The Only Option for Reopening America’s Schools

Every other choice tries to plug the dyke while hoping things return to “normal”

Nearly every school board, school administrator, teacher, and parent in the country is facing incredible pressure and stress right now. There is terrible uncertainty about schools reopening in August or September and what that will look like. Yet all this is unnecessary because there is only one way to resume school if our hope is for students to learn, grow, and develop over the next year.

Put the students in charge.

No, I haven’t lost my mind. I’m dead serious.

Of course, the reason everyone is stressed about resuming school is that it is fraught with uncertainties. More so, however, is everyone fully expects learning to suffer. They also know, whatever school does look like, it will not be adequate to deal with traumatized students. They feel powerless to come up with a successful solution yet feel totally responsible for doing so. Pump up the stress.

Educators and officials are certain student outcomes will be far worse than had life and school continued as it always had, regardless of what choices educators make. And they’re right when looking through their normal lens.

They also know, prior to the pandemic, there were serious concerns about schools including inadequate resources, achievement gaps, poverty, crime, racism, and other school, student, and community challenges. All are now amplified, especially inadequate resources.

I didn’t include children among those currently stressed about resuming school because they expect to just do what they’re told. It will be stressful once they start because they will have no choice in the matter and have had no say in the decisions. Until then, they can go about their lives, which undoubtedly have plenty of other stressors right now.

So, let’s look at this logically.

Who determines what a child learns and how they grow and develop? Who has actual control over these things, to the degree that anyone does?

Only one person — the child.

Any other person can only try to influence the child’s learning, growth, and development. The child has all the control over actual learning, growth, and development.

Granted, we all learn things without making a conscious decision to do so, and much growth and development occur naturally. Yet the most substantial increases in all three occur when the individual chooses to be an active participant. We learn by seeking new knowledge; we get bigger and stronger through exercise and eating right; we develop and improve skills through deliberate practice. These are choices we make.

Unfortunately, schools are not designed to allow children to control their education. Instead, we offer incentives to influence children to be active participants in the process. We also know these efforts are minimally effective under the best of circumstances. Now we must influence children to be active participants under significantly more challenging circumstances, and we’re traumatized because we know the outcomes will be poor for most students.

In reality, many students will try to do their best. They will recognize the immense challenges and that adults are truly trying their best. They will strive to actively participate and get the most they can out of whatever happens.

Other students will be completely out of their element or simply incapable of actively participating in their learning. They may be facing incredibly difficult or even traumatic circumstances. Still other students will rebel from the stress of being told they must participate in a model totally ineffective for them (even more so than before the pandemic) and over which they have no control.

Through all this, educators and parents will deal with the fall-out from student emotions and behavior while trying to help children learn. Educators will deal with unreasonable expectations and try to handle all the usual school challenges while rarely or never interacting with students in person (or interacting with them in a literally sterile socially distanced environment). Parents will strive to be supportive of schools and teachers and to help their children while trying to keep their employers happy or run a business or try to find a job.

Given all this, who is in the best position to come up with a plan for children to learn as effectively as possible under whatever circumstances exist when school resumes?

The children.

Our children are well aware of the situation we are in with the pandemic. They already suffered through two to three months of “school” under these conditions. They are mostly aware of the challenges the pandemic created for their families and communities. When they give the school any thought now, they are mostly dreading what it will look like and that they will lose the few things about the school they actually valued — primarily the social aspects with friends along with sports and clubs.

Except for the youngest, students are also aware educators and parents are as clueless as they are about how to make this work (if you don’t believe me, ask them for an honest opinion about this), but they will let the adults make all the decisions because that’s the way education works.

The solution, then, is to honestly enlist the children in coming up with plans for resuming school; not on their own, but working side-by-side with adults (virtually, of course). And this does not mean asking a representative sample of students for their opinions or giving them some adult-developed choices from which to choose. This means giving a clean slate to all children from a school.

How do you do that? The process itself is part of the school; students will learn, grow, and develop more academically and emotionally being part of their own education planning than an entire year of passively “attending” the proposals being put forward by adults.

Here’s how to have children lead the school reopening process.

Present the children with the same information, problems, challenges, and hoped-for outcomes the adults are using to develop their plans. Then let the students start developing means of achieving the outcomes in the face of the problems, challenges, and limited resources.

Again, include every child in this process and, other than the limited resources, don’t place any restrictions on them, at least at the start. Instead, be open to every idea and suggestion. Be prepared for plans that are not uniform for all students, then embrace that.

It is impossible to come up with one approach that can be effective for every child, even if that approach gives students two or three options (e.g. fully in-person, fully virtual, or a combination). Be open to plans that are highly personalized for all children, but put the burden back on the students to figure out how that can work with limited numbers of teachers and other resources. They may recognize and leverage countless community resources you never considered.

Keep in mind, because you are starting with learning outcomes rather than teaching or curriculum delivery, they may not include a lot of formal, teacher-led instruction in their solutions. That’s a plus because it’s not an effective way for students to learn and it will liberate teachers to instead serve as mentors, coaches, and guides. They will be learning facilitators rather than lecturers.

And don’t give students an unreasonable timeline to complete their planning. Instead, give them the timeline for achieving the outcomes (probably May or June 2021) so they determine when to move from planning to implementation. Also, accept that not everyone moves from planning to implementation at the same time.

Won’t this be a lot of work?

Absolutely, but no more than if only the adults are part of the process. And this approach has several critical benefits that make it, really, the only option if we want to see academic and developmental gains:

• The engagement of students in developing the solution will create buy-in, unlike anything you’ve seen in school before. They will have a stake in the plan’s success, so they will try much harder to make it work.
• As noted, being part of the planning process will itself result in learning, growth, and development superior to anything that could be taught in a classroom, so it can be part of the resumption of school rather than being done over the summer. The summer is used to prepare for the process with students.
• This process will consider and counter numerous child and family situations that impede learning. This will lead to personalized elements being included in the plan, and that’s a good thing.
• Families can be engaged the same way as children by inviting them to participate in the process. This gives parents and other family members a role beyond helping with lessons or homework designed and directed by teachers. This also gives them buy-in and a stake in successful implementation.
• Being facilitators and guides rather than having sole responsibility for decisions and implementation, educators will be far less stressed. They will also experience immense rewards when their students demonstrate capabilities they never got to use in school before.
• Every person involved will become a better, more confident, and independent human being (yes, all the adults, too). They will also be far more resilient and ready to face future challenges and crises.

What about younger students?

This can work with any age children. When young children are treated like adults — though adults with limited education and life experiences — they perform with amazing levels of thoughtfulness and maturity (often more so than adults). They have fewer biases and preconceptions. They are more creative and less fearful of making mistakes. They often have greater compassion than older children and adults.

While the process would need to be adapted to a degree, there is absolutely no reason the youngest children can’t be part of this process.

Yeah, but…

Yes, you have all sorts of reasons this won’t be possible for some states/schools/communities. They’re too big or too small or too wealthy or too poor or don’t have high-speed Internet or a thousand other reasons. Every reason you can imagine why this wouldn’t work will apply equally or be worse in an adult-developed reopening plan.

Go ahead and try it out. Take your “yeah-but” and apply it to any of the plans currently being explored by schools around the country. That same obstacle or challenge will exist anyway, but if the children are helping develop the plan, they will be better figuring out workarounds than the adults and will have a stake in making it work.

Of course, there are some caveats, but they are not reasons to avoid this approach:

• Children will be suspicious; they will not believe they are being given this much power over their education; some will try to “test” the adults through outrageous unworkable ideas or by doing nothing. The adults must demonstrate extreme patience while guiding them back to reality (but don’t discount outrageous ideas if they might be workable) or nudging them along. You may have to remind some that the alternative to this process is to be lectured and do worksheets, and realize those same students would probably do nothing regardless of the plan being used.
• Your top students may struggle the most and face the most stress. Often, top students are great at fulfilling expectations (following directions, meeting all criteria) but struggle with uncertainty. They need this, but may also need extra mentoring and guidance.
• Don’t make curriculum delivery an outcome in any way. Unfortunately, nearly all plans being developed right now are focused on delivering the curriculum with the hope some learning occurs, instead…
• Frame the outcomes in terms of learning, growth, and development. Let the children know what learning you want to accomplish by the end of the term or year and have them work from there. You might not deliver all the curriculum, but your students will have achieved significantly more than you could ever have hoped. And if there is a curriculum required by law, turn the content into learning outcomes to ensure it’s covered.
• Let the children develop or contribute to the outcomes themselves and how mastery of the outcomes will be demonstrated. You may find they set higher bars than the adults would. The adults can guide them toward those that are critical or required, but let them come up with the specifics.
• Include outcomes related to working on diverse teams, social-emotional learning, problem-solving, critical thinking, and creative thinking along with other attributes. Then realize students will practice all of these as they participate in this process.
• YOU WILL NOT END UP WITH A WORKING PLAN! Anyone who believes a fully effective locked-in plan is possible is living in la-la land (including any adult-derived plan). You will go through a planning process with the children, families, educators, and others in the community and you will end up with a dynamic framework from which everything will be continuously adapted. There are no better means for everyone to learn, grow, and develop.
• When this is over, the children will not willingly go back to being passive recipients of instruction. They will likely demand a major role in planning and executing their education from here on out. Embrace and leverage that, and use it as a catalyst for replacing the totally inadequate factory school model, which needs to be done away with anyway.

THE MOST IMPORTANT CAVEAT

You must have integrity if you choose to do this. If you go through the motions then fall back to some adult-developed plan, you will lose all trust and respect from the children as well as others in the community. The same is true if you try to manipulate the planning to get to an already selected plan. The fall-out, in either case, will be toxic.

Before taking this on, invest time and energy getting buy-in and commitment from the movers and shakers in your schools and community — including sufficient numbers of parents and those who have the greatest influence. Then, trust the children and the community and embrace the multiple inevitable failures from which you will all learn and grow.

This approach can be an option for students. Maybe your school or district isn’t ready to go all-in, but there are probably students, families, and staff members who would jump at this opportunity. At least explore the option for some students with the possibility of others transitioning to this student-driven approach if they are struggling or realize they would be more successful.

The only chance for children to see real, substantive learning, growth, and development during the 2020–21 school year is if they can take charge of their own education. The only way that will happen is to enlist their help in developing the plan for doing so.

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Kevin Miller is a Boomer who joined the Army during the Cold War and continues to serve. He has spent 30-plus years working in K-12 education as a teacher, administrator, and consultant and is now on a mission to reinvent our school model. His book Know Power, Know Responsibility provides the imperatives for a complete redesign of schools and the way to get there. See his website knowresponsibility.com to learn more.