Remote Learning: A Silver Lining?
On June 21, 2020, the Perfect Teen posted an article expressing the problems with remote learning. Today, after five months of COVID-19 we offer another perspective.
Zoom. Google Meet. Canvas. Wi-Fi. Introductions. Goals. Story. What is the meaning of life? What does it mean to live a good life? What is the truth? What is the nature of evil? Exploring the replication of DNA. Unpacking the transcendental meaning in Thoreau’s Walden. Communicating in Latin. Laughing, struggling, stretching, and more. We are off and running. The school year has begun.
Our current context is difficult. There is a significant loss and so much is missing. We are living that reality. The things we miss are crucial to our development. They are things we love.
Is there a silver lining to remote learning? Perhaps. Pre-COVID students would go from class to class and activity to activity. They would sit in traffic and travel long distances each day. It was a mad rush to accomplish as much as possible. Rest was a low priority and reflection was non-existent. Students would go from Spanish, precalculus, a quick meeting with a counselor, to a club meeting, to physics, and then English. Next was practice and then a piano lesson. Home for a quick dinner before a few hours of homework and some SAT prep. Maybe there was some time for Netflix. Dinner was probably not with the family and college essays pushed us to the breaking point. This was all on a good day. Throw in a not so good day with a low test grade, a headache, a harsh comment from a teacher or parent, some drama with a friend, an accident on the freeway, a missing cleat or computer charger, and things might become unbearable. This all happened in the context of a 30 to 60-minute commute to school each way. We attempted to stuff so much material down a proverbial pipe, a pipe that was not wide enough to handle so much volume. In many cases, the result was anxiety, fear, burnout, physical stress, bad health, and in some cases, the pipe would burst.
The last five months have given us a chance to reflect on how we go about things, how we operate, and structure our lives as individuals and as a community.
For learning to have its full transformational impact it demands space. There needs to be room for reflection. Space and reflection allow learning to settle into us, to inform us and to change us. The mad race to the top in West Los Angeles might lessen the impact of a great education. There was simply no time to dig deep. Today, students have less to ponder, less information and activity flowing through the “pipe.” The commute has been removed. Classes are shorter and activities paired down. The distractions have been reduced.
There is a real positive with this new reality. Do these reductions allow us to focus on the most significant things in life? The crucial things? We have turned down some of the noise. Will the result be more focus, less anxiety, more rest, stronger long-term physical and emotional health? We will see.
In our house, the rhythm is slower and kinder. We eat together more often. We talk more. We talk more about important things. We spend time together. We are outdoors more. We notice more things that we never realized before. Because there is less to engage, we are more deeply engaged in what we have. I think there are some real benefits to our current rhythm and that we should ponder the benefits as COVID eases and life speeds up again. Maybe COVID has something to teach us.
This is not to say that the human interaction we had and the activities we engaged in pre-COVID are not vital. They are vital and we have suffered real loss without them. We need them back as quickly as possible. It is to say that perhaps our goals and vision for life needs a little adjustment. Maybe with some revision, we might say no to some things, begin to place a higher value on sleep, understand the power of reflection, allow nature to impact us more deeply, realize the goodness in deep conversation, or have a new understanding of the dangers of overscheduling and stress. Maybe the mad rush will become simply a rush or perhaps even a nice walk.
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms…” ~Henry David Thoreau – Walden 1854
