For those of us educators lucky enough to have had jobs, it has been more than challenging. We have had to work ridiculously long hours in order to prepare lessons suitable for distance learning, attempt to overcome the multiple challenges of virtual teaching, change timetables on a daily basis and of course many have had to face searing criticism as for the first time, parents have had a front seat in the classroom and many have not liked what they have seen. Teaching and leading schools over the last eighteen months has been an almost impossible challenge to which 95% of teachers and students do not wish to return. Distance learning just doesn’t work for school-aged children.
However, as teachers finally take a much needed and well-deserved break, we watch in fear as the COVID-19 once again begins to play havoc with our lives. The numbers of the newly infected are going up and up and yet it seems that nothing is being done to curb the rise.
We have now been in this situation several times before and we can all predict the future. We know that the new variant is being brought into the country from abroad – so why are Israelis being allowed to travel in their hundreds of thousands? When they begin to return, we know that they will bring with them the Delta variant and by the end of August, there will possibly be an additional mutation. This will be passed on to the rest of the population.
With the end of Tisha Be’Av, the wedding season has begun among the religious sections of society. Although there is now the Happy Badge plan, this is not enough; we know for sure that the numbers will dramatically rise and the number of infected will be in the thousands. During most of September, immediately after thousands of Israelis return from their vacations, they will spend time with their extended families over the Jewish holidays. And all of this leads to one place – the shutting down of the education system and a return to the dreaded black rectangles of Zoom.
Under the assumption that no one wants to return to distance learning and that children’s social and emotional development as well as their academic abilities have been seriously affected over the last eighteen months – why is the beginning of the next school year being placed in grave danger?
Over the last few months, school principals have been desperately searching for teachers to fill vacancies of those who have had enough. It is the end of July and there remain thousands of unfilled teaching positions. Furthermore, the last year exhausted those teachers who remain and many do not want to take on extra responsibility for next year, preferring a lower salary and a better quality of life. A return to Zoom or the dreaded capsules will decimate education for years to come.
For the sake of our children and for their educators, the government needs to make some tough decisions and make them immediately. Unless foreign travel is stopped and a curb is placed on mass gatherings, the first few months of the next school year will be ruined.
So how do schools prepare for this eventuality and what lessons have been learned over the last eighteen months? Obviously each school is different and must prepare accordingly. The following are some ideas to tackle the two biggest challenges that have been encountered: social and emotional well-being and academic learning.
Under the guiding principle of “less is more”:
• Group small clusters of children according to geographical areas and provide outdoor activities at least once a week
• Ensure that home visits by staff occur for those children who disconnect from the virtual school environment
• Ensure that each student receives one phone call a week from a member of staff to ascertain their welfare and the activities that they are doing
• Reduce “frontal” teaching online and increase more individualized learning
• Reduce the number of subjects being taught so that there is a core of mathematics, science, English and Hebrew language and one of the humanities for every three months
• Fewer children in online lessons and more “breakout” rooms thus enabling children and teachers to see each other
• Keep F2F teaching on the screen to a minimum
The writer is the principal of Studio Ankori in Jaffa.