MindShift

Report Offers Clearest Picture Yet Of Pandemic’s Impact On Student Learning

Tue, 01 Dec 2020 16:51:38 GMT

A sweeping new review of national test data suggests the pandemic-driven jump to online learning has had little impact on children’s reading growth and has only somewhat slowed gains in math. That positive news comes from the testing nonprofit NWEA and covers nearly 4.4 million U.S. students in grades three through eight. But the report also includes a worrying caveat: Many of the nation’s most vulnerable students are missing from the data.

“Preliminary fall data suggests that, on average, students are faring better than we had feared,” says Beth Tarasawa, head of research at NWEA, in a news release accompanying the report.

“While there’s some good news here, we want to stress that not all students are represented in the data, especially from our most marginalized communities.”

Until now, estimates of learning loss have been just that — estimates or projections, based on the kind of academic backsliding schools see after a long summer. This report offers the clearest picture yet of the impact that the past eight months of disruption have had on student learning.

The MAP Growth test

The data at the heart of NWEA’s report come from what’s known to teachers and children alike as the MAP Growth test — a check-in assessment used to measure kids’ math and reading skills that’s generally given three times a year, in fall, winter and spring.

While millions of students took these MAP tests in the winter of 2020, few took them again in the spring as schools raced (and many struggled) to provide learning online. But this fall, nearly 4.4 million children did take the test, either from home or back in a classroom. And the results give researchers a vital new data point: a measure of where students are right now.

Tarasawa and her research team studied the data a few different ways. First, they compared students’ performance this fall — in, say, third-grade reading — with the performance of a different group of students who took third-grade reading in the fall of 2019, before the coronavirus pandemic.

Tarasawa tells NPR that with this method of comparison, the results in reading were “relatively optimistic” because “kids on average are performing similarly to how [other children] did pre-pandemic.” In math, the current pandemic class of students performed about 5 to 10 percentile points lower than the pre-pandemic comparison group — what Tarasawa describes as a “moderate” drop.

In addition to comparing two different groups of students, researchers also studied students’ individual growth over time, looking at where they were when they took the MAP test in the winter of 2020 and comparing it with where they are now, in the fall of 2020.

“We saw, on average, students showed growth in both math and reading across the grade levels in almost all grades,” says Tarasawa. “Most students made some learning gains in both reading and math since COVID started.”

In short, students kept learning when schools shifted online; they just didn’t learn quite as much in math as they likely would have if there had never been a pandemic.

Mitigating the learning loss that is happening will still require patience and a thoughtful approach, says Aaliyah Samuel, NWEA’s executive vice president of government affairs and partnerships.

“Addressing the unfinished learning is going to be a matter of time. We really need to be thinking about the supports and interventions for kids over at least a two- or three-year runway.”

Depending on the depth of learning lost, school districts could consider a range of options, including extending the school year or even enlisting a volunteer tutoring corps.

Roughly a quarter of students missing

The “good” news (and the not-so-good news) in this report also comes with an important and worrying red flag.

In an effort to be sure their 4.4 million-student sample, albeit large, was also representative of America’s classrooms, NWEA researchers dug into the demographics of this new data set and compared it with the earlier fall 2019 test data — a sample of nearly 5.2 million children.

What they found, Tarasawa says, is that roughly a quarter of students were missing — meaning they didn’t take the MAP test this fall — and that these children are “more likely to be black and brown, more likely to be from high-poverty schools and more likely to have lower performance in the first place.”

The researchers cite a host of possible reasons these students weren’t able to take the latest test, including a lack of technology or Internet access at home as well as the possibility that some children have disengaged from school more broadly.

“This is screaming that we have to be very cautious,” says Tarasawa, about interpreting the relatively optimistic results in reading and even math as evidence that the kids are all right.

“It’s just like any time you get a new puzzle,” Samuel says. “The first thing you do is … you start to look for the corners because those are usually the easiest to put together first.”

That’s where we’re at now, she explains: building the edges of the puzzle.

How Understanding Middle School Friendships Can Help Students

Mon, 30 Nov 2020 09:37:28 GMT

When an accusation like “you don’t care” hurtles an adult’s way, the inner turmoil of adolescence can seem purely excruciating. But these reactions actually stem from a positive force, says Ronald Dahl, who founded the Center for the Developing Adolescent at the University of California, Berkeley: a unique drive to find meaning in life and relationships. And no relationship, parents and educators know well, is as central to the moment-to-moment wellbeing of most tweens and teens as friendship.

“Spending time with their friends isn’t just a pastime,” says Mitch Prinstein, professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of North Carolina. “It’s actually something that they need for their brain development and identity formation. They don’t know who they are until they see themselves through their peers’ eyes. So there is a lot of testing out new roles, new relationships.” It can all be quite stressful.

Think about how crushed young teens can feel when a formerly close friend becomes distant or the shame that can follow disclosure of sensitive information to a mere acquaintance. Knowing what studies show—for example, that humans tend to have frenemies and we often confide intimacies in people we aren’t that close to—can assuage adolescents’ fear of being abnormal. Frank discussions like these are important to have at school, since parents of seventh and eighth graders have been shown to talk to their kids about peer interactions less than parents of elementary-age kids do. Knowing what’s normative can reduce the stress of peer interactions, leaving more bandwidth for learning. In fact, experts estimate that the quality of relationships with peers accounts for 33 to 40 percent of the variance in achievement in middle school.

Characteristics of Healthy Friendships

Among adults, healthy friendships are “voluntary, personal, positive, and persistent,” Lydia Denworth writes in her 2020 book Friendship, “and they usually assume some measure of equality.” Kids should know that they can decide whether to invest in a relationship or not, and there’s a mathematical formula for making that call: “the satisfaction and commitment we derive should be greater than the investment we make and the alternatives we forgo.”

Miriam Romero, a public school teacher in San Francisco, puts it this way to her fifth-grade students: “It’s okay to walk away or take a break from relationships that aren’t supportive.”

People make friend connections differently

Yet not all net-positive friendships look the same. Sociologist Sarah H. Matthews of Cleveland State University talks about three distinct styles of friendship: independent, discerning, and acquisitive. Independent people tend to be happy socializing casually with whoever’s around, while “discerning people are deeply tied to a few very close friends,” Denworth explains. The third sort, acquisitive people, “collect a variety of friends as they move through life. They are open to meeting new people, but keep up old relationships, too.”

Humans also “vary in their tendency to introduce their friends to one another,” she reports. Just because a friend wants to hangout with someone else doesn’t mean they don’t value you.

Cliques, or “friend groups” as teenagers call them, differ too. “They can be hierarchical, or they can be roughly egalitarian,” Denworth says. “They can be tightly knit or looser and more porous.”

Media often showcases the discerning style of friendship and close, exclusive groups, making kids long for besties like the ones in “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.” Informing teenagers that human friendship isn’t perfect all the time can ease anxiety that their own ties are inferior.

Friendships are about fit, not feats

For humans of all ages, says Brett Laursen, a child psychology professor at Florida Atlantic University, the research is unequivocal: “Concordance is the foundation of friendship.” Similarity predicts both friendship formation and friendship survival. (Conformity then can be seen as an attempt to both achieve and maintain similarity in order to win and keep friends, respectively.)

In studies, “friends who differed on peer acceptance, physical aggression, and school competence had relationships that ended sooner than friends who were similar on these attributes.” Notice what Laursen, who is also editor in chief of the International Journal of Behavioral Development, isn’t saying. It’s not that rejects, ruffians, and nerds are inherently unlikeable; spending time with them may just be more appealing to other rejects, ruffians, and nerds. Another study extended this concept to “internalizing symptoms,” things like acting anxious, ruminating excessively, and self-consciousness. Those behaviors decreased the longevity of a friendship when only one friend displayed them, but the effect disappeared when both kids struggled. As Laursen put it, “a bad habit is not necessarily a turnoff as long as both friends share the same habit.”

While similarity on undesirable traits shouldn’t be the primary goal in forming friendships—after all, humans of all ages get the most out of pairing with friends who share their positive traits—tweens should understand that doing friendship right is about finding someone who suits you best, not winning over objectively wonderful or high-status peers.

Friendship ambivalence and churn is completely normal

While some friendships are overwhelmingly positive and others clearly negative, “ambivalent ties make up a sizable part of our social world—almost half,” Denworth writes. In other words, frenemies are normal.

What’s more, about half of friend nominations are not reciprocated. Having a best friend who also nominates you as their best friend, one study says, has a positive impact on GPA and increases the feeling of school belonging, which in turn increases motivation, yet having your friend rank someone else as a better friend is also entirely normal.

Friendships that wane are too. In one study, two-thirds of students reported changes in their friends across sixth grade. Another confirmed that only about half of an adolescent’s friendships are maintained over a school year, and in that study, only one percent of friendships formed in seventh grade were still intact by senior year of high school. Phyllis Fagell, a school counselor in Washington, D.C. and author of “Middle School Matters,” tells her students: “Every single one of you is going to get rejected at some point, and it’s not because there’s something wrong with you. This is just a time when kids are figuring out how to choose—and be—a good friend.” And that’s true for both girls and boys, researchers report, having found little sex difference in friendship stability.

Part of it, Denworth explains, is that what more mature adolescents require of friends differs from the needs of children and early adolescents: “Play turns into hanging around. Sharing turns into helping. Loyalty and intimacy become more central requirements.” Ms. Romero, the San Francisco teacher, says, “It’s very difficult for children who have had the same friends since they were very young to know how to handle it when one or both of them are outgrowing a friendship or both just need different things from the relationship in time.” She does her best to be aware of social dynamics in the classroom, but says, “it’s often important to hear from past teachers, and parents too, to contextualize current relationships.”

Administrators can use this same information to stabilize friendships. Though friendship churn in middle school is to be expected, friendship turnover has been shown to decrease academic functioning. Professor Jaana Juvonen, a UCLA psychologist, theorizes that both losing friends and making new ones takes energy and focus. She says educators who want to see a bump in test scores should consider scaffolding—by, for example, assigning known friends to the same classes and explicitly teaching relationship skills—to reduce friendship instability, especially since, for tweens and young teens, it can mimic the intensity of falling in love and suffering heartbreak.

Spilling tea isn’t the worst thing that ever happened

We all know gossip isn’t just an adolescence thing. (It’s not necessarily an antisocial thing either.) But a child who has spilled the beans about themselves or a friend can feel like they’re the first and worst to do so.

One Harvard sociologist found that humans often confide in people they aren’t that close to, Denworth reports, quoting Mario Luis Small:

One reason we do this is to explicitly avoid our usual intimates. “The guy who has cancer doesn’t want to tell his wife because he doesn’t want to worry her.” . . . Second, people look for others with similar experience or professional expertise. That could be a doctor or a therapist, or a relative stranger. “People favored empathy more than they feared being hurt ….” The third reason is the simplest of all. “They just talked to the person because they were there.”

Kids do have to learn about discernment and loyalty in relationships, but it helps no one for them to hold themselves to superhuman standards.

It can be good to fight

That’s true not just of secret keeping, but fighting too. Scott Gest, professor and chair of human services at the Curry School of Education and Human Development, says conflict between friends often gets a bum rap, but it serves an important developmental function. Research shows that conflicts between reciprocal friends occur just as frequently as between non-friends, he says, but the resolution of conflict between friends tends to be more equitable, because they’re motivated to continue the relationship. These types of skirmishes also lead to “increases in the quality of children’s moral reasoning, presumably because they’re motivated to understand their friend’s point of view,” says Gest.

Popularity

For young children, likeability is key, but in middle school “it’s not just about the kids you like anymore,” Mitch Prinstein says. Adolescent brains become activated in new ways and neurochemicals make tweens obsessed with the other kind of popularity, status. That’s not necessarily bad news for middle school friendship. “In the United States, status and likability were very distinct attributes—there was only modest overlap between those teenagers high in one quality and those high in the other,” Prinstein writes in the book Popular: “But in China, adolescents who had high status were often also those who were judged to be the most likable.” That means educators should be able to channel this biological imperative for good, by creating a school culture where treating each other with compassion and inclusion has social currency.

Unsurprisingly, when schools successfully do that, “grades go up, attention goes up, wellness goes up, and other school outcomes go up,” Prinstein says. It’s easier said than done though. Laursen recommends a targeted approach with teachers identifying the most influential small friend groups in each class and getting those kids on board with new norms first. “House” programs offer another route to a more inclusive school culture.

When talking directly to tweens and teens about popularity, it’s best to be clear: There are two types of popularity. Those who are likable—who, for example, cooperate, share, ask questions, and listen well—tend to be more successful as adults, growing up to be employed and get promotions, Prinstein says. High-status tweens are more likely to abuse substances and have unsatisfying friendships and romantic relationships as adults. Prinstein boils it down for teens: “The long term outcome of treating other people basically kindly and getting people to like you is more important than getting people to think that you’re cool.”

It will also likely offer them comfort to know that “being disliked in the past will affect us only insomuch as we allow it to dictate how we behave today,” and “we all have an opportunity to become more likable—maybe hundreds of opportunities each day, in fact,” as Prinstein says. And there are upsides to growing up with low status. Research has shown these folks often end up being “perceived by others as more empathetic and more sensitive in social situations.”

Plus, humans don’t all want influential friends. Denworth says some people prefer a lower status friend’s undivided attention while others want to be well-connected. Psychologist Wendy Mogel says pointing that out to teens can validate friendships based on likeability. She also tells parents: “You don’t want your kid to be in the tippy-top tier of the social pyramid, as that’s a fluid and volatile place to be. They just need one friend they can be themselves with.”

The value of cross-group friendships

Just who that one person is ordinarily depends on proximity and perceived similarity. But friendships across ethnicity, class, and gender have all been associated with better academic outcomes, Juvonen says. Students with friendships that bridge these divides—as well as differences in body size, ability, and sexuality—report lower levels of peer victimization. They’re also more likely to have a complex social identity (e.g., Latina, basketball player, sister, gamer) rather than drawing all of their self-worth from one aspect of themselves.

But even in ethnically diverse middle schools, less than half of sixth-graders have at least one cross-class friendship. Girls are more likely to make cross-class friendships than boys, Juvonen has found, and white students are less likely to do so than all other ethnic groups.

Forming cross-group friendships often depends on shifting the focus from patent similarities to ones that are less so. Author Sarah Shun-lien Bynum recently explained to the New Yorker of her novella “Many a Little Makes”: “As I was writing about the girls’ friendship, I was trying to focus more on other sources of commonality, other lines of alliance: being unathletic, liking cake batter, getting one’s period.” Teachers can help move the needle both implicitly, by pointing out less obvious similarities like these, and explicitly, by explaining the data behind the value of friendships based on internal similarities and urging kids to judge each other on actions and attitudes rather than appearance.

Gendered friendship is a construct

One good place to start? Gender. The modern stereotype features women who share their innermost secrets and rally to one another’s side while men stick to sporting events and stiff back slaps. But Denworth lends some historical perspective: “If you consult Aristotle and Montaigne, it was men who believed they were most capable of deep friendship. ‘Men have friends, women have acquaintances,’ went a quote collected in Calcutta … in the 1960s.”
Contemporary research shows: “Men and women define the importance of friendship in a very similar fashion. They want to have friends who are authentic and loyal and trustworthy equally.” In class discussion, teachers can ask students to think critically about the way social mores influence their friendships. They can also suggest reviving opposite-sex friendships, which get a lot less common around second grade.

Social media and friendship

Remember that status addiction phenomenon? “This predilection seems to be becoming even more pronounced now that teens can enter a social rewards lottery with every mouse click on social media,” Prinstein says. Although more than half of teenagers have made a new friend online, according to a large 2015 survey from Pew, Denworth points to the work of statistician and research scientist Ariel Shensa: “Young adults who had a larger percentage of real-life friends on social media, meaning greater overlap, were less likely to have depression. ‘If we use social media as a tool to extend in-person social relationships, great,’ Shensa says.” But kids should know that online-only friendships are less likely to make the cut after carefully weighing costs and benefits using the friendship formula.

If you’re lonely, you’re not the only one

Eighty percent of adolescents experience loneliness at school, and about 12 percent of 6,000 sixth-graders in one of Juvonen’s studies were not named as a friend by anyone. Students with no friends “receive lower grades and are less academically engaged,” she says. Research has also tied friendlessness and exclusion to truancy, inability to focus, deficits in working memory, and lack of classroom participation.

Teenagers should know the redemptive power of their friendship for these classmates. In one study, Juvonen found that a high quality friendship right at the time of transitioning to high school could protect rejected youth “from engaging in unsupportive behaviors within romantic relationships” down the line. In another one, she concluded that hanging out with a friend who had experienced victimization alleviated a bullied adolescent’s own victimization-related distress. Knowing the power of just one friendship to serve as a buffer that disrupts the connection between loneliness and negative outcomes, may encourage some teenagers to reach out more.

Ms. Romero says, “It’s sad to see how many hands go up” when she asks “who’s experienced something like this,” during a short unit that includes reading the books “My Secret Bully” and “Just Kidding” in preparation for middle school. But, “it is also so powerful to open the Pandora’s box on these taboo topics and start to talk about taking control and having agency.”

It’s a shame teachers like her have to improvise, Gest says, but when it comes to adolescents, schools tend to “become very focused on drug use prevention or sex ed, and don’t really focus on the positive dimensions of relating with peers that might actually support those prevention goals.” He sees it as a marketing issue: “If you focus on a middle school curriculum that would build emotional regulation and social relationships, no schools would buy it. If you repackage the exact same curriculum and call it something about drug prevention, it will sell.”

The experts’ bottom line when it comes to teaching about healthy friendship in middle schools?

Just say yes.

This article is part of the “Friendship in Schools” series, which explores the complexities of friendship at various stages of learning.

Gail Cornwall works as a mother and writer in San Francisco. At various stages of her life she has been considered a reject, ruffian, and nerd. Her daughter was in Miriam Romero’s class at Rooftop School last year.

How Mindfulness During Class Can Help Students and Teachers

Mon, 23 Nov 2020 09:54:11 GMT

This story about mindfulness in the classroom was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

Doug Worthen guided his small class of ninth graders at Middlesex School through an exercise designed to focus their attention. On his screen, he saw the students sitting outside or at desks and lounging across their beds as they joined their weekly mindfulness class online. One by one the students clicked off their cameras, each square became a white and gray icon and Worthen began the meditation.

“Notice where your attention is,” he said, prompting them to guide their attention back to their “home base” — the sounds around them or body sensations — when it drifted.

At the end of the meditation, the students were guided to open their eyes. They turned their screens back on and Worthen posed a question to the group. “I learned that my attention isn’t very stable,” a student said. She estimated that her attention was focused on her home base 14 percent of the time.

In this required 12-week “Introduction to Mindfulness” course taught by Worthen, a full-time mindfulness instructor, students at the private boarding school in Concord, Massachusetts, will learn how to develop awareness of their thoughts and body sensations, sit with difficult emotions and direct their attention to the present moment.

Mindfulness, an umbrella term for a range of practices, is about observing your emotions and state of mind, without judgment. This can be done during sitting meditation, walking meditation, activities such as yoga and even while eating.

Though few public schools have the budget to hire a full-time mindfulness teacher like Worthen, many have been introducing mindfulness in the classroom since the coronavirus pandemic shuttered buildings and thrust children into their at times stressful and chaotic home environments. Some teachers are integrating discussions about emotions into daily lessons or starting class with a short mindfulness practice to help everyone feel centered and prepared to learn, while others are sharing mindfulness apps and using online mindfulness videos.

The depression rate for K-12 students was already on the rise before the coronavirus pandemic brought increased financial stress, sickness and death into the lives of thousands of American families. In a survey, since the start of the pandemic, 50 percent of students reported worsened mental health, 35 percent said their family relationships were worse and a majority reported feeling “lonely” and “anxious.” In another survey, 50 percent or more of the students said they were worried about losing connections with friends, missing out on scholarship and job opportunities and how Covid-19 would affect their future employment and college plans.

Megan Sweet is the senior director of program and impact at Mindful Schools, a nonprofit organization that trains educators to teach mindfulness in the classroom. During the coronavirus pandemic, she said, “this idea of tending to the emotional well-being and support of staff and students has gone from something that was a backburner item to something that is in front-of-mind for educators and school leaders.”

In late March, Mindful Schools created a free mindfulness series for kids, in response to Covid-19, which was shared 87,000 times on social media, a record for them. Additionally, they offered an online event to address educator burnout and highlight the benefits of self-compassion. They noted that it drew 10 times the organization’s usual number of attendees. The Holistic Life Foundation, a 20-year-old nonprofit in Baltimore that teaches mindfulness to kids, said that they extended their reach by a factor of 10, from 10,000 in 2019 to over 100,000 students this fall. Similarly, the mindfulness app Headspace for Educators reported that they experienced a 77 percent increase in teacher sign-ups from mid-March to now.

Mindfulness school programs have been shown to improve young people’s emotional well-being, academic performance and relationships. In one study in Chicago of almost 200 elementary public school students, listening to 10 minutes of audio-recorded mindfulness daily for eight weeks improved students’ grades in reading and science. In a survey of sixth grade Boston charter school students by researchers at MIT, the students self-reported less stress and fewer feelings of sadness and anger after eight weeks of in-person guided mindfulness. The MIT researchers also found that students’ brain imaging showed less reactivity to negative images, compared to before they started the mindfulness program. (More brain reactivity to negative events and images is associated with increased risk for depression.) In a review of 61 studies, researchers found that mindfulness in schools resulted in improved cognitive and social-emotional functioning.

But experts also caution that the science supporting mindfulness in the classroom is not yet conclusive, largely because the wide variety in how it’s taught can make it difficult to track its effectiveness. Mindfulness programs can vary widely from school to school — from audio recordings of meditation instruction played a few minutes each day, to entire classes for mindfulness and anything in between. “There’s a lot of ambiguity about which specific programs work, and who they work for,” said Michael Mrazek, director of research at the Center for Mindfulness and Human Potential at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

“Interventions that might work in one setting, as they get scaled up and get delivered to other schools and in other states, don’t necessarily maintain that same level of effectiveness,” Mrazek said.

At Middlesex, a college-preparatory school that attracts students hailing from across the country, there was a large shift in the school’s culture after introducing mindfulness classes. Worthen said, “You would notice there was a general decline in disciplinary issues. We see kids not staying up as late, getting better sleep.” The students agreed it was working as well. In a survey, they said the practice helped them cope with stress and could be applied in their daily lives, and that they would continue using it in the future.

Ben Painter, a Middlesex graduate, took Worthen’s class in 2012 following a concussion. He said the class not only helped him with what he expected it to — memory and focus — but also aided his communication and emotional awareness. He said the biggest impact was “the hope it gave me for what the world could look like,” having experienced a loving community built around mindfulness and compassion. The Middlesex mindfulness program was so impactful on him, in fact, that he is now a director at The Mindfulness Director Initiative — an organization that works to make mindfulness instruction accessible in schools across the country.

What works at a small private boarding school in the Northeast certainly may not work everywhere, but school leaders in very different settings are implementing mindfulness with students experiencing crisis and trauma — and the educators are seeing even more profound effects.

In 2001, brothers Atman and Ali Smith, who grew up learning mindfulness from their parents, and Andres Gonzalez, all recent college graduates, volunteered to teach mindfulness to a group of 10 to 20 students at Windsor Hills Elementary, a small Baltimore City public school. Their goal was to restore a sense of community and mentorship in their neighborhood. In the early days, they broke up a lot of fights. Before they could start class, Ali Smith said, “We had to go pick up half the kids from detention.”

But over time the disciplinary problems decreased, and as they expanded the program to other schools, principals and staff kept asking them to come back.

“That’s when we first knew,” he said, “this stuff actually really does work. The kids were learning to self-regulate.” Four years in, they received a grant from the Family League of Baltimore City to pay themselves for their teaching.

By the fall of 2020, the nonprofit they created, the Holistic Life Foundation (HLF), had reached 100,000 students across the Baltimore City and County public and private schools and other schools across the country. In an independent study of middle school students that participated in HLF’s programming, a team of researchers found that HLF’s students had improved impulse control and emotional regulation. A second study found that HLF’s mindfulness lessons decreased rumination and unwanted thoughts and increased students’ emotional stability.

One of the schools they work with, Robert W. Coleman Elementary, hasn’t had a suspension in six years, according to the principal. Another school they consistently work with, Patterson High School, has had suspensions decrease “dramatically.”

Many of their students experience high levels of trauma, and the Foundation has tailored their mindfulness program to deal with that context. Baltimore, a majority Black city, experiences five times the national rate of violence and two times the national poverty rate along with ongoing issues of systemic racism. Coleman Elementary is located in the heart of the area where protests over the death of Freddie Gray took place in 2015.

To customize the mindfulness curriculum for children here, the Foundation takes a trauma-informed approach.

“We do a lot of movement first to make the kids safe in their bodies,” said Ali Smith. “You can’t ask a kid who’s been through heavy amounts of trauma to be alone with their thoughts if they don’t even feel safe in their body first.”

Smith and others guide the students through yoga and tai chi exercises before instructing them in a breathing exercise. The students sit on the floor, with their legs folded underneath them, and close their eyes. They are instructed to focus on their breath, and when their attention strays from the breath, to bring it back gently, without judgment of themselves for getting distracted. Then the students participate in discussion and end with another meditation.

The Holistic Life Foundation in Baltimore uses a “reciprocal teaching model” in which the students eventually teach the practice themselves, which encourages them to use it in their daily lives. “We also make sure the kids have fun,” Ali Smith said, by incorporating movement and pop culture, such as celebrities’ testimonials about mindfulness, and by being excited about mindfulness themselves. “The kids can feel that,” he said.

“When you’re dealing with heavy amounts of trauma, heavy amounts of stress and hopelessness, it can become overwhelming,” said Ali Smith. “You can’t physically get out of where you are, but you can mentally get some space,” he said.

A trauma-informed approach is just one of the best practices that’s recommended for educators teaching mindfulness in the classroom.

“To be really impactful about teaching mindfulness to kids, you need to practice yourself,” said Sweet, of Mindful Schools. Educators are recommended to have a personal mindfulness practice for at least six months before taking their training, and then spend 300 hours learning how to teach mindfulness to students. Like math or science, mindfulness is a subject best taught by someone who knows the material. “It’s more effective, and safer,” Sweet said.

Patricia Jennings, professor of education at the University of Virginia, says mindfulness should never be used as a disciplinary response, because of the negative association students may develop with it. Instead, she recommends integrating mindfulness into behavioral response programs, by teaching students emotional awareness and helping them feel empowered to respond to challenges.

For schools that want to offer mindfulness but don’t have the money or resources to hire someone or provide training, digital programs with recordings may be helpful, and can offer customization for students. Some apps ask the students a series of questions about how they’re feeling and what they want to focus on, for example, and provide a specific meditation based on their responses.

Regardless of the specifics, experts agree that mindfulness in schools should always be optional. While Worthen’s mindfulness class is required, he said, “The invitation is always there for them to not participate.”

Mindfulness could be a valuable tool for schools as they try to help students navigate the traumatic effects of the Covid-19 crisis. But what works in the classroom doesn’t always translate to online.

Typically, in a class taught by the Holistic Life Foundation, the students are spread out on yoga mats across a classroom or gym. During the pandemic, it’s all virtual.

Trying to meditate at home with siblings who are also learning online and parents who are working from home might seem difficult. But ultimately, Smith said, the goal of his organization is for students to learn how to use mindfulness at home as a way to help with the other challenges they face in their daily lives. “They still have to be able to incorporate the practice at home no matter what’s going on there,” Smith said.

At Middlesex, Worthen said the home practice environment has mostly been a positive for his students, who often feel more comfortable fully participating in the mindfulness exercises at home: “They’re in a space where they can feel really safe and can drop in to a level that might be harder in a classroom,” he said, because, in school, “they want to look cool, or they’re a little guarded around closing their eyes and meditating.”

But as he guided his online class, many of the students seemed distracted during the discussions. Some talked to others in the room with them and some peered downward, as if they were looking at their phones. Only one student unmuted herself to share her experience while the rest opted to participate via chat.

“It’s harder for people to share,” Worthen said. It can be hard enough to get students to participate in nonvirtual classes, he said; online, students have to unmute themselves to speak up, a process which can deter them from participating.

Another downside of remote instruction is that it’s difficult for Worthen to know how his students are doing. “It’s harder to attune to what’s coming up for people,” he said.

Sweet, at Mindful Schools, has heard the same concerns from many teachers she works with. “A lot of kids have their cameras off,” she said. “A lot of those nonverbal cues that educators rely on to get a sense of how students are doing, and informal conversations, those aren’t happening.” To better adapt mindfulness instruction for online, the group is working with educators to improve their online support and presentation styles and developing creative ways to check in with students, like asking students to use weather words such as sunny and cloudy to describe how they’re feeling and encouraging different ways of sharing, like using the chat box or giving a thumbs up.

But the main strategy is to help educators feel calmer, which helps students feel calmer.

Just seeing their teachers breathing with them online and being fully present with them, she said, “does still help to regulate the kids and make them feel more grounded, and stable.”

Tips for Cultivating Healthy School Friendships Online

Fri, 20 Nov 2020 09:08:33 GMT

Almost everything we know about friendship in schools was learned from research conducted in classrooms and intended for use during in-person education. Now that many children in the United States are learning at a distance, teachers and parents need new strategies to make the most of peer relationships. Phyllis Fagell, a school counselor in Washington, D.C. and author of Middle School Matters, spoke with MindShift about how best to support existing friendships, promote the formation of new ones, encourage healthy friendship, and put friendships to work as an academic resource. The exchange has been lightly edited for clarity.

Let’s say we have two students who were buddies last year. How can schools support that relationship from a distance?

One of the challenges of growing up even before coronavirus is that friendships cycle in and out. They’re at once critically important to kids and also fragile, because kids are learning skills such as empathy and flexibility, and many don’t yet have a strong sense of self. They’re trying on new identities and moving between peer groups. Now add on remote learning and the heightened sensitivity that comes from not being able to smooth out misunderstandings in person, plus the awkwardness of interacting through a screen when you may not be that adept at carrying on an insightful conversation in person, and then the layers of stress they’re feeling about what’s happening in their lives and the world. That cumulative anxiety can lead to more impulsivity and greater potential for conflict.

I think explaining all of this to kids is helpful, both in terms of normalizing that everyone is a bit insecure and out of sorts, and in terms of communicating why they need to assume positive intent, and pause before posting or doing anything out of anger.

Schools can be thoughtful about how they pair kids for group projects and make kids aware of their resources, too. A counselor could help them talk through a dispute if they need mediation support, or offer emotional support to a student who is feeling left behind by a friend, all over Zoom.

This fall marks the first time most kids met unknown classmates virtually. For some this is a transition year from elementary to middle school. How can educators promote new friendships? Do you anticipate digital interactions making it harder or easier to form friendships across traditional chasms like gender, race, and class?

Schools can thoughtfully pair families who already are a part of the community with new families, incorporating buddy programs, and host “mix it up” virtual lunches to expand kids’ peer groups. I actually think this can happen more organically during remote learning than face-to-face instruction. It’s more daunting to sit with strangers at a table in a crowded school cafeteria than to attend a virtual lunch with a visiting speaker or to participate in a mixed-grade book club online. Once you have kids with different backstories in a Zoom room, you can do some icebreakers and get-to-know-you activities. Schools also can ask kind kids with social capital to take a leadership role, brainstorming ideas for ways to reach out to kids who may be feeling isolated.

To promote cross-group friendships, schools can offer affinity groups, interest-based clubs, speakers, facilitated lunches, read-alouds, game or movie nights, and other structured, inclusive activities that give kids a reason to meet up online.

We know friendships are more likely to grow to be healthy and strong with in-person contact rather than just social media interaction. How can we help students maintain healthy boundaries and patterns of interaction at a distance?

Not all social media is bad. If kids are using social media to FaceTime a friend or work on a social justice issue or connect with a grandparent, that’s a lot different than just passively scrolling through other kids’ feeds while feeling bad about yourself. I’d also be concerned about a child spending a tremendous amount of time doomscrolling through grim news feeds. Returning to the idea that kids are hypersensitive right now, experiencing intense emotions, and perhaps acting more impulsively because they’re more anxious or want attention, we want to focus on preventing them from blowing up their friendships.

Schools can remind kids to sit on their hands long enough to consider whether what they’re about to post or say could come back to haunt them or could hurt someone else. They can urge kids to set themselves up for success by removing technology from their bedrooms or refraining from interacting when they’re tired. They can have class contracts with agreed upon norms for behavior. They can be told that the school will hold them accountable for out-of-school actions that end up bleeding into the digital classroom.

The goal is to create a culture where kids want to look out for the more vulnerable among them, whether that’s a new student or a child who may have some social skills deficits.

Some strategies have been proven effective for harnessing the motivating power of friendship for learning. Can these efforts translate to distance learning? How?

This is where teachers can be aware of and sensitive to children with different strengths and challenges. When kids complain about themselves or someone else, I like to ask them to come up with two strengths for every so-called weakness. A kid with attention issues might bring dynamism and energy to the classroom. A kid who is distractible might have sudden bursts of insight. If you can see that a student is being ostracized or getting in their own way—maybe making funny faces or getting annoyingly off-topic on Zoom—talk to them individually about how you can support them. Try to point out their strengths authentically in front of peers, too.

Work with their parents as well. Now more than ever, this is going to have to be a home-school partnership. If you use Zoom breakout rooms, pop in frequently to ensure no one is hurling insults or dominating a project. On a broader level, make sure the books you read, the videos you show, the examples you use, and speakers you bring in reflect the diversity in your classroom in a positive way.

This article is part of the “Friendship in Schools” series, which explores the complexities of friendship at various stages of learning.

What the Research Says About the Academic Power of Friendship

Wed, 18 Nov 2020 10:17:04 GMT

For years, education research focused on time-on-task as a measure of effective instruction, says Scott Gest, a professor at the University of Virginia. Through that lens, friends in elementary school appeared to be a negative, an impediment to focus and a catalyst for disruption. Even when the value of strong social ties gained recognition, friendships stood to the side conceptually, as developmentally important but not germane to academics. Yet recent research has confirmed two things many teachers have long believed to be true. First, social-emotional benefits and academic ones don’t operate in isolation. Second, friendships in elementary school can be harnessed to drive academic growth.

Students with no friends “receive lower grades and are less academically engaged compared to those with even just one friend,” reported Jaana Juvonen, a psychology professor at UCLA, and her colleagues in a 2019 issue of the journal Educational Psychologist. This is a point that bears repeating, says Florida Atlantic University’s Brett Laursen, editor in chief of the International Journal of Behavioral Development: “There is a massive gap between being friended and friendless,” he says, and “studies that are as close to causation as you can get” show that becoming friendless produces a meaningful decline in mental health. Research has also tied friendlessness and exclusion to truancy, susceptibility to peer pressure, inability to focus, deficits in working memory, and lack of classroom participation.

On the flip side, friends can make mundane tasks more fun, reports Lydia Denworth in Friendship. Her 2020 book catalogues research on the many benefits of “life’s fundamental bond.” For example, when they smell familiar fish, zebrafish show reduced levels of fear, a fact that seems cool but irrelevant until you learn that a 2011 study of humans showed that “having a best friend present during an experience significantly buffered any negative feelings, lowering cortisol and boosting a sense of self-worth.” Another found that talking to supportive friends after a stressful incident increases the speed with which cortisol levels revert to normal. This buffering effect appears to insulate kids from both social and academic missteps by shifting their inner narrative in the face of failure from “there’s something wrong with me” to a more resilient response.

In one study, adolescents working together took part in more exploratory behavior, learned faster, and completed tasks better than they did working alone. In another, Laursen and his colleagues arranged for pairs of students to be taught a new programming language. Kids were asked how they felt about their partner multiple times. “How much I thought that you were my friend,” he says, “predicted how much I learned in that classroom.” Taken together, the evidence suggests that with a friend on hand, a child’s tolerance for novelty and intellectual stretching tends to increase, while without one, engagement tends to decrease.

How do educators both promote this type of bond and exploit its academic power?

Gest, who is chair of human services at the Curry School of Education and Human Development, says, “There is a long tradition of informal guidance on how to think about group dynamics in the classroom, but relatively little empirical research to back up particular strategies.” That said, some things are known. There are four big impediments to friendship formation in school: lack of contact, competition, unequal status, and surface-level homophily (a.k.a., “birds of a feather flock together”). Each of these factors can prevent relationships from blossoming, particularly across gender, racial, and other divides. For each of the four roadblocks, teachers wield at least one not-so-secret weapon.

But before getting to solutions, says Barbara Stengel, a professor emerita at Vanderbilt University, who focuses on the philosophy of education, it’s important to think about what friendship really means in a classroom. Aristotle divided the concept into three categories: friendships of utility based on mutual benefit, friendships of pleasure that usually center around a shared interest, and friendships of virtue, the kind with deeper, longer lasting mutual appreciation. When we think of a friend, most of us picture that last sort, the one we can confide in and count on, but the other two types can also make children feel “seen and encouraged,” Stengel says, producing many of the desired academic benefits.

Encouraging contact

Lack of contact obviously inhibits friendship formation. On the flip side, physical proximity can reduce negative perceptions of a peer. Teachers and administrators often don’t have control over the biggest piece of this puzzle—the makeup of their student body—but they can manipulate contact between the kids they do have. For starters, Juvonen says, teachers and administrators should consider keeping friends together when assigning classes. Schoolwide “house” programs that produce stable cohorts have also shown potential.

Within classes, seating arrangements most directly impact proximity. When children who did not like each other were seated close together for several weeks in one study, their likeability ratings increased. Perhaps they formed Aristotle’s friendships of pleasure, because they were made aware of common interests (comic books!) or maybe the students formed friendships of utility, since whisperings and wisecracks require a set of ears.

Students who dislike one another should not, however, be paired for peer-assisted learning. Most commonly in pairs, peer-assisted learning has been shown to improve the standing of students with learning disabilities and help shy children befriend peers. In choosing dyads, professors Lynn and Douglas Fuchs suggest different strategies for reading and math, both of which involve splitting the class into a top half and a bottom half by current skill level and then choosing one student from each block. But Juvonen says teachers would do well to make these matches with pre-existing friendships and common interests in mind as well, and at least one study backs her up (there, how much partners liked each other predicted how well they learned).

Peer-assisted learning does not, unfortunately, seem to be “sufficient to improve the social integration of children who have behavior issues or whose negative reputation is deeply entrenched,” says Éric Dion, a professor at the University of Quebec at Montreal.

Fostering cooperative learning

Another type of grouping shows promise for that though. By doing away with competition, cooperative learning boosts learning and decreases problematic behaviors, says Cary Roseth, chair of the Department of Counseling, Educational Psychology and Special Education at Michigan State University. It requires establishing positive interdependence, meaning “individuals can attain their goals if (and only if) others in their group also reach their goals,” Roseth has written.

Teachers may require a single finished product from a group (goal interdependence) or may offer a reward to the group if everyone achieves above a certain threshold (reward interdependence). Members of the group can be issued different materials that the group must share to complete the lesson (resource interdependence), or each member of the group could be assigned a different role to play (role interdependence). The group may have its own name (identity interdependence), or each group member may have to complete a different step in a task, like on an assembly line (task interdependence).

When teachers carefully create and scaffold small groups, an expectation that a group member will cooperate arises, and that produces liking. If one group member perceives another as attempting to promote their success, that also promotes liking, even if they ultimately fail. A positive feedback loop results: “The more students work cooperatively to learn, the more they will tend to like each other, and the more they like each other, the harder they will work to help each other learn,” Roseth and colleagues report. In other words, positive interdependence fosters, at the very least, Aristotelian friendships of utility.

Equalizing status

Encouraging contact provides the opportunity for friendships to form, but budding connections can easily be nipped by social status asymmetry. Those who don’t conform with school norms on behavior, ability, sexuality, and even body size will be shunned without intervention, Juvonen says. Promoting a cooperative, rather than competitive, learning environment is one step toward redefining “smart” and “good” in children’s minds, but teachers can further decrease status gaps by drawing attention to hidden strengths.

In a 2013 study, when camp counselors encouraged peers to interact inclusively with children who exhibit ADHD symptoms and drew attention to those students’ positive characteristics, the reputations of the children with ADHD improved, and they had more reciprocated friendships. The study’s primary author, Amori Yee Mikami, a psychology professor at the University of British Columbia, stresses that these findings may not translate to the classroom but other studies have shown that teachers voicing a favorable opinion of students and interacting with them warmly tends to increase their social integration.

To this end, teachers should think of themselves in social media parlance as “influencers” or “thought leaders.” Teachers’ relationships with kids “have a big influence on how those kids are seen,” Gest confirms: “Kids who perceive their classmates as not getting along with the teacher come to see those classmates less positively.” But “if teachers make public comments about a child’s academic or social strengths, those have an impact on how kids view that classmate” too.

There’s a problem though: Teachers’ take on who is high status and who isn’t doesn’t always align with kids’, Gest says. “There are kids whom teachers perceive to be disruptive and a problem yet who are quite popular with their classmates. And then conversely, sometimes kids teachers perceive as super nice and prosocial are not particularly influential.” A first step, then, in realizing children’s potential to elevate and inspire one another, is “developing an accurate understanding of what those relationship patterns are.”

Leveraging homophily

One pattern is called homophily. Plato once wrote “similarity begets friendship,” and modern social science research has proven him right. Like tends to stick with like in terms of attitudes and beliefs, but also ethnicity, socio-economic status, and gender even in an integrated classroom. (In Friendship, Denworth reports: “Friendship with opposite-sex peers ‘drops off precipitously after seven years of age.’”)

Yet friendships that bridge these divides have been associated with higher academic outcomes, and Juvonen says, “students with a greater proportion of cross-ethnic friendships reported lower vulnerability” to peer victimization. On the other hand, discriminatory experiences lead to anger, impulsivity, depression, anxiety, sleep loss, and more, all conditions that drive down academic engagement and performance.

For cross-group friendships to thrive, Juvonen says, teachers and administrators have to “disrupt typical social dynamics and avoid instructional practices that highlight differences.” Going after low-hanging fruit, Juvonen recommends we stop saying, “Good morning, boys and girls.” Using these categories implies that they have functional importance in elementary school (when research has yet to prove they do) and impedes same-gender bonds.

Administrators can also consider explicit anti-bias interventions. Juvonen says a puppet program that “teaches about acceptance of various body shapes has been shown effective in reducing negative attitudes and stereotypes about larger body shapes.” Inclusive curricula can also alter social dynamics.

Though initiatives like these take time and institutional support, there’s one thing educators can do right away, Laursen says. While perceived similarities predict who will become friends better than actual similarities, it’s the latter that determines whether friendships will last. Teachers can help kids’ friendship calculus be more accurate by making less obvious similarities salient. Another way of looking at it? By drawing attention to traits and interests that aren’t as readily apparent as gender or skin tone (e.g., “You two and your Minecraft obsession!”), teachers foster Aristotelian friendships of virtue.

Juvonen says extracurricular activities like sports and interscholastic robotics competitions provide the ideal context both for highlighting shared interests and promoting positive interdependence, but access is often a problem. Administrators can try to decrease hurdles such as transportation and out-of-pocket expenses, as well as ensuring there’s extra support on hand to facilitate the participation of special needs students. But logistical stumbling blocks aren’t the only type. “Some kids are just reluctant to take the big step to join a club,” Laursen says, and schools would do well to create an emotionally safe environment. That can mean paired activities and inclusion-oriented clubs such as Gay-Straight Alliances.

Kids can also be encouraged to find hidden similarities on their own. Julia Smith, who teaches first-grade in San Francisco, reads her students The Day You Begin by Jacqueline Woodson:

There will be times when you walk into a room and no one there is quite like you until the day you begin to share your stories. My name is Angelina and I spent my whole summer with my little sister, you tell the class …. Your name is like my sister’s, Rigoberto says. Her name is Angelina, too…. This is the day you begin to find … every new friend has something a little like you.

But Elizabeth Self, an assistant professor at Vanderbilt University, says it’s important to keep in mind there simply isn’t enough research on encouraging cross-group friendships for academics like her to provide a 10-tricks book. For the most part, they are instead “going to talk about, you could do this, but you’d need to watch out for that.”

Case in point: Just how much to spread kids out.

Skill sorting and ability grouping, Juvonen says, “not only reduces contact, but also highlights status differences between demographic groups.” Tracked classes, resource rooms, and second-language learner programs that separate groups of students and highlight their differences are also “likely to hinder peer acceptance and the development of friendships,” she says.

And yet, distributing a small group of atypical kids across classrooms can also be the wrong call. In one study, children with disabilities, who can struggle with social integration, were just as likely to have friends and be accepted as their developmentally typical peers when placed in classrooms where one-third of the students had a mild disability. Juvonen’s conclusion: “There is a critical minimum mass required for groups of vulnerable students to be socially integrated.”

Research on race relations in middle and high schools suggests exactly that. In Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? Beverly Daniel Tatum, a psychology professor and former president of Spelman College, explains that around the onset of puberty, Black students start to explore their identity just as “the world begins to reflect their Blackness back to them more clearly.” In racially mixed settings, she writes, voluntary “racial grouping is a developmental process in response to an environmental stressor, racism.” When it comes to racial microaggressions, white peers “are unprepared to respond in supportive ways.” That makes joining with other Black students “a positive coping strategy.”

A teacher with a class of 25 students that includes 5 Black students and needs to be split into 5 groups may be tempted to create diverse pods by placing one of the underrepresented students in each group, but doing so can actually set intergroup relations back. Once kids are old enough to grapple with race, numerical insignificance and stereotype threat—which one of Dr. Tatum’s young sources described as “that constant burden of you always having to strive to do your best and show that you can do just as much as everybody else”—can silence and alienate Black children, reduce their status, and thwart friendship formation. When small groups involve peer critique, preventing critical mass can also leave Black students emotionally unprepared to receive feedback. As counterintuitive as it may seem, allowing Black students “the psychological safety of their own group” can actually increase the likelihood that they form friendships outside it.

Elizabeth Self says similar concerns apply to “putting kids from the same linguistic background together in maths small group work.”

Making game-time calls

At the end of the day, teachers will have to make judgment calls when it comes to friendship. Students who are easily distracted may benefit from more individual work, and there’s research showing that friends do interfere with productivity in some circumstances: for example, when they’re not engaged by the subject matter or they put one another’s feelings over giving meaningful feedback. But if a friendless child goofs off with a peer, Laursen says, a little more leeway may be in order, since research shows that kids with at least one friend are both less likely to be bullied and less harmed by bullying. It would make sense then, to seat a child with very low social status near one who is both friendly and popular. A warm relationship with someone like that could increase classwide acceptance considerably.

Elizabeth Self likes the idea of reconceptualizing friends as a resource, thinking, “How can we give them permission to draw on that person?” When a student is getting out of sorts, for example: “If they have a good bud who is not in the classroom, say: ‘Let’s go see if we can pull Margarita from Ms. Jon’s class. You all stay in the hall for five minutes. We are going to set a timer to see if spending some time together helps you to be able to come back into class.’” In the context of restorative justice circles, why not have an ally present for each child? “I think there is rich opportunity here,” she says.

But Gest wants to remind teachers, administrators, and their communities: “You can’t address everything at once, through either a seating arrangement or a group learning assignment.” Yes, friendship can present untapped academic potential, but “there’s limits to how much teachers can do.”

Gail Cornwall works as a mother and writer in San Francisco. Her youngest child is in Julia Smith’s class at Rooftop School.

A College Student Is Coming Home. Should The Whole Family Wear Masks?

Mon, 16 Nov 2020 07:52:56 GMT

Sandy Kretschmer imagines her son Henry returning home from college, dropping his bags and then giving her a big hug. But she knows the reality of this homecoming may be a lot different.

“I’ll probably have a mask on, and he’ll have a mask on when I hug him,” she says.

Henry plans to take a COVID-19 test a few days before he leaves Iowa State University where he’s a junior, and he’ll self-quarantine until he heads home to Chicago.

The Kretschmers are taking these precautions because some family members have underlying conditions that put them at higher risk of becoming seriously ill with COVID-19. Henry’s father has an autoimmune disease, and his 78-year-old grandfather is in hospice care.

Families all across the country are facing a similar dilemma: They want their students home for Thanksgiving, but no one wants the virus to come home with them.

“I want to make sure that I’m not bringing anything home to my parents, and I don’t want them to get sick,” says Brianna Sislo-Schutta, a junior at the University of Minnesota.

Home is just a 20-minute drive from campus, in the suburbs of St. Paul. “That’s why I went to school in my home state,” she says. “I love my family. I love spending time with them.”

In normal years, she would go home often for a meal or a visit. This year she’s forgone the weekend trips home — afraid she might get her parents sick. But Thanksgiving is a hard holiday to miss, which has meant some hard conversations about what the visit might look like.

“As a mother, it’s just gut-wrenching,” says Brianna’s mom, Toni Schutta. “Can I be inside with my child? If so, for how long? Do we have to wear masks?” she asks.

Some students are choosing not to risk it and have decided to stay on campus for the holidays, says Amira Roess, an epidemiologist at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va.

“There are students who are choosing to stay in the dorms because they have family members who are high risk,” she says.

Other experts agree: If a family member is especially vulnerable, the safest option is to celebrate lovingly — but remotely — this year. But for college students and their families who are considering spending Thanksgiving together, here are some precautions you can take to reduce the risk of spreading infections.

Get tested — but don’t rely exclusively on test results

A few colleges are requiring students to get tested before they leave campus and head home.

“It’s kind of like the last phase of our semester,” says Daniel Diermeier, chancellor of Vanderbilt University, in Nashville, Tenn. He says the exit testing is to make sure that the families and the communities the students are returning to “feel good about their students coming home.”

The State University of New York requires on-campus students to test negative before heading home for the break and Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina just announced the state will send rapid tests to colleges ahead of Thanksgiving. The University of Minnesota, where Brianna Sislo-Schutta is a junior, is also offering free coronavirus testing.

“I know testing isn’t 100%, but it definitely makes it a little less scary for me. I can go home and feel better and have peace of mind,” she says.

But remember a test is just a snapshot of the day it is taken, says Dr. Judy Guzman-Cottrill, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Oregon Health & Science University. “One negative test does not mean that you are home free.” And even if a test is negative, it’s not a guarantee the person taking it is not infected.

She recommends students take another test when they get home, and in the meantime, they should stay masked up after they return home and keep 6 feet away from other family members.

Masks and social distancing may seem like they take all the warmth and humanity out of the holiday, but Guzman-Cottrill says any place where 5% or more COVID-19 tests return positive is a high-risk zone. Before traveling, students and parents should evaluate the rates of infection on campus and the surrounding community.

Not all colleges are offering students testing before they leave for the holidays. The College Crisis Initiative did a random survey of about 100 four-year institutions and found that only eight were offering additional testing to students before the break.

“There’s a sense, at least at some colleges, that once the semester finishes and students leave, it’s not their problem,” says Robert Kelchen, an associate professor of higher education at Seton Hall University in New Jersey. Seton Hall transitioned to online classes this week, amid a rising number COVID-19 cases on campus. The school is encouraging all students to get tested at the university health center before they head home.

Limit your social activities starting now

For colleges that don’t have resources for exit testing, many are encouraging students to essentially lock down before heading out for Thanksgiving.

“If you don’t have testing available, you really have to be cautious starting now to make sure you don’t bring it home,” says Rebecca Smith, an epidemiologist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

And remember, “any form of travel involves some amount of risk,” she says. “Just relying on testing alone is not enough.”

There are 13 days until Thanksgiving and the virus’ incubation period ranges from about five to 14 days. “If you were to be exposed any time, starting now, you could be infectious at the time that you go home for Thanksgiving,” Smith says.

Getting tested once doesn’t mean you won’t test positive for the virus a day later, she says. So the best defense for students — and the family planning to welcome them in — is to limit activities to the essentials.

“No parties obviously,” says Smith, and “limit your social circles to only the people in your bubble and keep that bubble small.”

Wear masks, keep your distance and rethink that turkey dinner

Students should stay masked up after they return home, says epidemiologist Guzman-Cottrill.

“The only time they should be removing their mask should be when they are eating and eating in a separate room, I think, is the safest decision, or eating outdoors,” she says.

And while it may seem like this takes the joy out of the holiday, with the virus surging across the country, the extra precautions are worth taking, our experts say.

“The last thing we want is big family gatherings that end up being somebody’s last Thanksgiving,” Smith says.

And there are all sorts of things that you can do outdoors with your family that are safer than meals, says Smith.

“You could play outside, you could play croquet or bocce quite safely. You can play cornhole with your family safely outdoors,” she says.

Outdoor activities are safer because airflow helps dilute the virus, thus reducing the risk of infection.

The Sislo-Schutta family usually gathers with at least 20 friends and family members at their home, but this year it will be just immediate family and they’re planning to do Thanksgiving dinner around the fire pit.

And there will be one more big change this year — they won’t be having a turkey!

“The new plan is to make spinach lasagna,” Brianna’s mom says. “It’s going to be a lasagna Thanksgiving.”

That’s fine with Brianna. “I’m honestly not a huge Thanksgiving food person,” she says. “I just enjoy spending time with my family.”

Lessons From Europe, Where Cases Are Rising But Schools Are Open

Fri, 13 Nov 2020 19:34:50 GMT

Mahua Barve lives in Frankfurt, Germany, with her husband, a son in first grade and twin daughters in kindergarten. All three children are currently attending school full time and in person. That’s despite a coronavirus surge that has led Germany to shut down restaurants, bars, theaters, gyms, tattoo parlors and brothels (which are legal in the country) for November. Schools were allowed to remain open.

Despite the resurgence of the virus, Barve says, her children’s school’s careful safety strategies give her confidence. Each “pod” of kids goes to recess at 10 minute intervals, for example, so they don’t mix in the hallways.

“When I see all the parents who are coming to pick up and drop off, they’re wearing masks. The teachers are always wearing masks. They’re doing their best to minimize risk. And as soon as something is detected, they are quarantining.”

Barve says everyone is doing their part: “It’s a little bit of choppy water, but if people are swimming in their own lanes, there’s less likelihood of a disturbance.”

Across Europe, schools and child care centers are staying open even as much of the continent reports rising coronavirus cases, and even as many businesses and gathering places are shut or restricted. Countries such as France, the United Kingdom, Germany and Italy appear to be following the emerging evidence that schools have not been major centers of transmission of the virus, especially for young children. And experts say these nations are also demonstrating a commitment to avoiding the worst impacts of the pandemic on children.

The U.S. has taken a different approach. As new cases climb above 100,000 per day, there are very few places in the U.S. where classrooms have remained full even as restaurants and bars are empty. In cities such as Boston and Washington, D.C., schools are remote, but indoor dining is allowed. This week, Detroit announced it was closing its schools through January, while indoor dining and bars there remain open at 50% capacity. Meanwhile, in states like Florida and Texas, schools — along with most businesses — have stayed open, even with very high and rising case rates.

Andreas Schleicher has a global view on education from his position in Paris overseeing the PISA international assessment program at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. He says that while schools in Europe were initially closed out of an abundance of caution, “Research has shown that if you put social distancing protocols in place, school is actually quite a safe environment, certainly safer than having children running around outside school.”

At the same time, he says that in Europe, “I do think people have understood fairly quickly how much damage the school closures have done, particularly to disadvantaged learners.” He says the science especially favors opening elementary schools, with young children both less likely to spread the disease and less able to benefit from remote learning.

Randa Grob-Zakhary of the group Insights for Education recently analyzed school reopening patterns across the world. When it comes to European countries, she says for the most part, “They have … localized closures based on numbers of cases.” For example, at Barve’s children’s school in Germany, sometimes just a single “pod” of about 20 children and teachers will be sent home to quarantine because of a case.

Johannes Huebner, the head of the pediatric infectious disease department at the Ludwig-Maximilians University Hospital in Munich, recently told NPR correspondent Rob Schmitz that scientific studies have not detected high rates of transmission in schools. “Most of the infections are brought into the schools by adults, by teachers, and then spread among kids. But most of the time, it’s only single cases. It’s two, three kids, five maybe that get positive.”

Grob-Zakhary says, “I think five, six months ago there was a view that we don’t know what the heck we’re dealing with and we better keep our kids safe no matter what. And now there’s a view that, yes, it’s dangerous, but we know so much more about how to handle it.”

Even where schools are open, it doesn’t mean everyone feels safe. In the U.K., teachers unions have raised safety concerns. And in Switzerland, one of the worst coronavirus hot spots in Europe, parent Anindita Basu Sempere is keeping her 6-year-old son home from school. It worries her that local health authorities don’t require children under 12 to wear a mask. She is seeking a doctor’s authorization to keep her son out of school as long as the current surge continues. She says her son is sad to be away from his friends, but he’s told her “it feels weird to not change what we’re doing when everything else is changing.”

President-elect Joe Biden has called school closures “a national emergency.” Some members of his newly appointed COVID-19 task force — including former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, epidemiologist Michael Osterholm and oncologist and bioethicist Ezekiel Emanuel — have spoken cautiously in favor of reopening schools, but only with proper mitigation measures in place such as testing, contact tracing, social distancing and masking, which not all schools or locations have the resources to do currently. Murthy and Emanuel have written that schools should be open only where the virus is controlled.

Other American observers are adamant that the United States ought to make a different calculation of the societywide impact of school closures, even when virus spread is high. Dimitri Christakis, a pediatrician at Seattle Children’s Hospital and editor of the journal JAMA Pediatrics, has just published a paper that estimates 5.53 million years of life could be lost as a result of school closures in the United States.

The calculation is based on research showing that missing months of school lowers a child’s chances of graduating from high school. Lower educational attainment, in turn, is well established to lower life expectancy because people with less education are more likely to smoke, more likely to drink heavily, more likely to suffer from heart disease, and more likely to perform more hazardous work, among other reasons.

“When you frame it in terms of school versus lives, it becomes a no-brainer,” says Christakis. “And everybody says, ‘Well, we can’t send kids to school if it’s going to cost lives.’ But in fact, not sending kids to school also costs lives.”

Lala Tanmoy Das, an M.D.-Ph.D. student at Weill Cornell/Rockefeller/Memorial Sloan Kettering, is familiar with the kind of modeling Christakis used, and calls the paper “fairly robust.” But Das also points out that the virus is more dangerous for Black children, Latino children and those with preexisting conditions, and that we don’t know enough about its long-term effects on children or adults to capture the full impacts on health. He also notes that many school districts in the U.S. have faced budget cuts that make it hard to do mitigation measures, like regular disinfection, or put proper social distancing protocols in place.

Still, Das agrees with Christakis that schools shouldn’t be closed preferentially over other restrictions, particularly for younger children.

“In New York somehow restaurants and bars are open but we’re talking about closing schools. That just doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

‘I Come Up Short Every Day’: Couples Under Strain As Pandemic Upends Life At Home

Fri, 13 Nov 2020 07:39:43 GMT

Like many married and working couples first confronting the pandemic, Bianca Flokstra and Victor Udoewa tried to go on with their lives as normal.

Flokstra continued to work full time while taking care of their kids, ages 4 and 2. She also handled most of the housework, with her husband helping from time to time. It didn’t work.

“Those first couple of months were really hard,” Flokstra says. “There was … a lot of fighting. A lot of tears.”

The pandemic has upended many aspects of domestic life, and that has brought new attention to one of the most enduring disparities between men and women — the wide difference in handling housework and child care.

It’s what Marianne Cooper, a sociologist at the Stanford VMware Women’s Leadership Innovation Lab, calls one of society’s most “stubborn” divides.

“The traditional gender division of labor is very durable,” Cooper says. “Even the most egalitarian-thinking couples, after having children, find themselves in a much more traditional division of labor than they ever would have intended.”

Cooper, who has studied the issue extensively, says that divide, which is rooted in history and perpetuated by persistent societal norms, has endured even as women have joined the workforce in larger numbers over the decades, making record gains.

Yet even as more families become dual-income households, women still do 30% more of the housework and 40% more of the child care, Cooper says.

The disparity in work done at home is now having a serious economic impact as entire families are forced home with schools closed and no child care options available.

More than 2.2 million women have left the workforce this year, far more than the 1.4 million men who have left as a result of the pandemic, according to the monthly U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

Proportionally, more women were employed in sectors that were hit hard by the pandemic, including hospitality and retail.

But Cooper, as well as many economists, says the burden placed on working moms during the pandemic is another key variable forcing many women out of the workforce.

Some couples have adapted.

Flokstra, for example, says she had little choice. She desperately needed sleep after exhausting days at a new job in international aid while also taking care of all of her other responsibilities.

She started sending the kids to her husband, unprompted. Then, she started drafting to-do lists — activities she and her husband would split day to day.

Today, her husband is more involved than ever. Udoewa sweeps floors twice a day, does the dishes and takes care of the kids for half the day, among other things. He cooks dinners as well.

But getting there wasn’t easy. It wasn’t that Udoewa wasn’t willing to help; he was.

Flokstra says she had become so used to doing household chores that she found it hard to delegate — and trust — her own husband to do the job.

That hesitancy is surprisingly common among women, according to Cooper.

It’s a complicated mix of “mother’s guilt” as well as societal expectations on couples, where men are still seen as the breadwinners.

“The end result is that oftentimes we have a division of labor [at home] that looks a lot more like the 1950s or 1960s than 2020,” Cooper says.

It’s an issue familiar to Flokstra, who says her own mother was a “stay-at-home mom.”

Flokstra is now pregnant with their third child. And despite Udoewa’s more equitable help, she can’t help but feel guilt at times.

“I’m always battling that guilt, that mom guilt of should I be with my children more?” she says.

Nonetheless, she’s happy. She credits her husband with stepping up, but she also credits herself.

“That was also me,” Flokstra added. “It was me forcing myself to say, ‘Hey, I don’t have to do everything.’ ”

Not every couple with children can make it work. And oftentimes it’s the mothers who give up the most.

A survey by Moody’s Analytics and data intelligence company Morning Consult published last month showed that women are more than twice as likely as their male partners to reduce their working hours because of child care responsibilities. Women are also more likely to quit their jobs or turn down a career opportunity.

“Even after we look at households where the female contributes more to the household income than males, we still see females are reducing their hours more than males,” says John Leer, an economist at Morning Consult.

But Raul Carrillo and Laura Uribarri aren’t that couple. Both have high-powered jobs and neither can dial back.

He runs a law firm with 13 employees. She is the assistant dean at the University of Texas in El Paso. Their hours are long.

When the pandemic hit and schools shut down, their kids, 11 and 6, were forced to stay home.

Carrillo had to continue to go to work, but he offered to stay at home some days.

Uribarri declined, deciding it would be easier for her to do the bulk of the household chores because she had done it for so long.

“To me, it seemed like more work to help him learn the onboarding piece of it,” she says.

So, Carrillo did step up. He has been picking up some housework. He cooks breakfast for the kids. He takes them out when he gets back home so his wife can have a little time for herself and catch a break. But he constantly feels like he’s not doing enough.

“I feel like I come up short every day,” he says.

And as Carrillo thinks about the future, he can sense the fragility of his family’s situation and wonders how long they can continue in the same manner if the pandemic stretches well into next year.

As for Uribarri, she’s trying to make it work as best as she can. She does have a piece of advice for husbands. It’s not sweeping the floors or setting up the Zoom calls for the kids.

“I would tell husbands out there — maybe every morning when you get up — ask your wife, is there one thing I could help you with today?” she says. “That’s it. Is there one thing that would make your life a little bit better?”

Lucille Bridges, Mother Of Anti-Segregation Icon Ruby Bridges, Dies At 86

Thu, 12 Nov 2020 07:40:36 GMT

Lucille Bridges, who in 1960 braved a gauntlet of threats and racist slurs to escort her daughter to a formerly all-white school in New Orleans in what became a symbol of opposition to segregation, has died at age 86.

Civil rights activist Ruby Bridges, who walked up the stairs of William Frantz Elementary School six decades ago to become its first Black student, announced her mother’s death on Instagram late Tuesday. She included a photo showing mother and daughter holding hands as they exited the school, flanked by U.S. marshals.

“Today our country lost a hero. Brave, progressive, a champion for change. She helped alter the course of so many lives by setting me out on my path as a six year old little girl. Our nation lost a Mother of the Civil Rights Movement today. And I lost my mom. I love you and am grateful for you. May you Rest In Peace,” wrote Ruby Bridges, who was memorialized in an iconic painting by Norman Rockwell depicting her, notebook and ruler in hand and accompanied by burly marshals, walking past a wall scrawled with a racial epithet.

New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell said in a statement Tuesday night that Lucille Bridges is “one of the mothers of the Civil Rights Movement in New Orleans.” She said the city mourns her loss.

“Lucille insisted, seeing the action as an opportunity to help all Black children, and walked Ruby, with federal marshals, past chanting and taunting white protesters and to the schoolhouse,” Cantrell said. “Mother and daughter both revealed their character and courage.”

Lucille was born to Mississippi sharecroppers at a time when Black children rarely went beyond the 3rd grade, according to WGNO. Her family later moved to New Orleans.

She gave birth to Ruby in 1954, the same year as the landmark Supreme Court case Brown vs. Board of Education, which struck down the decades-old “separate but equal” doctrine, ending segregation in the schools.

With signs calling for segregation, a crowd gathers outside the William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans on Monday, Nov. 14, 1960, the first day of classes for 6-year-old Black student Ruby Bridges. (AP)

But Louisiana was one of several southern states that defied Brown until a federal court ordered them to integrate in 1960. Even so, the school district where the Bridges lived required Black students to take an exam to determine if they could compete with white classmates. Out of 165 students taking the exam, Ruby was one of five to pass and the only one to decide to attend William Frantz Elementary.

In an interview several years ago, Lucille explained that before her daughter’s first day of classes on Nov. 14, 1960, the Orleans Parish school superintendent “explained to me and my husband that … we had to pray because things were going to get really worse.”

She said that when they “drove up right by the school, they had so many United States marshals, so many people just standing, screaming and hollering ‘Two, four, six, eight, we don’t want to integrate.'”

She said the crowd tossed eggs and tomatoes at them and even followed them home. “And when they followed us home, they started pitching bottles and things.”

The families of many of the white students subsequently pulled their children out of the school.

Lucille said she and her family lived under armed guard from federal marshals for the whole school year.

According to the National Women’s History Museum, Ruby’s father, Abon, was reluctant to have her attend an all-white school — it was Lucille who insisted.

“I wanted it better for my kids than it was for us, so that my kids could go to school and learn,” Lucille explained in the interview.

The museum says the Bridges suffered for Ruby’s right to attend the school: her father lost his job, local grocery stores refused to sell to Lucille, and Ruby’s grandparents were evicted from the farm where they had lived for years.

What A Biden Presidency Could Mean For Education

Wed, 11 Nov 2020 07:46:07 GMT

With the eyes of the country upon him, Joe Biden shouted out education during his speech Saturday in Wilmington, Del: “For American educators, this is a great day for you all. You’re going to have one of your own in the White House.”

Of course, the president-elect was talking about his wife, Jill Biden, an English professor at Northern Virginia Community College. She continued her teaching career during Biden’s two terms as vice president, and in a break with precedent, intends to continue doing so as first lady.

Which raises the question as the transition planning moves forward: How has this perspective shaped the president-elect’s education agenda? And how much of that agenda can Joe Biden hope to achieve, with the massive challenges of the coronavirus and the economic recession, and with Democratic control of the Senate in doubt?

Here’s our overview of his policy priorities for K-12 and higher education:

Reopening schools safely

Like so much in the country, experts say, the president’s education agenda must start by confronting the threat of the coronavirus. As of Nov. 9, according to one national estimate, 63% of U.S. students were enrolled in districts that offered some in-person learning at least a few days a week.

But even within those districts, many or most students are staying home to avoid the virus. And education experts still forecast huge amounts of learning loss and negative social and emotional impacts, especially for younger students, those with special needs and lower-income students.

The question of whether, and when, to reopen schools became a political debate over the summer when President Trump called forcefully for reopening without providing additional funding through Congress. Biden, by contrast, has publicly noted the estimate by the School Superintendents Association and the Association of Educational Service Agencies that K-12 education needs at least $200 billion in emergency funding.

This week the president-elect named a COVID-19 task force, composed of doctors and public health experts. Some members have spoken cautiously in favor of reopening schools, but only with proper safety measures in place — and the resources to do it right.

For example, Dr. Vivek Murthy, the co-chair of the new task force, wrote on Twitter in September: “3 keys to open schools: low community prevalence of virus (critical), safety precautions (eg reduced class sizes, universal masking), and resources for implementation.”

Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, another task force member, co-authored an op-ed in The New York Times in July that outlined safe school reopening guidelines. “We all want schools to open, even as we recognize the risks attached,” the piece noted. But it also reinforced the idea, “Being safe is not free.” In other words, following measures such as social distancing and smaller class sizes takes additional funding.

That includes hiring teachers and substitutes to keep schools staffed. Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association, told NPR that by the union’s estimates almost 1 million educators have been laid off since the passage of the initial coronavirus relief package in the spring.

Aside from funding, experts told NPR they expect a Biden Department of Education to do more to help schools operate through the pandemic. Scott Sargrad at the left-leaning Center for American Progress said, “I think you’ll certainly hear from the Education Department more of an effort to actually provide guidance to school districts on … how to ensure that, if you’re considering reopening, that they can do that safely, how to improve their remote learning strategies.”

The urgency of the pandemic — and a closely divided Senate, with control awaiting the outcome of two Georgia runoffs in January — also means that a coronavirus relief package could end up being this administration’s most significant intervention in public schools.

Michael J. Petrilli of the conservative-leaning Thomas B. Fordham Institute pointed to the Obama-era Race to the Top initiative as a potential model. In 2009, tasked with crafting a giant economic rescue package amid the financial crisis, the Obama administration created a funding competition for states. Race to the Top influenced the adoption of the Common Core State Standards, high-stakes evaluations for teachers, data systems for schools and other innovations.

This time, Petrilli said, “I think the Biden folks are likely to be looking very carefully at what goes into this relief bill and try to get [Senate Majority Leader Mitch] McConnell and other Republicans to go along with as much as they can, to get some of their larger agenda.”

Teacher pay and respect

The U.S. Education Department controls only around 10% of the dollars spent on K-12 public education in this country. A lot of that comes through the $16 billion Title I program, which goes to schools serving the most high-poverty students. The Biden campaign pledged to triple that funding and, first off, direct states to use it preferentially to bump up teacher pay. Teachers consistently make about 20% less than other professionals with the same amount of education — a number that has risen slightly in the wake of teacher walkouts in many states in 2018.

That’s a lot of money, and the fate of Biden’s Title I proposal is unknown, as is whether the federal government will be successful in telling cash-strapped states how to allocate that money if they do pass it.

Of course, one of the biggest ways in which the incoming administration will signal its support for educators is through the naming of an education secretary. “It is a teacher. A teacher. Promise,” Biden told the NEA, the nation’s largest teachers union, back in July 2019.

“It seems like something we would take for granted, that the secretary of education would be an educator,” the NEA’s Pringle said. “But no, it is something we have to say out loud.” And she added, “It brings a smile to my face to say it.”

However, that doesn’t necessarily mean a K-12 teacher. “The most politically savvy thing for them to do,” the Fordham Institute’s Petrilli said, “is to pick somebody from the world of higher education who can get around some of the complications with their reform wing versus the union wing within the [Democratic Party].”

The Education Department wields a much bigger budgetary impact on higher education, through student aid, than it does with K-12. So, having someone in charge who’s an expert in higher ed — for example the president of a historically black college or a community college — makes a lot of sense, Petrilli said.

Rights and equity

The education secretary commands a bully pulpit, particularly on issues of discrimination, segregation and bias through the Office for Civil Rights. During her controversial tenure, the current secretary, Betsy DeVos, made headlines for rolling back rights for students who are transgender, and for guidance on racially discriminatory discipline.

Pringle said her union will be looking to Biden’s Education Department to be a partner: “On racial justice. Social justice. The work we still have to do for women and girls … the rights of our LGBTQ students.”

Sargrad of the Center for American Progress agreed: “I think we’ll see a real effort to actually enforce our nation’s civil rights laws, and rebuild the Office for Civil Rights and make sure that they are investigating complaints, that they’re pursuing cases, that they’re taking their role as enforcing civil rights laws seriously.”

Early childhood education

The president-elect has promised a broad expansion of K-12 to include 3- and 4-year-olds in the form of “high-quality, universal” prekindergarten.

Publicly funded preschool has been gaining momentum in the states over the past two decades. Tulsa, Okla., adopted an influential and high-quality program in 2001, with promising long-term results. Washington, D.C., and New York City have programs, too, and Multnomah County, Ore., where Portland is located, just passed a preschool initiative of its own.

The pandemic has driven hundreds of thousands of mothers out of the workforce, highlighting the conflict between the needs of small children and the demands of the economy. At the Democratic National Convention this summer, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts delivered a remote address from an early childhood classroom, stressing the message that child care is “infrastructure for families.”

But, like tripling Title I and increasing teachers’ pay, any major expansion of pre-K is going to be expensive, likely requiring both states and the federal government to chip in. Pringle said she’ll be looking for action from agencies such as the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees Head Start, and the Department of Labor as well as the Education Department.

Higher ed

For higher education, Biden released an expensive and ambitious plan during the campaign that included free public colleges, loan forgiveness and more money for low-income students to pay for college.

Broadly, the federal government’s approach to higher education seems almost certain to be less confrontational. In both rhetoric and policy, the Trump administration was openly hostile to colleges, viewing them as liberal, elite institutions that were out of touch with the rest of the country.

“Across most of public and private nonprofit higher ed, there is a sigh of relief,” said Robert Kelchen, a professor of higher education at Seton Hall University.

“This will be an administration that cares about the challenges that students are facing, that knows that the cost of college is a significant problem and needs to be addressed both on the front end and the back end,” said Antoinette Flores, director of postsecondary education at the Center for American Progress.

Other experts, though, are less certain how far the Biden administration might go to fight for progressive policy proposals, some of which were borrowed from Warren and Sen. Bernie Sanders for the campaign.

“These plans, they look nothing like what [Biden] advocated in 2008, or really nothing like what he’s advocated for most of his career,” said Jason Delisle of the American Enterprise Institute, a right-leaning think tank. “We should take him at his word. But you look at what he’s proposed on higher ed in the past, and you just sort of have to say, ‘Do you really believe your own stuff here? How hard is he going to fight for this?’ ”

Plus, there is the potential of a Republican-controlled Senate, which will pose a challenge for progressive legislation and funding increases. The administration will most likely rely on other ways to make policy changes: through executive orders and regulations from the Department of Education.

More money

As with K-12 schools, the biggest priority for higher ed is getting through the pandemic. Just 40% of colleges are operating fully or primarily in person this fall.

“The finances are very bad across the board right now,” Kelchen said. “[Colleges] have laid off staff members, they’ve laid off faculty, they’ve cut majors in programs. They’re doing everything they can to preserve their money so they can get through the length of the pandemic, and quite a few colleges are starting to run out of money because this has gone on so long.”

The American Council on Education, a group representing college presidents, is asking for $120 billion to support higher ed. A relief package will be a major priority for the Biden administration if the Trump administration and Congress can’t do something in the meantime.

Student loans

There was a lot of talk during the campaign, especially from Democratic candidates Warren and Sanders, about forgiving some — or all — of the nation’s $1.5 trillion in student debt.

Congress and the Trump administration opened the door in March when they issued a moratorium on student loan payments because of the pandemic, which Trump later extended through Dec. 31. Higher education groups have asked DeVos to extend that suspension of payments until September 2021. “I expect the Biden administration to support that plan,” Kelchen wrote in an op-ed in The Chronicle of Higher Education.

The pandemic may be good cover for loan forgiveness — Biden has proposed a number of changes to paying back loans, including canceling $10,000 in debt for students who work in national or community service.

But it’s unclear exactly how the administration would go about doing that in a more permanent way. Warren has noted that the education secretary does have the power to cancel loans via an obscure and rarely used provision in a 1958 law.

“Would Biden’s secretary of education use that authority to enact his loan-forgiveness plans? I don’t know,” Delisle said. “Politically speaking, the question is, how far can you take it? Trump has pushed the envelope, in terms of power, and so for Democrats, it’s really, how much can you get away with?”

Immigration

The Trump administration has tightened restrictions on immigration, which often directly affect higher education, notably in a roller coaster two weeks this summer when the administration tried to ban international students from coming to the U.S. if their classes were held online due to the pandemic. It’s possible the Biden administration will focus on immigration ahead of any policies specific to higher education.

“Higher education is, in general, very supportive of making it easier for international students to come to, and stay in, the U.S.,” Kelchen said. “International enrollment went down substantially this fall, part of it due to the pandemic and part of it due to changes in immigration policy. And that’s a big revenue loss.”

A Biden administration could also push to make protections for DREAMers, young undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children, permanent, and to create a path to American citizenship. That policy has been encouraged by high education leaders and groups.

Walking back DeVos’ policies

Additional policies the Biden administration may strengthen or revive that were dismantled or weakened under Trump include “borrower defense to repayment,” a policy that allows for the cancellation of debt when students have been misled or defrauded by their colleges and the “gainful-employment” rule, a policy that targets programs where debt is high in relation to income.

Another focus point: Title IX , which governs how colleges handle sexual assault and sexual harassment. As vice president, Biden helped craft federal guidelines around students’ reports of assault — he personally unveiled the now famous “Dear Colleague” letter that outlined how colleges should handle reports.

Under DeVos, the rule was changed — strengthening protections for accused students and employees. Advocates for victims’ rights said that made it harder for people to report offenses.

“I think [Biden] will continue prioritizing addressing sexual harassment and safe school climates for students,” said Shiwali Patel of the National Women’s Law Center, an organization challenging DeVos’ Title IX changes in court.

For-profit colleges

The Trump administration has been friendly with the for-profit sector, but that is set to change under a Biden administration. As the attorney general of California, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris prosecuted Corinthian Colleges, a large chain of for-profit colleges that defrauded students.

“Harris’ track record prosecuting for-profits and her awareness of the depths of the abuses is really important,” said Flores of the Center for American Progress. “I think that will inform the response in the regulations that come out of this administration.”

While several large for-profit companies were shut down under the Obama administration, the pandemic may usher in new growth to the sector, she noted. Already this fall, enrollment is up at for-profit colleges, while all other types of colleges have seen declines.

How Can Teachers Nurture Meaningful Student Agency?

Mon, 09 Nov 2020 08:35:18 GMT

By Trevor MacKenzie

The term “student agency” continues to be at the forefront of the educational discourse around the world. By encouraging children to have more control over their learning, educators hope students will leave our classrooms and schools with a range of skills that will support them in being lifelong learners, engaged humanitarians and empathetic people.

As of late, this has become increasingly apparent as teachers and students have pivoted to more distance learning experiences. Supporting students in this different educational landscape has proven challenging for many. In the circumstances where student agency had been cultivated and nurtured in the brick-and-mortar classroom setting, I have witnessed that students have transitioned more smoothly into distance learning and have been more successful in a hybrid model. Their ability to manage their time and self-direct; their engagement with their learning and seemingly inherent curiosity; and their critical thinking and collaboration skills all have been at the forefront of what has helped them be successful in several modalities.

But in my work with schools to create more student-agency-rich environments, I fear we may be missing the mark on what “student agency” truly is. Teachers frequently talk about student agency as a choice over assignments, like a list of items on a menu: essay, PowerPoint presentation, poster project or some form of digital literacy, such as a video, Padlet or Prezi. Although it’s important we ask our students how they would like to demonstrate their learning, student agency is about so much more. It requires educators to hold ourselves accountable to values that we must embody and intentionally work towards.

Let’s have a look at these values in more detail in order to clarify what we mean when we talk about student agency.

Genuine decision making

Student agency is about having students take on some of the heavy lifting of learning. When students can have a genuine role in the decision-making process, this will create a classroom culture that values learning as an action. When I teach, I often ask myself, “Am I doing something my students could be doing themselves?” If the answer is yes, I de-centre myself so students can take on these responsibilities. The more I do this, the more comfortable and confident they become in taking on this agency over their learning. Learning becomes a partnership between the teacher and the student as we co-design and co-construct the learning experiences together in the classroom.

Knowing my strengths and stretches as a learner.

I often ask myself if my students know where they are at in their learning, where they need to go next, and if they can identify the steps they need to take to get there. Teachers can often answer these questions about each of our students, but can our students answer these questions for themselves? To help get these conversations started in class, I ask a series of guiding questions to help students reflect and begin to get to know themselves better as learners. For example, “Do you learn best alone, in a small group, or in a large class setting? Do you prefer to write, talk about or draw your learning for others to see? What is your focus threshold, as in, how long can you remain focused on something before you feel you need a change of pace, setting or action?” These questions all help students begin to take on more ownership over their learning.

Exploring my wonderings, curiosities and passions in school.

All students enter their schooling as curious and inquisitive beings. They are full of questions and wonder as they explore and discover the world around them. However, somewhere in their schooling, many become complacent, disengaged and uninterested in their learning and in school. What does our teaching do to support and honour the innate curiosity of all students? How do we lean into student wonderings to make rich connections to our curriculum? How can we make our curriculum come alive so students see it as something we explore rather than something we merely cover? These questions help honour the wonderings, curiosities and passions of all of our students so that they can see themselves as important stakeholders in their learning.

Having my questions shape my learning.

Questions are an invitation to learning. They call for us to be engaged, to be inquisitive and to research and problem-solve. In order to utilize this opportunity to create student agency, I often pose big, unGoogleable questions to frame our units of study in class that draw students in and will act as our overarching big idea for our learning. I make this question highly visible in class. I compose this question to be compelling, relevant and interesting with a hope that this one big unGoogleable question will spark wonder and curiosity in students to ask their own connected questions. We discuss the questions that students generate and begin to sort them into categories and themes before we post them in class under the larger unGoogleable question. They have a genuine voice in the design of the unit in that we will explore the questions they posed in our research and exploration together. Students begin to see how their questions shape their learning.

Having a genuine voice in assessment of my learning.

If we are talking about student agency in the classroom, we must ensure there is student voice in the assessment of learning as well. Students have a genuine voice in the assessment of their learning when they can confidently give accurate feedback to peers, take and apply feedback without worry of ridicule or embarrassment, and embark into learning through the lens of taking risks in order to grow, rather than for a grade, mark or percentage score. Students need to feel psychologically safe if we are to ask them to take on a more active and meaningful role in their learning, which is why as we nurture student agency in our classrooms, it’s important that we also nurture relationships, trust and risk taking.

Showing and exploring my learning in different ways.

Whatever the big idea or content we are learning about, I often begin the school year with a new group of students by providing a choice board through which kids can explore content. A choice board is a digital slide that I have embedded resources into that allows students some options to select information in a means that they feel best supports their learning. I often introduce the exploratory nature of a choice board by asking students, “Do you enjoy taking in information by reading text, looking at images, infographics or charts, watching a short video, exploring a website, or listening to a podcast or someone talking about the information?” Once students have reflected on this prompt, they have a clearer understanding of what best supports their learning. When facing the options on a choice board, they make a decision based on their better understanding of their learning needs and strengths.

Further, I encourage students to document their learning–”evidencing,” as we refer to it–in a manner that they decide. I always provide a few options in the form of thinking maps, thinking routines or templates to help anchor and organize their learning. After exploring these options and considering if any of them would support their learning, I encourage students to take ownership over this decision and select an evidencing method that works best for them. The power of this choice over showing and exploring their learning in different ways is seen in their success and engagement as well as the greater understanding of how I can best support each individual student that I gain. I observe and document their choices and pathways and then reflect on how I can help them with this agency and have them be continuously successful throughout the process.

Deciding how I want to share my learning.

I often ask my students, “If you could show me your learning in any way, how would you show me what you know?” My hope is to honour the diverse learners in the room whilst simultaneously leaning into student’s strengths when it comes to agency. Inevitably students tell me the things they’ve always done in school. Similar to the list of items on a menu I referenced at the onset of this piece, I often observe that students don’t reflect on this prompt with the depth, individuality or creativity I would hope the opportunity offers. That’s why it’s so important that I share with students any artifacts I have curated from other classes and previous years to help paint the picture of what is possible in their learning. I have these artifacts posted on my walls, on display on my shelves or saved as digital files so I can do a bit of a show-and-share and speak to how other students have shown their learning before them. The result is that students begin to see that in our classroom, they will have some voice and choice in how they show their learning and that they can really lean into their strengths and interests. This creates a start point in learning from a strength-based stance rather than a deficit-based position. Kids will choose things that they’re good at, interested in exploring more meaningfully and are more genuinely engaged in. How cool is that?

Growing into the person I want to be.

What are the enduring skills, lasting values and habits of mind that will be the legacy of our time with children in our classrooms? How are we cultivating the conditions in today’s classrooms that will nurture the empathy and equity we hope students embody as citizens of tomorrow’s world? How do we view each and every one of our students as unique individuals with strengths, talents, characteristics and perspectives that we need to honour and help flourish during their time in school? It is within our active exploration of these questions and our validation of them in our interactions with students that will give space and support for them to grow in our classrooms. Student agency is not about pushing all kids down the same pathway or having all kids choose the same goal. Student agency is about empowering students to know themselves better, determine who they want to be and identifying steps we can take together to have this goal become a reality.

Trevor MacKenzie is an award-winning English teacher at Oak Bay High School in Victoria, BC, Canada, who believes that it is a magical time to be an educator. He is also the author of Dive into Inquiry: Amplify Learning and Empower Student Voice, and co-author of Inquiry Mindsets: Nurturing the Dreams, Wonders, and Curiosities of Our Youngest Learners, along with Rebecca Bathurst-Hunt.

When Everything is a Bit Much, Writing in a Journal Can Help

Wed, 04 Nov 2020 06:03:51 GMT

The term “journaling” encompasses a lot of different things: the list of birds you’ve seen in your neighborhood; the descriptions of sights you saw on your last vacation; the notes you jotted down about the dream you had last night. But the general, tried and true everything is a bit much in my life right now, and I have to write it down type of journaling can really help when, well, everything is a bit much.

James Pennebaker, a professor of Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, has spent decades studying “expressive writing.” Basically, Pennebaker says, if you find yourself ruminating on something, “set aside some time to write about it for anywhere from five to 20 minutes a day, for one day, two days, maybe as many as five days.”

Expressive writing is associated with improvements in physical health, improvements in markers of mental health, and improvements in immune function. It’s also been shown to improve working memory in college students, says Pennebaker.

Don’t worry if you’re not exactly sure where to start. Journaling is actually perfect for those times when you can’t pin down what you’re feeling.

“It’s that great first step to opening up and learning who you are and what you believe in and how you feel and how you see and understand the world,” says Rashawnda James, a licensed therapist, YouTuber and a big advocate of journaling.

These four tips will help you get started:

1. Journal whenever you want, for however long you want to.

You don’t need to create a rigid routine around journaling. Try starting small. “I would say start with five minutes. Set the timer on your phone,” recommends James.

Pennebaker only practices expressive writing when something specific is bothering him.

Don’t feel the need to force it either — if you don’t feel like journaling, don’t! Once the practice becomes yet another thing on your to-do list, it becomes less helpful. “When it’s for you, then you can really see the benefits,” explains James.

2. Medium doesn’t matter — the key is to articulate your thoughts.

Your journal doesn’t need to be anything fancy. Don’t be intimidated by beautifully illustrated bullet journals — a dirty napkin and a crayon work too!

Technically, you don’t even have to write. Pennebaker has done informal studies where people write with their fingers in the air. The critical thing, he says, is “That you translate this experience into words.”

If you don’t like to write, James recommends keeping a voice memo journal. “Just talk out loud, because some people are verbal processors,” she says.

3. Let yourself write about anything. Remember, what you write is for you and you alone.

Getting started can be overwhelming. The thoughts and ideas flowing out of you may feel uncomfortable. The key to unpacking an issue through expressive writing, Pennebaker says, is letting your feelings connect the dots for you.

“Sit down and explore your deepest thoughts and feelings about this issue … You might tie it to other issues, for example: how does it relate to your childhood? Your relationship with other people in your life right now?”

Pennebaker says you can write about the same topic every day, or you can opt to write for something completely different each time you sit down. “The only rule I have is once you start writing, write continuously,” he says. “Don’t worry about spelling or grammar. It’s not going to be read by your high school English teacher!”

Staring at a blank page? Freely exploring your emotions might be harder for folks who were raised in a culture that doesn’t reward feeling your feelings. Rashawnda James notes, “If you weren’t … encouraged or given the verbiage as a child to say, ‘I feel such and such,’ then writing it down is going to be like …’What?! I’m supposed to do this? I can’t even say it out loud! How am I supposed to write it?!”

In these cases, James uses feeling charts. Feeling charts can help you identify what you’re feeling by presenting you with a cluster of emotions.

From there, you can try prompts like, “I feel ______ about …”

As you learn how to tie what you’re feeling to a certain word, “it becomes easier to express it and write it down,” James says.

4. Look for reflections and different perspectives, not solutions or fixes.

A journal isn’t a friend or a therapist or counselor — it’s not going to fix your problems. But it will help you find out more about yourself.

Pennebaker recommends not going into it with hard or high expectations.

“You know, it’s kind of like when you’re in a new town and you see a street that looks interesting. The best way to approach it is, ‘Huh? I’ll go down this street and see what I find.’ But if you say, ‘I’m just going to look for shoes size eight and nothing else,’ you’re going to miss everything that’s on the street.”

If you’re looking for some writing prompts to get you started, you can try some of these from James:

What is something you’re most grateful for?
What is the biggest risk you’ve taken in life?
If there was something you could tell your younger self, what would that be?
What do you feel like your life is missing for you to smile more?

The audio portion of this story was produced by Audrey Nguyen, who also adapted the piece for digital.

For more Life Kit, subscribe to our weekly newsletter.

Have a journaling habit? From dream journals to gratitude journals to morning pages — we’d love to hear what’s worked for you! Send us a note at lifekit@npr.org or leave us a voicemail at 202.216.9823.

This Life Kit page and podcast episode were originally published in June 2020. You can listen to the original audio here.

How to Talk to Your Kids About the Election

Mon, 02 Nov 2020 06:59:20 GMT

Election Day is nearly upon us. Then again, you probably didn’t need us to tell you that. Your sweaty palms suggest you’re like many Americans who, no matter which candidate they support, have been amped and anxious for months. If you’ve been riding an emotional, politics-fueled rollercoaster, believe us: Your kids have noticed.

Here’s a quick primer from Life Kit on how to talk with your kids about this election.

Process your own emotions and make home a safe space.

Kids can see that we’re on edge. They are naturally self-centered, and they’ll assume your stress is about them. Be honest and tell them, “Dad/Mom is a little nervous about the election.” It’s helpful for kids’ social and emotional development to hear you naming your emotions.

At the same time, it’s not great for you or them to be mainlining the news 24/7, so try your hardest to turn off the TV or the radio, put away your phone and connect — especially over meals and other key moments during the day.

“We can control the amount of information. We can control the amount of exposure,” Rosemarie Truglio, senior vice president of curriculum and content at Sesame Workshop, told us when we talked to her about parenting during intense news events.

Ask: “What have you heard and how are you feeling?”

Parents and caregivers, this question is a golden line to have in your back pocket at all times — even when there is no election, no protests, no pandemic casting a long shadow over our lives. Tara Conley, a media researcher at Montclair State University, says adults should choose a quiet moment to check in with their kids, maybe at the dinner table or at bedtime.

The idea, she says, is to allow kids to “ask questions about what they’re seeing, how they’re feeling and what do they think.” In other words: Give kids a safe space to reflect and share. And give yourself a chance to dispel any scary rumors or misinformation they may have come across.

And this is key: Your job, first and foremost, is to listen.

Use this as a learning opportunity

Looking for a silver lining to all the recent upheaval? Well, the Annenberg Public Policy Center’s annual Constitution Day survey found a marked increase this year in the awareness among average Americans about their rights, like free speech and the structures of government. And, just over half can name the executive, legislative and judicial branches, an all-time high on this survey.

But the next generation can do better! To be active, empowered citizens, kids need to know basic facts about history and geography. “The more you know, the more you can know,” says Ashley Berner, a professor at Johns Hopkins who studies how schools teach civics. In fact, she says, research shows students who have more time with social studies actually do better in other subjects, too.

Election time is a perfect opportunity to help kids build up a foundation of knowledge. Take a look at all the state maps online. For slightly older kids, you can talk about the origins of the Electoral College, during the Constitutional Convention in 1787. If they’re fans of the musical Hamilton, you can put on “Cabinet Battle #1” for some great context.

Berner also suggests a simple, civically-minded walk outside. “Talk about what institutions are public and what are private. So which things have we decided as a community that we’re going to support, like road-building, or parks or libraries?”

As children grow, a strong foundation of background knowledge will help them sort fact from what tries to pass for it on social media.

Put the election in the context of history — including our “hard history”

Our kids are living through history. It’s good to have perspective on the highs and lows that came before. (Honestly, it’s sort of helpful for grownups too!)

The United States and its democracy are a work-in-progress, and in order for children to understand the role we all have to play in its improvement, they need to learn about its failures as well as its successes. “I think the highest form of patriotism is self-reflection and saying, ‘Hey, this is what we’ve done wrong,'” says Hasan Kwame Jeffries, a history professor at Ohio State University.

Presenting kids with a less-than-honest version of history risks leaving them feeling confused, alienated, even betrayed when they’re exposed to facts that don’t fit that rosy narrative. This came up when we spoke with 17-year-old Taylor Pittman, an advisor to a program called Cultures of Dignity, which is dedicated to “civil dialogue” among young people, families and educators.

A high-school senior in New Orleans, Pittman told us about the time her class visited a former plantation that depended on labor from enslaved people. She says the tour guide wanted to talk about “The agriculture, and ‘It’s so pretty. And look at the nature, ‘” especially the plantation’s oak trees.

“And then when we got back onto the bus, my teacher was like, ‘The oak trees are where they used to hang people. They used to have beatings there.’ And we talked about how everything they said there at that plantation was wrong,” Pittman remembers.

Jeffries says, when talking about race and identity with kids, the point is not to focus solely on the hard stuff but to strike a delicate balance, like when he talks with his daughters.

“Race couldn’t always be discrimination and injustice or slavery and Jim Crow … I had to begin to consciously say, ‘You got to balance the good with the bad. You got to balance the pain with the joy.’ Right? The hardship with the love.”

Don’t demonize the other side. We need to teach kids the fine art of tolerant disagreement.

It feels like the United States has never been so divided. It can be tempting to stay in our safe bubbles and bash our opponents. But Berner says we need to actively expose our children to a range of opinions.

“It’s so important for young people to be engaged in conversations about meaning and purpose and different political viewpoints.” In fact, she says, historically, “civic formation is the prime reason why modern democracy started funding education in the first place.”

According to this view, classrooms should be like a little lab where students practice having reasonable, evidence-based debate. “In fact, most of our peer nations have made it a priority to explicitly teach children about the ways that different groups in society actually see the world differently,” says Berner.

Emotions are running high right now, but Truglio has told us that at all costs, we should resist the temptation to label the other side “bad guys” or “evil.” It’s not helpful, and it may increase fear and confusion. Instead, talk about people being in pain, being angry, or making choices we disagree with. Empathy, perspective-taking — it’s hard to do, but it’s also absolutely necessary in a democracy.

Jeffries adds, “We’re afraid to talk about politics … As my 5-year-old says, ‘That don’t make no sense!’ You got to let people know where you stand. Provide children evidence. Provide them with stories.”

Put civics into action.

Don’t sit and stew. Invite your kids to join you in the nuts and bolts of civic action — like writing letters, going to (safely masked and distanced) protests, or collecting cans for a food pantry. It’s empowering, and it builds a sense of belonging and agency, says Jeffries. “Society is service. You have to serve other people.”

Learning by Voting: Students Want the Right to Make a Difference in Real Life

Fri, 30 Oct 2020 04:33:34 GMT

This story about youth activism was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s newsletter.

OAKLAND, Calif. — Vida Mendoza is only 14, but she hopes to vote in two years.

Mendoza is a member of the student-led Oakland Youth Vote campaign, which advocates for giving 16- and 17-year-olds the right to vote for school board representatives. In May, the Oakland City Council voted unanimously to put the initiative on the November ballot.

Mendoza, a freshman at Life Academy in Oakland, said her school board must be held accountable to the district’s 36,000 students, 85 percent of whom are people of color, and ensure that all of its schools are “getting the resources they need.”

“Who is the school board really representing?” said Mendoza. “Are students of color getting represented appropriately and are decisions being made to support them and their learning?”

In recent years, students have led climate marches, gun control rallies and walkouts protesting federal immigration policies and racial injustice. Now they are demanding a greater role in school policy and the decisions that shape their educations.

Some school districts, local governments and nonprofit groups across the country have galvanized this youth activism by giving students opportunities to participate in leadership roles and democracy in ways that go beyond civics classes and student government. They are also seeking to use this moment to educate teens about elections and voting and turn them into lifelong voters. Despite indications that youth are increasingly involved in civic life, voter turnout among 18- to 24-year-olds remains stubbornly low, and many young adults say they don’t know the basics of how to register to vote and cast a ballot.

Rebecca Kaplan, Oakland city council president and author of the measure to enfranchise 16- and 17-year-olds in school board elections, said it will have “both the immediate goal of letting young people have a say in the school board decisions that are so important for them, but also really a strategy to build our democracy and to build participation and civic involvement for the long haul.”

Andrew Brennen, a National Geographic education fellow working with youth-led movements, said efforts to empower students in school districts such as Oakland are refreshing, but nationwide, there’s a lot more work to be done.

“The reality is that in most school governance systems, young people are systematically marginalized,” he said, “and students play absolutely no role.”

Vida Mendoza, 14, is working to support Measure QQ which will allow 16- and 17-year olds to vote for school board representatives in Oakland, Calif., Sunday, Oct. 11, 2020. A freshman at Life Academy, sheÕs also a member of the All City Council and believes in student activism as a way to make the OUSD school board more accountable and relevant with their student body. (Alison Yin for The Hechinger Report)

Mendoza’s involvement in civic participation started in middle school, when she signed up for the All City Council Student Union, a student-led group sponsored by the Oakland school district that gives students a voice in school district decision-making. In that role, she visited schools around the city and was shocked by the disparities in school building facilities and resources, she said.

Every year the group chooses an issue to focus on. In recent years, the group’s advocacy has led to changes in the district’s graduation requirements, to align them with admissions requirements for California’s university systems, and an expansion of funding for an after-school meal program that had been cut by the school board.

The Oakland Youth Vote, listed on the November ballot as Measure QQ, is one of the latest causes the All City Council has taken up. For this effort, they have teamed with community organizations and the Oakland Youth Advisory Commission, a group convened by the city to consult on policy issues.

The idea to lower the voting age came about following the Oakland teachers’ strikes in February 2019, according to Lukas Brekke-Miesner, executive director of Oakland Kids First, one of the nonprofits involved in the campaign. Students had marched in solidarity with teachers but were upset when the school board slashed funding for several of their demands — for restorative justice programs and foster care case managers — during the contract renegotiations with the teachers’ union, he said. These cuts, coupled with students’ ongoing frustrations over successive reductions in critical services, helped inspire the All City Council and Oakland Kids First to join forces to launch the youth vote campaign in fall 2019 as a way to hold the school board accountable to young people in the district, Brekke-Miesner said.

Student leaders in Oakland’s All City Council brainstorm the messaging for the Oakland Youth Vote campaign, arguing why 16- and 17-year-olds are ready to vote in local school board elections. (Charlotte West for The Hechinger Report)

Christian Castillo, a senior at Coliseum College Prep Academy, has been part of that effort, as a member of All City Council. He said he wasn’t interested in politics before joining the council this year. “Being politically to the right or left, or like having an opinion on it, sort of never really applied to me,” he said. “There was always other people to do it … so I believed I didn’t have to.” Now he’s lobbying his friends who are old enough to vote by informing them how they and their community would benefit if the Oakland Youth Vote passes.

Through All City Council, Oakland students have a louder voice in local education policy than students in many cities, but young people say it’s not enough. The council’s two student directors serve on the Oakland Board of Education in an advisory capacity and regularly meet with their adult counterparts. That’s an increasingly common model in both districts and states: Kentucky, for example, recently created its first student position on the state board of education. But even in districts and states that include student board representatives, students rarely have voting power.

Jessica Ramos, a senior at Skyline High School and a student director on the Oakland school board, she is treated as “just being a teenager” — asked to take on many adult responsibilities like working, paying taxes or taking care of family members, but denied any real power. “Things … the government does affect us, but we can’t vote,” she said.

Jessica Ramos, 17, is a senior at Skyline High School in Oakland where she also serves as the Student Director for the All City Council, and she poses for a portrait in front of City Hall in downtown Oakland, Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2020. Ramos is an active student organizer who is passionate about getting more support for Oakland students, especially those who are low income and first generation. (Alison Yin for The Hechinger Report)

Oakland student directors are able to cast an advisory vote, reflected in the official record. But Ramos said “it doesn’t really count. It’s just an opinion.”

A handful of states, including California, Massachusetts, Tennessee and Vermont, do allow student representatives full voting rights on state boards of education. Massachusetts is unique in that the student board representatives are elected by their peers. Mendoza’s older sister, Gema Quetzal, served on the California board of education in 2018-19, enjoying the same voting power as other board members.

Now she’s a sophomore at Stanford University and is helping to do voter outreach for the Oakland Youth Vote. “As a voting member, I felt I could hold adults accountable for the decisions they made on the education of my peers across the state,” she said. “I also could give the perspective of what students see in their schools every day.”

Other school districts are also trying to elevate student voices in education policy and avoid “tokenism,” as Cristina Salgado puts it. She was hired as the student voice specialist at Chicago Public Schools in 2012 to oversee the district’s newly created “student voice committees.”

Students who serve on the committees learn how to research, organize and identify solutions to issues in their schools, said Salgado. The committees are different from traditional student government, she said, because any student can join. Committee members were among the students leading a walkout in the wake of the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida; students on the committee are also focused on teaching their peers about organizing effectively and understanding the reasons for the protests. Chicago students have also helped shape school district discussions on school infrastructure, attendance and the hiring of a new high school principal.

The committees are housed within the Chicago school district’s social science and civic engagement department, which promotes civic engagement in and out of the classroom through K-12 social studies curriculum, service learning and civics-focused project-based learning.

One of the department’s main goals is to educate students about democracy and the electoral process — and not only during an election year — said director Heather Van Benthuysen. “It’s not just about getting out the vote, it’s about talking about, learning about electoral issues, discussing and elevating issues in the community, engaging with elected officials and ensuring they represent you,” she said. “Teaching about civic engagement only once in a while is like teaching someone how to swim without ever putting them in the water.”

In early October, the district held a virtual event to train high school students from wards with particularly low voter turnout rates to do election outreach. Students learned about topics such as mail-in voting, local elections and how the pandemic could affect turnout. Later they analyzed voter turnout data in their neighborhoods and developed plans for educating younger peers, family members and neighbors about elections.

Brenda Casas, a 16-year-old junior at Tilden High School, in Chicago, said she’d started getting interested in politics after taking a civics class last year. But it wasn’t until the virtual workshop that she learned how to talk to others about the benefits of voting. After the event, she decided to broach the topic with her mother. “I was trying to convince her because she’s one of the people that doesn’t want to vote because they don’t trust the system,” Casas said.

Other districts and states have also started to promote hands-on civics education. In 2018, Massachusetts passed a bill that required districts to ensure every eighth grader participates in at least one student-led, nonpartisan civics project, and New York City Public schools hired its first “student voice manager” in 2019. This election cycle, many elections offices have teamed up with high schools to recruit students as poll workers. In Montgomery County, Maryland, 16- and 17-year olds can receive service learning hours as an election aide.

High school freshman Vida Mendoza, 14, and her older sister Gema Quetzal, a sophomore at Stanford University, stand outside their home in Oakland, California. The sisters are part of a student-led campaign to lower the voting age for school board elections. Mendoza said her activism comes from watching her mom and sister organize in the community. (Alison Yin for The Hechinger Report)

Meanwhile, Oakland isn’t the only city to attempt to lower the voting age for local elections. At least three cities in Maryland have extended voting rights in local elections to 16- and 17-year-olds, and a handful of states and other cities have explored the idea. In 2015, Generation Citizen, a nonprofit, launched a national campaign to extend voting rights to teens in local elections.

Berkeley voters passed a measure in 2016 that gave the city council authority to allow 16- and 17-year-olds to vote for school board members, but it stalled out amid financial and technical hurdles. The measure barred the city from spending any money on implementation, and since voting occurs at the county level, the logistics of a separate ballot for 16- and 17-year-olds in Berkeley has been complicated.

“So many of the obstacles that we’ve faced are just a result of the fact that Berkeley is one of the very first cities in the entire country to do this, and the only one in California, so there’s no precedent for how to do this,” said Adrienne Mermin, a senior at Berkeley High School who has been pushing for implementation,

Proponents of Measure QQ, in Oakland, hope to avoid such red tape if the measure passes. The Oakland City Council is committed to funding and implementing the measure if it is approved, said Kaplan, Measure QQ’s author.

Mermin said if Oakland’s measure passes she expects it will put pressure on the city of Berkeley and surrounding Alameda County to lower the voting age. She said one reason 18- to 24-year-olds don’t vote is they are in the midst of big life transitions, such as entering college and the workforce. Casting a ballot in high school would familiarize students with the process at an earlier age and lead to higher turnout, Mermin said.

That’s held true in Takoma Park, a Maryland town of 18,000 near Washington, D.C. In 2012, it became the first U.S. city to lower the voting age to 16 for local elections. The turnout for 16- and 17-year-olds in local elections between 2013 and 2017 averaged roughly 42 percent, compared with 20 percent overall, according to data from the city clerk’s office.

“They basically behave like 70-year-olds,” said former city councilman Timothy Male. Teens ages 16 and 17 are also showing up at city council meetings, organizing candidate debates in Takoma Park and holding voter registration events, he said.

Back in Oakland, students have been working through the pandemic to ensure the ballot measure will succeed. In May, almost a dozen students called into a virtual Oakland City Council meeting to advocate for it. They have organized a phone- bank campaign and, in early October, hosted a virtual launch event on Facebook Live featuring student speakers and live performances by local artists and musicians.

Brekke-Miesner, of Oakland Kids First, said he has seen how being involved in policy making changes young people. Students who were once terrified of speaking before council members now command the room, he said. “They’re so much more effective organizers than any of us as adults are, because they have way more on the line, and they know these issues in a really deep experiential way,” he said.

If Measure QQ gets the nod on November 3, it would enfranchise an estimated 8,000 16- and 17-year olds in Oakland.

Vida Mendoza, the Life Academy freshman, is looking forward to 2022 when she could be among those teen voters. Mendoza argues that it isn’t complacency that keeps young people from the polls, but the failure of schools to educate youth about the mechanics of voting and how they can make a difference.

Her passion for activism came from watching her mom and sister organize in the community, but she credits the All City Council with giving her a platform.

“You go to school to learn,” she said, “but you can also learn what is going on beyond your classroom.”

Monica Braine produced the audio segment for this story.

This story has been supported by the Solutions Journalism Network, a nonprofit organization dedicated to rigorous and compelling reporting about responses to social problems.

When Kids Say ‘I’m not a reader’: How Librarians Can Disrupt Traumatic Reading Practices

Thu, 29 Oct 2020 07:58:49 GMT

“I’m not a reader.” It’s a common refrain Julia Torres, a teacher-librarian in Denver Public Schools, has heard throughout her 16-year career. She’s seen students tear up books, throw them away or check them out only to immediately return them all because they didn’t have confidence in their ability to read.

As a librarian, Torres feels strongly that libraries should be spaces of liberation, places where students can develop a love of reading at any stage. Reading is a skill that everyone can grow to love, but too many negative experiences during a child’s literacy education can result in trauma that appears as boredom, apathy or even anger. When a student has a poor experience like being shamed for their reading choices, they can begin to associate reading with painful feelings of insecurity, humiliation and/or toxic stress. These negative experiences can start as early as kindergarten and go on to impact a student’s self-image throughout their entire educational career.

In an American Library Association presentation Healing Reading Trauma: Rebuilding Love of Reading Through Libraries for Liberation, Julia Torres and Julie Stivers, a teacher-librarian at Mt. Vernon Middle School in North Carolina, explored how reading trauma is inflicted on students and what librarians can do to interrupt and prevent that trauma from occurring.

What causes reading trauma?

According to Stivers and Torres, some of the practices that inflict reading trauma are:

High-stakes testing, which encourages students to “perform” scholarship and regurgitate the answers they think the test givers want.

Prioritizing “classics,” which are most often written by dead, white, straight, cis-gendered men. “A lot of our students do not read these books because they don’t feel that they relate to the lives that they’re living,” said Torres, who noted that the recent top books among her students were Long Way Down, The Hate U Give, and The Poet X, as well as poetry, manga, and graphic novels.

Shaming reading choices and judging what students want to read. If students are told that what they like to read (comics, manga and fan fiction for example) do not “count,” they can disengage and lose their identities as readers.

Book leveling, which is often generated by a computer system that may incorrectly assess complexity of theme and language. “We have to be really cautious of the fact that leveling and scores are generated for teacher use, not so much for students to position themselves,” said Torres. When students feel like they’re not meeting their teachers’ expectations or when they don’t feel like where they should be as a learner, that can be a source of trauma.

What can librarians do to interrupt reading trauma?

Preventing reading trauma begins and centers on student empowerment. “We don’t want students always dependent on us to develop their lifelong reading,” said Torres. To interrupt traumatic practices, librarians can:

Build an inclusive library. Make sure that your collection is as inclusive and diverse as possible. Genrefying your collection can make it easier for students to navigate and also help you identify gaps in your collection. Additionally, Stivers recalled an activity where she asked a student to find a book cover that looked like her. The student found a book within two minutes. Could your students immediately pick out a book that’s in display that looks like them? Find books that provide authentic and positive representations of your students.

Reevaluate your role and your priorities. “We’re not gatekeepers of books,” said Stivers. “That’s not our role. I would much rather lose a book than a reader.” Can you empower your students to take control of the library and have a say in what’s purchased for the collection? If you’re a white librarian, remember as well that you’re not anyone’s savior, Stivers cautioned. “I’m not saving my kids because I’m pointing them in the direction of Jason Reynolds and Angie Thomas. I’m not doing things for them; I’m doing things with them.”

Take a look at your policies. Get rid of fines, check-out limits, security gates, and punitive policies.

Host inclusive programming. For example, at Stivers’s library, she and her students created a set of guidelines for professional and collection development called the #LibFive, which includes tenets such as “Graphic novels and manga are not extra” and “Show the joy in our stories.” Instead of hosting traditional book fairs where students have to pay for books, her library hosts a True Book Fair, where students are invited to choose books intentionally curated to their interests without any costs. Read what your students are reading. Saying graphic novels count as real reading is only lip-service if you’re not reading those graphic novels yourself. “It’s hard to connect with them in the way that’s going to foster a love of reading,” said Stivers.

Redefine what counts as reading. Julia Torres is a firm believer in teaching skills, not texts. She encourages her students, even those in high school, to listen to audiobooks or read picture books. Find a way to teach important skills like comprehension or critical thinking with the texts that excite and interest students.

Additional tips for creating virtual space

Connect students to authors on social media. Encourage students to interact with authors and get inspired to read and write. Apps like Goodreads, Twitter and Instagram can be great virtual spaces for discussing the work with authors and other readers.
Attend author’s virtual panels and encourage students to do the same.
Host online read alouds and small group reading instruction
Get circulation data and conduct surveys asking students what they’re reading and their attitude towards reading during this time.

Inspired by @JasonReynolds83 GHOST, students create their own ‘silver bullets’ – shoes that define their identity. Accompanying the design is a writing assignment on the students’ shoe’s design and purpose. #8thgradematters pic.twitter.com/DgZgNjOLZb

— Mr. Bean's class (@teachingbean) October 7, 2020

What Kindergarten Struggles Could Mean for a Child’s Later Years

Tue, 27 Oct 2020 07:41:36 GMT

This story about online kindergarten was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

In Greenbrier County, West Virginia, Jennifer Holley began the year teaching nine 5-year-olds in person and 14 online. Her first online kindergarten class was a bit of a mess, she said. Only three children were correctly logged in, while her email and the school’s phone were flooded with requests for technical help from the frantic parents and grandparents of the other kids.

“One child was talking away and answering my questions,” Holley said. “The only problem was I couldn’t hear him. It’s very frustrating. I don’t think all of these children are going to get what they need and that frightens me.”

Parents are equally overwhelmed, according to email interviews with more than two dozen kindergarten families.

“She can’t do anything independently,” said Suzanne Parker, 40, of her 5-year-old daughter, Salem. “Not reading yet or knowing how to use a computer or mouse or knowing how to use a keyboard — everything takes longer and requires my help. It has been difficult to manage and — five weeks in — still feels unsustainable.”

Parker, who is a pastor and children’s advocate in Raleigh, North Carolina, said her family was straining under the intensity of what she had looked forward to as a seminal year in her child’s life.

“I find the grief about the lost semester of school to virtual learning (the social interactions and experiences I can’t replicate at home) comes in waves and at unexpected times,” Parker said in her email.

Kindergarten is designed for young children, who learn best by doing. And while pre-literacy and math skills are covered, building block towers, playing make-believe and mastering the playground equipment are also key elements of this critical grade.

“I don’t want to pit one grade against another,” said Laura Bornfreund, the director of early and elementary education policy at New America, a progressive think tank. “But the foundational knowledge, the skills to be able to learn and do well in school later are so important. Kindergarten matters a lot.”

“As a mom and teacher, I have also been realizing more than ever how BIG schools are in kid’s lives for childcare, food, mental health care, safety, and so much more.” Sadie Kenzler, whose daughter is attending virtual kindergarten. Portland, Oregon. (Sadie Kenzler)

Approximately 3.7 million 5-year-olds were expected to enroll in kindergarten this fall. In pandemic times, most of them — 62 percent by one estimate — were slated to start the school year sitting at home in front of a computer.

Asked what 5-year-olds stand to lose if their entire kindergarten experience is moved online, Bornfreund was concise: “All of it.”

And children who already have the least stand to lose the most. Research has shown that high-quality early education benefits children, especially children from low-income families, through to their adulthood. A strong start can improve academic achievement, financial independence, even heart health. For the most vulnerable students, missing kindergarten could become a permanent handicap.

As consensus grows that schools are not the superspreaders of the virus they were initially feared to be, many districts are working to bring their youngest students back to school. However, students of color were the least likely to return to school in person this fall. A September survey of 677 school districts found that 79 percent of Hispanic students, 75 percent of Black students and 51 percent of white students wouldn’t have the option of in-person learning in September, according the survey by the news service AP and Chalkbeat, a nonprofit news organization focused on education.

(Schools district plans are changing so rapidly that it is impossible to pin down concrete numbers that can be counted on for the whole year, so snapshots like those provided by surveys offer the best information we have at the moment.)

If missing kindergarten “could happen equitably it doesn’t seem like a tragedy to me, but the fact is that kids’ experiences are just going to be incredibly unequal,” said Mimi Engel, an associate professor of education at the University of Colorado, Boulder, who studies how children learn in kindergarten.

Nobody is prepared for this, Engel said, including teachers.

“We already have something that’s ‘good online kindergarten’ called Sesame Street,” said Engel. “That’s quality programming originally targeted to low-income kids. You’d want something as engaging as that. And to expect a teacher to create that is unreasonable.”

What life looks like for 5-year-olds this year will vary immensely depending on where they live, who they live with and whether their schools are offering instruction online or in person. What is certain is that many, if not most, of this year’s kindergartners will enter first grade knowing less than they would have learned in a typical year. And the variation between what different kids know will have grown.

“We can’t just ignore going into first grade that kids didn’t have kindergarten,” said Bornfreund. “Without the recognition that this year was just a loss, that’s going to be to the detriment of kids.”

Kariyana Young, 6, attends school virtually from her bedroom in Port Orchard, Washington. (Kisha Young )

In West Virginia, kindergarten teacher Holley said she feels better about the experience of her in-person students. By early October, two of her online kindergarten students were attending in person and she expected more to follow. Nationally, more than a third of children (about 38 percent) were attending school in person either a few days a week or every day at the start of the school year. Anecdotally, it’s going better than expected.

“The kids are handling it remarkably well,” Holley said of her students, two thirds of whom come from families living in poverty. “I think a lot of us thought, ‘Oh the kids will never wear masks.’ They are doing just fine.”

Holley said the staff at Rupert Elementary School in Crawley, West Virginia, where she teaches, has pulled together and she’s never felt more supported. She thinks they are doing everything they can to keep in-person learning safe. That doesn’t mean she isn’t terrified sometimes.

“My biggest fear is that a child will get the virus, transmit it to their caregiver and then the caregiver will die and the child will have no one,” she said. “Children need to be in school; it’s the most important thing. And it’s a pandemic. This is not going to be a normal year.”

Safety concerns plague parents too. And yet, of the many families interviewed for this story, those with kids in school were the happiest.

Vivian Olsen, 5, goes to school four days a week in Eagle, Colorado. She thinks of her masks “like an accessory,” said her mom, Robin Olsen, 47, who works remotely for a Dallas-based investment firm. More importantly to Olsen, Vivian comes home each day proclaiming it to have been “the best day of my life.”

“We are so grateful for our teachers and educators for showing up EVERY day for our children,” said Olsen by email. “Most of them are parents too — it must be a lot to juggle and I am humbled by their courage.”

Adding to the juggling act, some districts are frequently switching schedules. In State College, Pennsylvania, parents are getting a notice each Friday about whether they will have in-person school or virtual school.

“It was the first time in almost six months I received a solid block of time to work that was quiet and without interruptions or distractions,” said Tiffany Mathews, 44, of her twins’ first week of kindergarten in State College. Then the Covid-19 infection rate in the area jumped and school moved online.

“Their teacher is great and very helpful,” said Mathews, who works as a program coordinator for science education outreach at Penn State. “However, trying to work with kindergarteners going to school at home is chaotic and productivity for my work has hit a wall (again). Not sure how this is going to be sustainable for nine months.”

“I know my daughter deserves better than a six-hour day on Zoom with 25 other children. I know her teacher deserves better. And I feel powerless to help make it better. I feel defeated.” Nicol Russell on her daughter Makena’s experience with virtual kindergarten. Phoenix, Arizona. ( Nicol Russell)

For many teachers and parents, however, the risks of in-person school simply feel too high.

Jennifer Callahan of Redmond, Oregon has taught kindergarten for 25 years. Her husband’s fragile health made her think she might have to quit her job this fall if teaching in person was her only option. He’s had two recent surgeries and she didn’t feel safe going into a classroom every day and then possibly bringing the virus home.

Instead, she volunteered to be her district’s kindergarten teacher for the students who opted to go online all year. Her 42 students come from all eight district elementary schools, she said, representing both the high- and low-income areas of her small city in central Oregon. Their families have chosen the online option, often because of health conditions in their own homes, and signed a contract designating an adult who will supervise learning at home.

She said it’s a relief to feel that none of the adults involved expect perfection from each other. “They have asked for grace as well as said they would provide grace on my part,” she said of the parents, grandparents, older siblings and babysitters she’ll be working with all year long. “It was comforting to find out that they wanted that flexibility as well as being willing to provide it.”

Callahan has come up with dozens of ways to make online kindergarten work. Kids show they can identify letters by finding them on the keyboard and typing them into the chat box. Callahan leads “brain breaks” mid-lesson so kids stand up and move for a minute. To get to know their classmates, she has kids run to find certain items in their house and then hold them up in front of the camera. There’s crazy hat day, guest speaker day, pet show-and-tell day. She’s hooked her document camera up to her video feed so that kids can see her writing, and a colleague created digital versions of their social-emotional teaching materials. She introduced estimation by explaining to kids that she now keeps chickens — a pandemic hobby — and asks them to estimate the number of eggs in a basket she holds up for them. She hopes to take any student who wants to come on a socially-distanced snowshoe adventure this winter.

Callahan said that to preserve her optimism she had to stop paying attention to negative comments about online kindergarten, which can seem ubiquitous on her social media. “We didn’t choose this,” she said. “And we have to find a way to make it work.”

Many public school families have already given up trying to make it work and are simply opting out. Firm national figures are not yet available, but a research team based at the University of Oregon estimates that as many as 600,000 fewer children than expected have enrolled in public kindergarten this fall. If that’s accurate, it would be about a 17 percent decline in kindergarten enrollment. According to the surveys the team conducted, nearly half (47 percent) of parents reported that they could not manage having their child in kindergarten along with their other responsibilities.

The trend is widespread. In Los Angeles, 6,000 fewer kindergarteners showed up for school this fall, a 14 percent drop from fall 2019. Washington state saw a 14 percent drop in kindergarten enrollment as well. In Philadelphia, kindergarten enrollment was down 25 percent.

Michelle Blanchet, 35, a teacher training consultant and mom to a kindergartner and a first grader, has decided to homeschool her kids, at least until the family moves to Switzerland in February. Though they currently live in Leesburg, Virginia, Blanchet’s husband and children are Swiss. The Blanchets had already planned to move, but “the political climate and mismanagement of the pandemic have definitely created more of a sense of urgency,” Blanchet said.

In the meantime, Blanchet said she picks a theme each week and makes the lessons age-appropriate so that both of her children are learning at their current levels.

“Honestly, I think it takes me a fraction of the time it would to sit with my children and do distance learning (and I think hands on learning is much higher quality),” Blanchet said in an email.

Aaron Vazquez, 5, in his “classroom” on his first day of virtual kindergarten in Ft. Worth, Texas. (Juan Vazquez )

Some parents who would have used the public schools have enrolled their children in private schools or decided to pay special child care centers to supervise their kids using online public school programs.

Teddy Brown, 5, lives a five-minute walk from his local elementary school in Columbia, South Carolina. His parents bought the house precisely because of that short walk, said his mom, Jessica Brown. And yet, this year Teddy started kindergarten at his Catholic parish’s private school. Brown, an economics professor at the University of South Carolina, knows her family is lucky to be able to afford this option. She also thinks it didn’t have to be this way.

“I feel a bit abandoned and betrayed by the public schools,” Brown said in an email. “If it’s safe for daycares to be open and caring for 4- and 5-year-olds, then I think they could have at least tried to open kindergarten. Instead, they’re treating it like an all or nothing decision. Either the entire school system is open or it’s closed. We need to do better for our youngest kids.”

It remains to be seen whether families like the Browns will return to public schools when they reopen, whenever that may be.

“We were lucky to get the last spot in our parish’s kindergarten class and to be able to afford it. There are lots of families who don’t have that option.” Jessica Brown on her son Teddy’s experience attending school in person. Columbia, South Carolina. (Jessica Brown)

And when schools do reopen, this missed year will have to be accounted for, said kindergarten expert Bornfreund. Indeed, first grade teachers should be prepared to start their 2021 school year in more of a kindergarten mindset, she said. She wants to see districts bring kids to school next summer, if it’s safe, to stem learning loss. And she hopes educators use the moment to step back and think deeply about what makes kindergarten so important and then focus on that.

In the meantime, she said, offering social-emotional support to young children and their families is going to be paramount for the 2020-21 school year.

“Understanding where they are will help the academic learning,” Bornfreund said. “This is just an especially challenging time.”

Despite it all, there are some moments worth savoring, said Esther Berg, 46, whose youngest is enrolled in online kindergarten in Springfield, Virginia. Sometimes, during class, her son will reach over and grab her hand.

“Sometimes during class, he’ll reach over and grab my hand.” Esther Berg on her son Julian’s experience with virtual kindergarten. Springfield, Virginia. (Esther Berg)

“Being able to stay with him and see him throughout the day has been bittersweet for me,” said Berg, who works in communications. “I’m thrilled to be there when he laughs and enjoys different parts of his day, but feel like I’m intruding on a part of his life that should be exclusively his. It’s hard.”

It can also get weird. In Boise, Idaho, Elizabeth Lion, 5, opened her phys ed class link recently only to find a YouTube video of someone twerking, a booty-shaking dance move, instead of playing soccer. “My younger boys do the PE classes with my kindergartner and they were confused about why they had to ‘do stuff with their butt,’” said Elizabeth’s mom, Kate Lion, 37.

The link, posted by accident, was deleted by school staff as soon as Lion, a stay-at-home parent, alerted them to the error. Overall, she said that to the extent she could drop the idea of Elizabeth getting a “normal” kindergarten year, online school was going pretty well.

“I had to realize that my expectations are not hers,” Lion said. “She doesn’t know what she is missing so she doesn’t miss it.

A Rising Number Of U.S. Children Have The Option Of In-Person School

Fri, 23 Oct 2020 07:29:24 GMT

By Election Day, more than 60% of U.S. K-12 public school students will be attending schools that offer in-person learning at least a few days a week, an updated tracker finds.

More and more districts are opening up school buildings this fall, even as coronavirus infection rates remain high in most states. That’s according to the latest release from Burbio, a company that aggregates school and community calendars from the Web.

As of Election Day, the report says:

37.8% of students will be attending schools that only offer virtual learning.
35.7% of students will be attending schools offering traditional, in-person learning every day.
The remainder, 26.5% will be attending schools that offer a hybrid schedule of two or three in-person days per week.

From Labor Day to Election Day, Burbio calculates the percentage of students with access to at least some in-person school will have grown by 22 percentage points, from 38% to 60%. There are large regional variations, with states like Texas and Florida offering full-time, in-person learning to more than 75% of students, while California, Washington, Maryland, Oregon and Hawaii have more than 90% of their students learning only online.

These numbers don’t necessarily speak to the full picture of how children are learning. That’s because a percentage of students choose virtual learning even where in-person school is offered. For example, in New York City, where schools are hybrid, just under half of students are reportedly learning from home.

Burbio says it gathers its information directly from school websites across a national sample of 1,200 districts in all 50 states, including the 200 largest districts in the country.

FAFSA Applications Are Open. Here’s How To Fill It Out This Year

Thu, 22 Oct 2020 06:32:38 GMT

Welcome to FAFSA season.

The Free Application For Federal Student Aid opened on Oct. 1 — and if you’re planning on going to college next year, or even just toying with the idea of taking classes, you should fill it out.

Yes, it’s a government form, but it’s free, and it’s the first step in getting financial aid that could be the key to going to college. COVID-19 makes everything more tricky, and filling out the FAFSA is no exception — but even if your family has lost a lot of income during the pandemic, there’s still hope. Colleges want you to come to their schools, and this form could be the first step in getting there.

Here’s how to fill out the FAFSA and why you shouldn’t wait to do it.

How It Works

The FAFSA will prompt you to list up to 10 schools that you’re interested in attending, and the federal government will send your information to these schools. You’ll hear back directly from them — not from the government — about how much financial aid you’ll get. This will include grants, scholarships (which you don’t have to pay back!) and loans.

Lots of schools determine financial aid on a rolling basis, so you could hear back in a few weeks — and some more selective schools won’t let students know their financial aid package until their admission results come back in the spring.

Where To Start

Before you start the FAFSA, you’ll need to make a Federal Student Aid ID — a username and password that serve as your online signature when you’re filling out aid forms through the federal government. Create an FSA ID here.

You’ll need to be prepared with a few things as you sit down to start the application. Have your social security number (or permanent resident card) handy.

It’s also helpful to have the 2019 federal tax returns for you and your parents. The FAFSA starts by asking demographic questions about you, your family and your high school — and then moves on to financial questions to get a sense of how much money you might need to pay for college. It relies on last year’s tax data for much of this information. The form automatically pulls that information from the IRS, but it’s helpful if you can have the taxes accessible while you’re filling it out just in case.

“It seems intimidating, but it’s really not that bad,” says Dominique Gunn, a college advisor in Columbus, Ohio. “All we’re doing is plugging and chugging. Just plugging in information and moving on to the next page.”

Got it all? Now go to this website to fill out the FAFSA.

Deadlines To Remember

The FAFSA opened up on Oct. 1, and it will close on June 30, 2021. That’s a big window to apply for financial aid — but if you already know you’re thinking about college next fall, you should go ahead and fill out the application now. “Many states and a lot of institutional funds are first come, first serve,” says Sara Urquidez, who runs a non-profit that guides students in Dallas and Houston through the college process. “[The] earlier you get in line, the more money you could potentially receive from a particular institution.”

Applying earlier could make a big difference in the funds that you get — and you’ll want to know how much financial aid you’ll receive before you make a decision about where to go.

What If My Financial Situation Has Changed Since My 2019 Taxes?

The FAFSA always relies on the taxes from the previous year — that’s just how the federal form works. This year, that gives an unrealistic picture of lots of families’ finances, because so many people have lost jobs and income due to COVID-19. If you’re in this situation, you’re not alone and colleges know that.

Fill out the FAFSA — but then reach out to the colleges you’re considering. “Let them know, ‘Hey, something’s happened. Our finances are just a little bit different now. What can we do to let you know so you can take a second look?‘” recommends Karla Weber, who works in the financial aid office at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Colleges know these calls are coming and are ready to adjust financial aid offers.

Where To Go For Help

If you’ve got questions while you’re filling out the form, you can save it and come back to it later. Reach out to your guidance counselor or even your teachers for help. They’re the people who know you best.

Financial aid offices at the colleges you’re interested in attending can also help you. “The financial aid office is your friend in this process. I think sometimes we get made out to be the ones that are hiding or hoarding this money from students, where it’s really just the opposite,” says Karla Weber at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. It’s their job to get you the money you need.

Once Those Results Come In

Your offer letters from individual schools will spell out the financial aid you receive — but you don’t have to take it. You can always turn the funds down if you choose a different school, or if one school simply isn’t offering you enough money to attend.

If you need more aid to attend the school you’re most interested in, you should reach out to the financial aid office and let them know. Nothing is final in this process, and they may be able to provide more money for you — or even suggest scholarships you can apply for to make it work. You’ll never get that extra cash unless you ask.

The podcast and digital versions of this story were produced by Clare Lombardo.

We’d love to hear from you. Leave us a voicemail at 202-216-9823 with a greeting, your name, your phone number and a random life tip. Or send us an email at LifeKit@npr.org. It might appear in an upcoming episode.

For more Life Kit, subscribe to our newsletter.

Look Inward To Make External Change: Advice From A Meditation Teacher

Thu, 22 Oct 2020 06:28:02 GMT

When you think about meditation, what comes to mind?

Perhaps it evokes gentle music, the soft light of candles or a cool, tranquil space. Maybe you’re thinking about the last five minutes of your yoga practice or the first five minutes of your morning. Or, maybe, meditation doesn’t do much for you at all.

But have you ever considered meditation as a means for social change? Or mindfulness as a path toward real action?

When the outside world feels upside-down — like it so often does these days — it might seem counterintuitive to look inside yourself for change. But that’s exactly what Sharon Salzberg, a bestselling author and world-renowned meditation teacher, says is the answer.

Author and meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg. (Twitter)

Salzberg’s new book, Real Change: Mindfulness to Heal Ourselves and the World, argues that doing work within ourselves can create ripples of real change in the outer world.

“One of the strangest things I discovered about meditation practice is that while it looks like maybe the most solitary activity imaginable … what it actually produces is a profound sense of connection, not only to yourself but to others,” says Salzberg.

Salzberg wrote her new book for the many meditators she knows who are looking to bring their compassion alive into the world and for the many activists she knows on the front lines in need of relief. Wherever you are in your journey, she says, taking the time to be present with yourself and your emotions can be healing and gratifying. And that awareness can lead to connections — connections that lead to real change.

So, you might be asking, where do you start?

Mindfulness is a time to be with ourselves and our emotions “without the intense overlay of projection or comparison or judgment … so that we get a cleaner, clearer view of what our experience actually is,” Salzberg says. Mindfulness can be practiced in a lot of ways, and meditation, she says, is a direct shot at it.

She suggests taking 10 or 15 minutes out of your day to practice mindful meditation.

From this space of clarity, says Salzberg, we can get a better sense of ourselves, our place in the world and our relationships to other people. We can “reorient our priorities, and our worldview changes.”

Sitting with your emotions in this way allows you to look at your experience with more objectivity. Take anger, for example.

“If you just watch — not judging and not being lost in it — you see anger is a very complex emotion. It almost always has sadness in it, fear in it, maybe grief in it, maybe guilt in it, and … you see a kind of kernel of helplessness in it,” says Salzberg. “And if we can get there to where we really observe the helplessness, then that’s the moment we will resolve on an action, and that’s the beginning of channeling the energy.”

That energy won’t go far without recognizing your agency, Salzberg says.

“I’ve seen over so many years of teaching that even as we develop a lot more kindness and compassion, there’s often a feeling like, ‘I could never do enough, whatever I have to contribute is so meager, it’s little and nothing, and so I won’t do anything.’ ” Agency requires that we continue to take action despite that uncertainty or insecurity.

“It means finding the one thing that you can make real to begin with, just making a call or getting someone’s phone number,” says Salzberg. “It’s like we’re rebuilding at the same time everything is falling apart.”

It’s these small individual acts, says Salzburg, that can together bring about big societal change.

“We share this life. We share this planet. We need to be responsive to one another as though what we do affects others and what others do will affect us, because that’s the truth of things.”

The podcast portion of this story was produced by Andee Tagle.

For more Life Kit, subscribe to our newsletter.

What the Research Says About School Reopening and COVID-19 Transmission

Wed, 21 Oct 2020 15:17:59 GMT

Despite widespread concerns, two new international studies show no consistent relationship between in-person K-12 schooling and the spread of the coronavirus. And a third study from the United States shows no elevated risk to childcare workers who stayed on the job.

Combined with anecdotal reports from a number of U.S. states where schools are open, as well as a crowdsourced dashboard of around 2,000 U.S. schools, some medical experts are saying it’s time to shift the discussion from the risks of opening K-12 schools to the risks of keeping them closed.

“As a pediatrician, I am really seeing the negative impacts of these school closures on children,” Dr. Danielle Dooley, a medical director at Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C., told NPR. She ticked off mental health problems, hunger, obesity due to inactivity, missing routine medical care and the risk of child abuse — on top of the loss of education. “Going to school is really vital for children. They get their meals in school, their physical activity, their health care, their education, of course.”

While agreeing that emerging data is encouraging, other experts said the United States as a whole has made little progress toward practices that would allow schools to make reopening safer — from rapid and regular testing, to contact tracing to identify the source of outbreaks, to reporting school-associated cases publicly, regularly and consistently.

“We are driving with the headlights off, and we’ve got kids in the car,” said Melinda Buntin, chair of the Department of Health Policy at Vanderbilt School of Medicine, who has argued for reopening schools with precautions.

Emerging evidence

Enric Álvarez at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya looked at different regions within Spain for his recent co-authored working paper. Spain’s second wave of coronavirus cases started before the school year began in September. Still, cases in one region dropped three weeks after schools reopened, while others continued rising at the same rate as before, and one stayed flat.

Nowhere, the research found, was there a spike that coincided with reopening: “What we found is that the school [being opened] makes absolutely no difference,” Álvarez told NPR.

Spain does extensive contact tracing, so Álvarez was also able to analyze how much schools are contributing to the spread of the coronavirus. Álvarez said his research suggests the answer is: not much. He found that, for all the students and staff who tested positive, 87% of them did not infect anyone else at the school. They were single cases.

“We are not sure that the environments of the schools may not have a small and systematic effect,” said Álvarez, “But it’s pretty clear that they don’t have very major epidemic-changing effects, at least in Spain, with the measures that are being taken in Spain.”

These safety measures include mask-wearing for all children older than 6, ventilation, keeping students in small groups or “bubbles,” and social distancing of 1.5 meters — slightly less than the recommended 6 feet in the United States. When a case is detected, the entire “bubble” is sent home for quarantine.

Insights for Education is a foundation that advises education ministries around the globe. For their report, which was not peer reviewed, they analyzed school reopening dates and coronavirus trends from February through the end of September across 191 countries.

“There is no consistent pattern,” said Dr. Randa Grob-Zakhary, who heads the organization. “It’s not that closing schools leads to a decrease in cases, or that opening schools leads to a surge in cases.”

Some countries, such as Thailand and South Africa, fully opened when cases were low, with no apparent impact on transmission. Others, such as Vietnam and Gambia, had cases rising during summer break, yet those rates actually dropped after schools reopened. Japan, too, saw cases rise, and then fall again, all while schools were fully reopened. But the United Kingdom saw a strong upward trend that started around the time of reopening schools.

“We’re not saying at all that schools have nothing to do with cases,” Grob-Zakhary said. What the data suggests instead is that opening schools does not inevitably lead to increased case numbers.

What about the U.S.?

On Oct. 14, the Infectious Diseases Society of America gave a briefing on safe school reopenings. Bottom line? “The data so far are not indicating that schools are a superspreader site,” said Dr. Preeti Malani, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Michigan’s medical school.

One place in the U.S. where systematic data gathering is happening — Utah — seems to echo the conclusions drawn by the new international studies. Utah’s state COVID database clearly reports school-associated cases by district. And while coronavirus spread is relatively high in the state, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Sydnee Dickson believes that schools are not, for the most part, driving spread.

“Where you see cases on the rise in a neighborhood, in a county, we see that tend to be reflected in a school,” Dickson said. “[But] we’re not seeing spread by virtue of being in school together.”

Tom Hudachko of the state’s health department said that after both colleges and schools reopened in early September, there was a rise in cases among the 15-24 age group. But with targeted public health messaging those cases have started to come down.

For the most part, Hudachko said, K-12 school clusters have been concentrated at high schools. “We have had some outbreaks in middle schools. They’ve been far less frequent. And elementary school numbers seem to be one-offs here and there.”

And these clusters — including one large reported outbreak with at least 90 cases — have largely been traced to informal social gatherings in homes, not to classrooms. (Álvarez, in Spain, also said that clusters among young people there have been traced to social gatherings, including rooftop and beach parties).

Few states are reporting school-related data as clearly as Utah. And that’s a shame, said Buntin at Vanderbilt. “One might argue that we’re running really a massive national experiment right now in schools,” Buntin said, “and we’re not collecting uniform data.”

The largest centralized effort at such data collection in the United States — the unofficial, crowdsourced COVID-19 School Response Dashboard — has gotten a lot of publicity. But it is self-reported, not a representative sample of schools.

Buntin and other experts said it’s likely that the dashboard is biased toward schools that are doing an exemplary job of following safety precautions and are organized enough to share their results. Also, the dashboard doesn’t yet offer the ability to compare coronavirus cases reported at schools with local case rates.

In the absence of data, there are scary and tragic anecdotes of teachers around the country dying of COVID-19. But it’s hard to extrapolate from these incidents. It’s not immediately clear whether the educators contracted the virus at school, whether they are part of school-based clusters, or what safety precautions were or were not followed by the schools in question.

A recent study from Yale University could potentially shed some light on these questions. It tracked 57,000 childcare workers, located in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico, for the first three months of the pandemic in the United States. About half continued caring for very young children, such as the children of essential workers, while the other half stayed home. The study found no difference in the rate of coronavirus infections between the two groups, after accounting for demographic factors.

Walter Gilliam, lead author of the study and a professor of psychology at the Yale Child Study Center, cautioned that it’s difficult to generalize this report to a K-12 schools setting, because the children were mostly under the age of 6 and kept in very small groups — and, he said, the childcare workers were trained in health and safety and reported following strict protocols around disinfection. However, he said, “I think it would be great to do this study with school teachers and see what we can find out.”

Risk and benefit

When you add up what we know and even what we still don’t know, some doctors and public health advocates said there are powerful arguments for in-person schooling wherever possible, particularly for younger students and those with special needs.

“Children under the age of 10 generally are at quite low risk of acquiring symptomatic disease,” from the coronavirus, said Dr. Rainu Kaushal of Weill Cornell Medical Center. And they rarely transmit it either. It’s a happy coincidence, Kaushal and others said, that the youngest children face lower risk and are also the ones who have the hardest time with virtual learning.

“I would like to see the students, especially the younger students, get back,” said Malani at the University of Michigan. “I feel more encouraged that that can happen in a safe and thoughtful way.”

Chicago Public Schools, one of the largest districts in the country, seemed to take that guidance into consideration when it announced recently a phased reopening starting with pre-K and special education.

Kaushal said it’s important to keep in mind that Black, Latinx and Native American communities are much more severely affected by COVID-19. And that many of the “children that are at the severest risk of disease, are also at the severest risk of not having a school open, whether it be for food security, adult time, security, losing the time to learn or losing the skills that they have acquired over the last year or so.”

Any decision made on school reopening, she said, has to focus on equity as well as safety. There are no easy trade-offs here.