As the economy slowly reopens and Ohio returns to something resembling normalcy, it’s a nice opportunity to reflect on what we’ve learned during the pandemic. For me, time itself became very different, both in practice and in concept. The plague rid our daily lives of conventional time constraints—and freed us to use our days differently. From long morning walks to family dinners to evenings playing board games with kids, many of the changes were rewarding.
In K–12 education, however, traditional uses of time continue to be, well, stuck in time. Experts are analyzing how far behind students will be next fall, trying to figure out how to help them catch up and pondering how many should be retained in grade. Isn’t it possible that our conventional construct of the role of time in education is magnifying the problems created by the virus and our response to it?
Consider the typical K–12 education. The overwhelming majority of students will spend thirteen years in school before receiving a diploma. That’s a long time.
If every year is divided into four quarters, that’s fifty-two quarters of schooling. When schools shut down in March, most districts had about a quarter of the school year left. That’s one fifty-second—not even 2 percent—of a student’s total K-12 experience.
Two percent of a student’s educational journey isn’t nothing. But it shouldn’t generate sky is falling rhetoric, especially since schools (at least in Ohio) were still expected to make a “good faith effort” to continue educating their pupils from afar.
Students will be “behind” this fall, not because two months is insurmountable, but because our education system insists that they move ahead in lockstep instead of picking up where they left off. It’s time to adjust our view. The ambitious outcomes we want from schools—good citizens, preparedness for college or career, strong values—argue for viewing education as a marathon instead of thirteen year-long sprints.
What needs to change?
First, while recognizing that everyone can and should complete the marathon, let’s acknowledge that finish times are going to vary. Students deserve to have the time they need to leave K–12 ready to face the world. That means some students will finish high school at age fifteen and others at twenty.
Second, because a marathon is a very long haul, with many turns and hills, it’s critical to know how far along each child has come, how much distance remains to be covered, and what adjustments and intervention may be needed to keep him or her on track. That requires a few checkpoints. For example, children are much less likely to reach the finish line in a reasonable period of time if they’re not in decent shape at the start. Kindergarten readiness is critical. Students unable to read well by nine or ten years old are going to struggle as they enter late elementary and middle school. And those who struggle in middle school math are less likely to complete high school.
Third, let’s experiment more with multi-age classrooms and decoupling age from grade levels—our current default checkpoints. Just as we don’t expect all runners to reach the ten-mile marker at the same time, we shouldn’t expect every kid to reach each checkpoint in the same amount of time. Anyone with more than one child already understands this. Sadly, however, grade levels in U.S. schools are driven not by what students know, but by their age and the number of hours they’ve sat at desks.
Fourth, we need to adapt to our environment. Just as a runner may face rain, headwinds, or heat, we’ll have to figure out how to run classrooms and facilitate learning to allow students to proceed as they master material. We’ll also need to get smarter about doing assessments when students have mastered the relevant learning standards and not just during state testing time in April.
Finally, we’ll need to support kids as they adapt to changing circumstances. Just as a runner may experience blisters, cramps, or an energy wall, we have to help students persevere in the face of illness, family challenges, and, yes, even pandemics. Sometimes this means counseling and medical or mental-health care. Often, though, what they need is additional time. That means an extra year, summer classes, or after-school tutoring.
Let’s free our students, teachers, and schools from the prison of time. Instead of panicking about a couple months of lost learning, let’s use one of the lessons from the pandemic and recognize that time can be used differently. Let’s do what countless others have already recommended and give every child the time and help they need to reach the K–12 finish line. Yes, this transformation is a very big deal. But every marathon begins with a single step.
