Letter to the editor: Our COVID-19 pause gives us the chance to rethink education

Rethink learning

Let’s not get in a hurry reopening schools. Avoid the controversy. Let all students take a gap year for 2020-21 and give teachers a paid sabbatical year. Use the hiatus to rethink how education is delivered.

Instead of relying solely on the mass education model of classroom instruction, move to an individualized education model using online learning, tutoring and other proven methods of instruction. Children would be evaluated as to their personal educational needs and the best ways to attain them based on each child’s life situation.

Basic requirements for an individual education plan would be parental involvement, minimum curriculum standards, adequate funding and progress monitoring. Children would move forward at their own pace until their learning goals are attained.

A new educational model would be a revolutionary change for our society, one we are ready for and have a unique opportunity to accomplish. The proposed change will require national leadership and coordination of the ingenuity of state education authorities and teachers.

It can be done, and the benefits would be worthwhile.

- David Warren, Overland Park