What's next for Christian education?

I don’t know what’s coming next either.

Buses? Class sizes? Cleaning? PPE? Enrollment? Staffing? Budget?

But there is one piece I do know something about.

The Digital must become part of our learning space. Of course, I am rather biased on this topic. I have spent the last decade preparing for this.

Let me share a few thoughts I have.

I see two major red flags the moment we start thinking about online learning in September.

1. You and your staff are fighting to reach the finish line. When you get there in June you and your team will be exhausted. 
2. We have only 2 months to prepare. All of my experience tells me that it takes 6 months to 2 years to create a high quality online learning experience. (And remember that what you’ve done since March is emergency remote learning, NOT online learning.)

I see four ways forward. These approaches are not mutually exclusive, in fact I think that the answer will need to be a mix of them.

• CREATE. Your staff, your school goes and creates the online experience from scratch.
• COLLABORATE. Team up with other schools and teachers and work together to create.
• CURATE. There are a great many free options available on the internet. Find them,
• CONTRACT. 
• Purchase online curriculum/tools/platforms and have your teachers use it.
• Pay another school or organisation to run your online learning for you.

The reality is that none of these four will work in isolation.

To CREATE you would need a pool of experienced and skilled staff who have a deep understanding of what quality online learning is and enough time to do the work. You don’t have either. Yet.

To COLLABORATE will require someone to organize and make decisions. What platform, what pedagogy, who owns the IP, who will pay?

To CURATE you would need to find resources that match your vision and mission for Christian education. Finding that for free will not be easy.

To CONTRACT you will have to give up some level of control over your curriculum and perhaps even the teaching itself as well as spend money. And you are still going to have a hard time finding alignment with your vision and mission.

THE WAY FORWARD

Here’s what I think.

We are going to have to COLLABORATE across multiple schools to get ready. The job is too big for any of us. For September we should CURATE and CONTRACT as much as we can in order to reduce the workload on our staff. The long term goal over the next 2 to 5 years is to give us the breathing room to build the capacity and platforms so that we can CREATE our own uniquely Christian learning experience that will meet each local community’s needs.

What’s next? Let’s go find out!

Yes, you are exhausted, but it's not Zoom's fault!

There are plenty of articles being written right now about "Zoom Fatigue". Like this one.

Don't be so quick to point a finger at Zoom. (Or Teams, or Meet, or House party, or....)

Do you remember your first year of teaching? (Or your first day on the job for those of you who are not teachers.) I do, because I went through it twice. And now so are you.

Remember when you arrived in your first classroom and all the things you had studied in teacher's college had barely prepared you for the reality? (Redeemer, you did a great job!)

• You don't even have that right now! How many of the courses you took in teacher's college prepared you to be a fully virtual teacher?

Then, remember how hard it was in that first year? How overwhelmed you were? How so many of your ideas just didn't work? Remember when that colleague from down the hall stepped in and gave you a hand, and what a difference that made? (Thanks Pauline and Faith, I wouldn't be here without you!)

• Where exactly in your school are the highly experienced teachers with years of teaching online who you can lean on? Wait, you're all first year teachers!

Remember when you were lost in the staff meeting, or forgot about your yard duty, or had a difficult meeting with a parent? Remember that experienced principal who leaned in and gave you a tool, some advice, or just plain took care of it for you? (Thanks George and Marianne! I never would have made it without you!)

• None of your principals know how to do this either!

So, you are experiencing your first year of teaching all over again. Only this time it was sprung on you as a surprise, you only had days to prepare, and you have none of the supports you would normally have.

Of course you are exhausted!

Is Zoom hard to get used to? Yes, but I don't think that's why teachers are exhausted.