Putting Aside the Easy Button
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We are in the home stretch of this often scary and surreal school year. And you have survived. Maybe just barely. Maybe you also thrived. Regardless, as the balmy days of May wain, you are likely taking a deep breath and wondering what next year might look like.
Jennifer Gonzalez reflects on what this past year has revealed about schooling in this week’s blog and podcast, “No More Easy Button: A Suggested Approach to Post-Pandemic Teaching” (16 May 2021). She offers a “new mantra: No more easy button” as a way to reframe how school was done prior to the pandemic to better serve all students and teachers. Gonzalez emphasizes she is not “talking about MORE…[but] different…re-arranging stuff, changing the way we approach teaching. NOT adding more to what you’ve already done. You have all done more than enough, especially over the last year.”
She divides her “new mantra” into the following four areas:
Lesson Design
Assessment
Inclusivity
Relationships
Gonzales provides specific ideas for what can be taken “off our plates” in favor of what can be added to improve student outcomes in each area.
We encourage you to read the entire blog or listen to the podcast (embedded in the blog), and to share it with community members, parents, and your school leaders, including Governing Board members, as teachers cannot make these changes alone.
Finally, this is our last TXTS4 Leaders for this school year. It has been an honor to provide you with resources and support through this extraordinary time in education. We hope that you will find time to re-create and refresh this summer!
Gonzalez, J. (2021, May 16). No More Easy Button: A Suggested Approach to Post-Pandemic Teaching. Cult of Pedagogy. https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/easy-button/.