Students must be part of solution
SCHOOL leaders, teachers and parents make regular decisions about educational issues.
Some policies and processes require lengthy consideration while other procedures are actioned after very short lead times. In most instances, those most impacted by resulting changes are children.
Unfortunately, changing priorities and new approaches are little understood by those most affected – the students.
Educational partnerships focus on adults talking for students, about students, but generally not with students.
That has certainly been the case as COVID-19 confuses the 2020 educational agenda.
Within a few short weeks, the school year has been turned upside down.
Teachers and parents have been left juggling between the alternatives of school attendance and home schooling for children. One is left wondering whether schools are there for normalised education or simply to provide for students who have to be minded elsewhere so their parents can go to work.
Students are in the middle of this dilemma. They need reassurance and must not be caught in a vacuum of misunderstanding. They need to know they are valued and loved; they must not feel they are a nuisance or a burden to parents and the community.
It is critically important that students understand what is happening educationally and why changes are taking place. Parents and teachers need to converse with children about these matters. This must include listening to young people and answering their questions about educational alternatives.
Education has been muddied by everything happening at the moment.
Lack of clarity about educational futures was echoed in editorial comment by the NT News: “The messaging around schools for Term 2 from the federal, state and territory governments is as clear as mud.”
This “muddiness” plays on