Slowly but surely, schools across the globe have started relaxing restrictions and reopening schools under ‘new normal’ circumstances including safety measures such as social distancing, wearing masks, sanitizing stations and much more.
There has been success in this approach, with parents feeling more comfortable and teachers adapting to the changes. On the other hand, there have been tweets and discussions by parents and teachers who are reluctant to continue schooling in this manner arising from a concern for students’ safety.
As a result, several parents who have the ability to do so, are no longer sending their children back into the classroom, they prefer to home school instead. Parents who are capable of schooling their children at home would rather give their student’s spot at school to a child who is in greater need of a teacher’s physical attention.
NASUWT, a leading teachers union in the UK conducted a snapshot survey that revealed high levels of anxiety in the teaching workforce around school reopening plans, with the majority of teachers describing the measures to be ‘confusing and unsafe’.
A recent case study interview with a school that’s reopened in Germany revealed that the new measures were confusing for students as they needed to readjust to the ‘new norm’ of maintaining distance at break time and refrain from playing contact sports such as football. It’s a lot to take in.
However, there is currently an ongoing discussion and deliberation about what education should look like in a post-COVID 19 world. These ideas and discussions revolve heavily around adopting hybrid models of education that incorporate the online strategies and new remote styles of teaching. The overall goal is to take advantage of both styles of learning and to incorporate them over a duration of schooling.
The future of education is not in building more school infrastructure, but rather, a co-learning space, where different schools are using one building and engage in flexible teaching and learning — Atif Mahmood, Founder and CEO, Teacherly.
A unique approach on a hybrid model has been proposed by Atif Mahmood, CEO and Founder of Teacherly, who recently spoke at EdTechX Summit about the impact of rapid urbanization on education and the future of work for the teaching workforce. During this talk, Atif suggests an interesting take on future models of education after the pandemic as he believes that right now, is the opportunity to “experiment with education” to try new models of teaching and learning, implement them and grow from them.
Atif hypotheses a potential future model of education, wherein society adopts a ‘WeWork’ style of schooling. He adds that the future of education is not in building more school infrastructure, but rather, a co-learning space, where different schools are using one building and engage in flexible teaching and learning. Teachers will continue to act as facilitators and come into the spaces where small groups of students can engage in classes; simultaneously, students can also continue their education online.
By disrupting the future of education and creating a new ‘norm’ of hybrid models in schools, we create a new type of schooling that allows students to adapt to a future style of work. Currently, traditional models of schooling do not prepare students to enter collaborative work spaces or work from home techniques and zoom meeting etiquette which is increasingly becoming the norm. Hybrid models, however, will be better suited to prepare students for a new style of working that will come about after this pandemic. Furthermore, hybrid models present an opportunity to no longer leave parents in the position where they are opting in for homeschooling as a result of limited resources.
Whilst there remains to be unanswered questions about the exact implementation of hybrid models and how countries with limited resources such as technology and internet will handle this shift in a post-pandemic world, there is some hope in knowing that there are models and conversations happening that are acknowledging well being and mental health. #YouGotThis
