Abstract
School preparedness for national emergencies and natural disasters has long been part of the literature on global education. The recent COVID-19 crisis, however, has demonstrated the degree to which this literature had to date been ignored by school administrators in the Global North, and dismissed as a topic mostly relevant to Global South countries facing armed conflict, political instability, and lacking resources to address natural disasters. The global pandemic has been sustained, severe, and has led to the full or partial closure of schools in many Global North jurisdictions. While emergency measures have sought to maintain basic educational services, little focus has been given to inclusion and to the needs of diverse learners. In the absence of structured responses, parental support has become a key solution for many districts, and concepts such as the learning pod have popped up in various countries. These strategies have exacerbated inequities rather than offered sustainable and socially just responses. This chapter draws lessons from these initiatives.
TopIntroduction And Context
The global spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus through 2020 and 2021 has created school closures – full and partial – as well as a general shift to online and blended instruction in much of the world (Kuhfeld et al., 2020). This has created a feeling of panic, a sense of global hesitation and confusion, as well as questioning around the efficacy of online and blended learning in the K-12 sector (Hobbs & Hawkins, 2020). Preparedness for natural disasters, conflict, and national pandemics is in fact part of the literature on Global Education, and represents a considerable body of literature (Burde et al., 2017). It has become very obvious, however, that this literature has been dismissed over the years as only relevant to Global South countries, and has rarely informed leadership and administrative preparedness in the K-12 sector. What has been observed globally is a complete collapse of processes of operation, pedagogical standards and objectives, and sustainable school leadership practices (OECD, 2020).
There have been, among the chaos, multiple initiative to re-establish a sense of normalcy in the K-12 sector during the COVID pandemic, both in the public and private sectors. Approaches have included fully online delivery, distance learning, and hybrid or bended teaching (Commonwealth of Learning, 2020). These initiatives have achieved various degrees of success depending on resources, individual school preparedness to address a societal emergency, and leadership capacity (Bozkurt, 2020; Sharfstein & Morphew, 2020). There is already emerging literature examining the multiple variables that came into play and determined the outcomes of these distinct approaches (Teacher College Columbia University 2020; Oyedotun, 2020). These outcomes were overall poor, though some institutions obviously distinguished themselves by performing better than the majority. It is clear, even at first glance, that the private sector – with its considerable resources – has generally fared much better than the public sector, and this gives rise to immediate concerns about social justice (Orwa, 2020).
The COVID crisis was also the setting for the emergence of an entirely new phenomenon: the learning pod (CBS, 2020; Macdonnell, 2020). These have crept up in both the public and the private sector. They have sought to create pockets of moderate isolation within which students could be taught face to face in segregated conditions. The learning pods were originally mostly marketed as parental co-ops. With children at home, a system which allows for shared responsibility for overseeing remote instruction and therefore frees parents in turn, immediately became appealing and allowed these parents to consider some days at least as genuinely dedicated to work. These pods represent in many way the culmination of a movement which has manifested itself in various jurisdiction over the last decade: the parent choice movement (Potterton, 2020; Powers, Topper & Potterton, 2019).
While these learning pods have yielded fair results on the scale of their individual modus operandi, they also raise significant issues around social justice more generally. They have increased the socio-economic gap, marginalized immigrant students and second language learners, and have systematically excluded students with disabilities. It can be argued that these learning pods have represented the single most significant attack against inclusive measures in the early 21st century (Wong, 2020). The ramifications of their appearance have in many ways reignited a movement of radical parent led opposition to inclusion as a philosophy; the repercussions of this phenomenon are likely to be felt for decades to come, far beyond the COVID crisis itself.
The first part of the chapter examines the phenomenon of the learning pod, and explores the emerging literature, as well as the news coverage of the phenomenon. The second part of the chapter explores the multiple dangers that have arisen as a result of these initiatives, and the way these strategies have created specific issues of marginalization for a wide variety of diverse learners. The third section of the chapter examines alternative, sustainable solutions, which can be used in a context of national emergency without threatening inclusive provisions, and without increasing social inequities among learners. It hopes to synthesize lessons that may be proactively integrated by schools in the future, as part of their preparedness for emergency.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Learning Pods: Learning pods are structures which have emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic. They are semi-formal facilitation groups which allow parents to support their children with online and blended learning. Learning pods come in many forms and shapes. At times, they are simple co-ops of working parents who share supervision of the group on alternate days. On other occasions, learning pods have involved the hiring of tutors. The learning pods allow the grouping of students in small hubs that do not breach the public health orders on social distancing.
Critical Pedagogy: Critical pedagogy is a lens on education which was coined by Paolo Freire. It argues that traditional education—the banking model—oppresses learners instead of producing critically aware thinkers. It reduces them to passive roles and serves wider hegemonic societal expectations that they should comply instead of challenge inequitable power dynamics they encounter. Critical pedagogy supports teachers as they seek to make learners aware of their oppression; it encourages them to support learner identity and voice, and to create optimal conditions for learners to empower themselves and transform their classroom and school experiences.
School Preparedness: It is a concept usually categorized within the wider field of Global Education. It is often used when exploring and analyzing the provision of educational services in contexts of emergency and conflict. It describes the degree to which school structure and leadership integrate the literature on this topic into their contingency planning.
Multiple Means of Engagement: This is one of the three principles of UDL. It relates to the affective connection learners are able to create with the content of the learning. This design principle encourages educators to move beyond teacher-centric constructs of learner engagement and to formulate their expectations with regards to engagement with optimal flexibility.
Multiple Means of Representation: This is one of the three UDL principles. It addresses the dimension of learning and teaching which focuses on providing information to the learner. This principle encourages the teacher to inject as much flexibility as possible into the resources offered to students in order to support all diverse learners.
Universal Design for Learning: A framework for inclusion which translates the social model of disability into classroom practices. It consists in creating multiple pathways for students to be able to choose with flexibility how best to demonstrate their skills. There are three principles within the UDL lens to ensure the inclusive nature of instruction and assessment: multiple means of representation, multiple means of action and expression, and multiple means of engagement.
Multiple Means of Action and Expression: This is one of the three UDL principles. It addresses the dimension of learning which relates to the way learners participate, contribute, complete assessment, and create content. The principle supports teachers as they integrate choice and multiple pathways in all activities which require students to produce information.