Perseverance, independence, grit: Teachers point to lessons kids learned despite COVID
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COVID-19 learning loss
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With so much negative news about lost learning during the pandemic, several Kansas City area teachers are pleading for a shift in conversation.
They believe that focusing on the deficits will only harm children as they continue to grapple with the short- and long-term effects of the pandemic. And they say that students learned new and valuable lessons that could shift how educators view teaching for years to come.
“I think there’s some danger in approaching students with the attitude of, ‘well, in a normal year, you would have been here and now you’re behind.’ I think that’s harmful and not productive,” said Olathe Northwest High School teacher Angie Powers. “Nobody would want to walk into a classroom and hear that you’re behind. We need to do our best as an educational system to instead find the places where we can really support that student.”
Powers said that her students learned resiliency and independence as they dealt with online-only classes, shifting schedules and a loss of typical school experiences last year.
“Too often, we are ignoring all of these opportunities we’ve had for learning. I had students tell me they learned new skills, or learned to play the ukulele, because they were at home,” Powers said. “And we had even more opportunities for students to learn perseverance, some people would call that grit, this last year. How we respond to difficulty is a huge lesson to learn.”
Teachers said that their students were taught more “soft skills” that will benefit them for years to come, including in their careers.
“As we watch so many people in the business world who are now doing work remotely or doing a hybrid approach, these skills of working independently are so important,” said Shawnee Mission Spanish teacher Linda Sieck. “I don’t think the business world will back away from that. So we’ll have kids who experienced this in real time and they’ll be able to hit the ground running.”
Powers said more so than in past years, students also learned how to advocate for themselves.
“I had students who would never raise their hand in class. But then they found new ways to advocate for their own learning. They would send me a message on Zoom or send me an email and bring up concerns. I think that will stick for many students, and that has been excellent,” she said.
Barbara Casey, a fifth grade Shawnee Mission teacher, said she hopes some changes made during the pandemic will last, such as focusing on the needs of individual students, rather than schoolwide test scores.
“I think that’s going to be a great benefit,” she said. “Every child has different needs. And this pandemic has really accentuated that. So it’s making us focus on looking at the whole child and individualized learning plans, rather than test scores. And really trying to meet the needs of each individual child, rather than looking at everything collectively.”
This story was originally published August 25, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
