacher in the bottom 5% of competence lose 9.54 months of learning in a single year compared to students with average
teachers.”
“There was extensive evidence presented, including some from [school administrators that the tenure statute did not] provide nearly enough time for an informed decision to be made regarding the decision of tenure (critical for both students and teachers).
However, the court decided that “given the evidence . . . the Dismissal Statutes present the issue of uber due process.”
The decision was appealed by Brown likely at the behest of union lobbyists, only to be overruled at appeals and ignored by the California Supreme Court.
An article published in the Washington Post on April 14, 2016 said that the Court of Appeal’s decision reversing the trial court handed “a major victory to teachers unions”
Why are there so many lefties on here that assign people their opinions? No wonder they hate people who think differently, they make them out to be evil in their own minds and can’t be bothered to hear what is actually being said. Doesn’t bode well for the country coming together anytime soon.
California public school teachers should not be giving any advice on schools, and how to operate during COVID. Other states have been operating schools safely since late 2020, and the state of CA’s public schools are the MODEL ON WHAT NOT TO DO, specific to COVID and schools opening. UCSF has been screaming at the public schools to open, citing loads of data on schools being safe during the pandemic – and CA decided to not listen and not follow the science.
They should be ashamed.