Sometimes, changes in a system come about organically over time.  After a while, you forget how they even came into being.  At other times, a system has change suddenly thrust upon it, altering it dramatically and quickly, like a thunderbolt.

Our education system is currently undergoing such a change.

Over the years, technology tools have been slowly introduced to enhance and help both teachers and students create new learning opportunities.  Remember the overhead projector?  The whiteboard? How about those gripping films on oxidation-reduction reactions or the life of Niels Bohr in Chemistry class?  Ahhhh, memories.  I fondly recall that if you wanted to work on a computer back in my days of high school, you had to join an after-school club.

Not anymore.

In today’s society, technology is everywhere.  Almost everyone has a cellphone.  Computers are seen at every coffee shop or city park.  School systems have distributed laptops to every student.  While these were initially designed to “enhance” the learning experience, due to the coronavirus, they have now become the primary tool for a child’s education (at least in the short term).

Due to all of the social distancing and public school closures, education has been unceremoniously tossed into the digital age, and everyone is trying to catch up.  Instead of in-person classes and handouts, my daughters are now attending “Zoom” video conferences and downloading PDF lesson plans (at both the high school and college levels).

If a parent thought he or she was lost trying to explain trigonometry formulas or the Halstead Act to their confused son or daughter, imagine when the question comes back “Hey Dad, my download speed is really dragging – can you check the router and call the cable company?”  Good luck, sailor.

I have nothing but sympathy for our hard working teachers.  Not only was their profession viewed as a thankless job before all of this mess started, but now they’ve had to scramble and learn a whole new technology platform, ways to remotely communicate and interact with their students, AND completely revamp their entire lesson-plan tactics and strategies – in a little over three weeks.  Good Lord – I salute each and every one of you.

Kids are also going to have to learn how to budget their time and discipline themselves to this “distance learning” scenario, either on their own or with the help of their parents or care-giver.  I consider myself lucky.  I’ve got a college-age and high school-age student in my household, so they already know what they have to do each day (and thankfully, are wisely budgeting their time and dedicating it to their assigned lessons).  I can’t imagine trying to keep two or three 8-10 year olds engaged at home with schoolwork for the bulk of the day.  Just thinking about it makes me tired – and don’t even get me started on how to handle situations where kids just don’t have access to the internet or both parents have to work in order to survive.  It makes my stomach churn.

As Bob Dylan once stated, “the times, they are a changing.” 

I just hope we can all keep up.