Making the Tech Disappear, in Online Education

Editor’s Note: Like so many parents at this time, a number of StoryCenter staff members suddenly find themselves in the awkward position (!) of trying to simultaneously work online and oversee the the education of their young children. Public Workshop Director Rob Kershaw reached out to one of our partners in higher education, Jane Van Galen, Professor Emeritus at the School of Education Studies, University of Washington Bothell, for advice. We share part of their exchange below, with the hopes that it will spark conversations about the urgent need to create spaces of safety and support, in the context of online education.

Dear Jane,

I'm writing as a concerned parent, but also as someone very interested in who the experts are, when it comes to teaching and learning online. I was wondering if you could direct me to any resources that address the potential negative consequences of teachers trying to pivot and teach online without having been properly trained. I applaud the efforts I’ve seen school districts take to ensure all students have access to computers and connectivity, and yet, it seems that there has been less emphasis on looking at how online schooling changes the student-teacher relationship and the student to student relationship, and what skills are necessary to address the trauma, fear, and anxiety that has been building since the pandemic started. I watched my third grade son not wanting to engage online, wanting instead to stay muted and invisible (silencing himself), and I suspect he was feeling “less-than,” as some kids fiddled with virtual backgrounds and put themselves into “orbit” (probably assisted by their parents). To force teachers of young children into an online environment without offering them guidance for how to hold a safe space online is a huge issue that no one seems to be addressing …

Rob

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Dear Rob,

No one has ever tried this all-online schooling thing with little kids before. There aren’t any experts. And now, the schools are trying to figure out the human interaction on an impossible timeline, with no room for training teachers on how to hold a class of nine year olds safe and engaged in an online space.

The thing that amazes me about StoryCenter, over and over, is that you all have figured out how to make the tech essentially disappear, in service of deeply human work. You are light years ahead of most educational settings, on that. I’ve done university faculty development work for years, and it takes months and months for educators to stop thinking “tech” and start thinking about “people,” and to trust themselves to take risks. Too often, the focus is on content delivery and “here’s how the software works,” rather than pedagogy for building community.

Every decent K-12 teacher develops an entire repertoire of looks, voice cues, strategies for where they stand in the classroom, small touches, eye contact, rituals for reminding everyone who talks and who doesn’t, ways to take turns – all to keep classrooms functioning as communities, to draw out some kids and keep others from taking over. Layered on top of all of this is often the belief among teachers that technology is not innately about human relationships but is something that gets in the way of relationships, and that it should therefore be used only in very limited ways.

All of that is gone now. Teachers are just trying to figure out the software. And they’re asking really rookie-level questions in math lessons, instead of the content-focused “let’s think about the patterns we see here,” because they hate how they look and sound on their webcam, and they’re simultaneously trying to figure out how to mute and unmute students, and they don’t want to blow the switchover to their whiteboard and aren’t yet sure how that will work. They know that they’ve lost the intimacy of the classroom space, with lots of parents sitting in, and they’re wanting to discourage competition for the coolest or silliest Zoom background, and they’re concerned about the kids who might be embarrassed to reveal their living conditions through a camera. The complications are endless.

Our governor in the State of Washington just announced last Monday that schools won’t reopen this year. So many of my former students, now teachers, expressed their heartbreak on social media. I’d honestly thought that, like me, everyone already assumed they wouldn’t be going back. The reaction of these teachers made me realize many haven’t been fully invested in the deeper parts of online learning because they thought that it was temporary and were already wondering how they would restore continuity in their real classrooms.

University people have been great about sharing ideas and trying to elevate the conversation, while also being really clear that with so many people under so much stress, teachers are doing the best they can with even minimally making it into the online spaces with some degree of fluidity. Many teachers are hearing district-level updates at the same time as parents, are feeling out there on their own, are not getting their questions answered. The good news is that teachers are starting to connect with each other to work on how to improve what’s happening. I’m seeing some really useful teacher talk about the absolute need to be focused on the anxieties and fears of kids. I’m seeing people sharing the ways that they’re sustaining relationships with kids, in the virtual space.  

Experts do know that kids are resilient, that they might mute themselves in some moments, and lead in others, when they find their footing. And that it’s OK to take time to figure those things out. The big lie in school-based learning is that learning is like a factory assembly line, evenly paced and linear and incremental. Educator’s know that it’s much more often about bursts of insight in which things you “learned” earlier now make sense in a new context, and deeper and richer understanding occurs. This is the perfect time to slow down the factory assembly line thinking and instead explore how we can make sure that kids are also pursuing their own interests and questions. 

Most kids are going to be fine. You as a parent are the expert on your kids and what they need when the webcam is off, and that matters more than anything. All of this is my way of saying I have no idea how to answer your questions, but a whole lot of teachers are trying really hard to figure this out, and everyone is making it up as they go. I only wish I could help more.

Jane