As educators, we strive to be flexible in order to meet the changing needs and interests of our students. However, no one anticipated that we would face COVID-19 and be truly challenged like never before. In some areas, it happened (literally) overnight: the transition from onsite education to distance learning… and all the hurdles to come!
Silver Lining 1
Educators, families, and major news sources have reported that the experience was not a positive one. Students went from seeing their teachers five days a week to maybe a few times over the remainder of the school year. Of course, this varies greatly from district to district. It is saddening that our 21st. century education system failed to support distance learning, but this failure did bear some fruit. This pandemic revealed so many issues that have been bandaged for far too long:
You are probably wondering how this is a silver lining. By exposing our education system’s flaws, we are able to accept them, own them, and fix them. This is our time to demand more based on the performance of our education system during this crisis and the feedback from the most important participants: our students.
Silver Lining 2
There is another silver lining from which I and many other world language educators benefited. We have the time and the opportunity needed to explore new technology and for free or at much more reasonable prices that we will be able to leverage once we return to the classroom. This was some of the best tech PDs that I have had so far (YouTube tutorials & hours of internet exploration!). COVID-19 also pushed us to be more innovative than ever as we took our different curricula online! We had to examine and revise all that we do from content to instruction to ensure that our students would still connect with us and one another while building meaningful connections. I cannot speak for all teachers, but I know that this experience has made me a much more dynamic educator who will be able to adapt to and to make the best of whatever follows this time of COVID-19.
Now, what is your COVID-19 silver lining?
Sean is LLN's founder and CEO and an accomplished world language teacher. Sean has extensive experience developing and implementing online and onsite nursery-12 language programs.
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