One of the major challenges arising from the pandemic has been how to continue with children’s education as schools have been forced to close. One of the main responses has been to move to online education with teachers and pupils participating via Zoom, Teams or other available software.
This move to on-line learning has stimulated a lot of thought about the best ways of teaching and the development of many ideas from different schools and teachers.
The move has also shown up inequalities and unfairness in the system.
The obvious inequalities come from:
– resources available to some schools, especially in the private sector, compared with others. (availability of laptops, access to broadband, ability to commission lessons, etc)
– The availability of parents to help children and to push them to participate varies from family to family.
However there is an inequality which doesn’t specifically come from the pandemic responses. That is that the efforts and skills of teachers providing the lessons obviously vary.
This situation already exists with normal in-class lessons.
I believe the experience, skills and assets developed during the pandemic present an opportunity to address the inequalities in our education system and to improve the education of our children across the board.
We don’t expect each school and each teacher to produce their own text books. Why should we expect them to produce their own lessons and lectures?
The very best teachers are able to inspire children with their own enthusiasm for the subject.
They are experts in all aspects of the subjects they are teaching.
They are expert in presenting subjects in an interesting and understandable way. Think of the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures as aired by the BBC.
As we learn, during the pandemic, the most effective ways of teaching online we should build up a store of standard online lessons which, as well as being available in any future lockdown situation could help to eliminate existing inequalities.
Imagine that in every school various stages in each course could be introduced by an online lecture from the best teacher in the country.
Local teachers would listen to the lecture with their class and stand by to answer questions and develop the subject. In this they would be assisted by notes and guidance provided by those best teachers and a panel of “experts”.
Possibly, in between-term preparation sessions, the local teachers could view the lectures in advance and go back to the panel with questions, suggestions and potential problems.
To ensure that the system doesn’t become sterile we could have:
– Two versions of the lectures used across the education system. Results from the two systems would be followed and changes made in le least successful.
– The expert panel, with I would suggest several non-experts to provide a diversity of views and a questioning of orthodoxy, would meet each year to discuss the course and its results. Improvements could be incorporated in the next years course.
If we take this opportunity to earn from our pandemic experiences we could provide:
– A truly standard national curriculum with the same subject taught (to an extent) in the same way
– The availability of the very best teachers, teaching aids and methodology to all children in all schools.
– The possibility for children switching schools to come into a class with familiar lessons and ways of learning.
If done correctly this new system would not reduce the involvement and importance of the local teachers. They would still be the ones with the primary contact with the children. It’s just that they would have the comfort of knowing that their various subjects were being taught in a way proven to be effective and that they had the backing of a panel of expert advice where required.
As the pandemic hopefully clears it would be a shame to waste the experience and skills built up in this area. Instead we should expand and improve online learning to enhance the educational of experience in all our schools and for all our children.
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