A lesson for grown-ups from online schooling

Scientific studies and child development textbooks tell you that positive messages matter. What the don’t tell you is precisely what happens to messages from teachers and mentors inside a developing mind.

This forced online schooling resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic has provided me with an interesting insight into that secret.

Our schools closed weeks ago. In fact, our local school was likely the first school in Europe outside of Italy to close due to COVID-19. The closure took place directly after spring break and many teachers treated it like an extended vacation, except that they were required to send lists of assignments to the kids. The assignment lists were initially ridiculously long and repetitive, causing huge stress in families.

Slowly some of the teachers have begun teaching online in one form or another and their assignment lists have become more realistic and engaging. My two children probably have the extremes when it comes to teachers.

My fourth-grade daughter has three teachers covering language arts, social studies, science, math and foreign language. None of them is very engaged with students. The homeroom teacher spent the first two weeks of the quarantine trying to avoid contact with parents and students, but he has finally agreed to brief phone check-ins with students on an individual basis. This at least gives kids a chance to clarify assignments and gives a feeling that it isn’t just parents forcing kids to do the endless work.

Image by Arie Farnam

The math teacher is the one teacher who continues to have extreme expectations and who refuses all contact with students other than assignments being turned in through an online form that makes any back-and-forth impossible. She regularly threatens to give failing grades if assignments are late due to lack of internet access or other technical difficulties.

My third-grade son, on the other hand, has a teacher who spends time in a private social media group with students, engages in individual and group calls, gives assignments through brief, entertaining videos and gives assignments that cross the boundaries between subjects.

Recently, she gave an assignment that students were to write a report on the section of their reading books which they had read that day with a few lines of writing and a drawing, which was required to include the use of their geometry compasses. In this way, she noted that they would be covering reading, math and art in one project.

My son was relatively unmotivated anyway, tired of weeks shut away from the world in our little house during a chilly early spring. But I got him working on the project and gave him an idea for how to employ his compass in the picture. With a little encouragement, he spent more than an hour on the report and picture and felt better and better about it along the way.

He then took a photo of it and sent it to his class WhatsApp group. He immediately got several enthusiastic replies from the other kids. Then the teacher sent him a private message of praise, exclaiming, “It’s an excellent picture! You worked hard at it and it turned out really well.” There was real joy in her voice and a bit of a chuckle, likely because the subject matter was about two boys pretending to saw into a magic-trick box with a person banging on the lid from the inside.

It was fairly average praise, but with some feeling behind it. No more than two seconds in length in the voice recording.

For the next two days, every time my son had his phone we heard him replaying that two-second sound clip over and over again. He would lie curled on the couch and play his teacher’s voice again and again.

It reminded me of how a sharp comment or criticism from someone whose opinion you really value can cut deep and echo endlessly in the mind. In this case, it was praise that echoed, but it wasn’t just inside his mind. For once, because of the necessity of online schooling, we could hear the message he was replaying to himself again and again.

Two days later the teacher had another creative assignment for the kids, asking them to write an instructional essay about how to do some simple household task or craft, practicing step-by-step language and taking photos with their phones to document the process. Instead of his usual reluctance, my son was out early in the morning looking for something to write about and document with his camera.

A week later I noticed him going through sound clips of his teacher on his phone, playing one after another. It dawned on me that he was searching for that clip. He was having trouble finding it because there were a great many new clips of his teacher kindly but firmly correcting his math or spelling, both of which present significant challenges due to dyslexia.

Again it was a glimpse into the workings of a kid’s mind, searching for that one bright point of hope amid what seems to him to be a pile of criticism and bewilderingly uninteresting detail.

On the other extreme there is the disinterest of my daughter’s teachers. It isn’t criticism necessarily that is the polar opposite of heartfelt praise but rather disengagement and a focus on quantifiable results, like grades. My daughter’s teachers are not harsh to her. They simply are disengaged. Their harshness is reserved for threatening emails to the parents to ensure their children’s cooperation or face the failing grades.

And the result is complete lack of interest no matter what the assignment is. The only way my daughter gets through assignments is by being bribed with the prospect of time on video games and social media. And even that is hit and miss. Every minute of schoolwork is torture both for her and for me.

I’ve always tried to find the bright bits that can bring out a spark of emotion in my voice when praising my kids or my students. It isn’t always there and maybe part of its magic is in its relative rarity. But clearly such heartfelt praise is very helpful and motivating.

It is worth noticing that my son’s teacher praised him or let him know he was right on math or spelling at other times. It wasn’t all criticism, though he does make many mistakes. There were other positives, but those weren’t the things replayed over and over again. It was the one with feeling that counted.

So, I will try to remember this and be present enough to put that heart in when I can. It isn’t easy but seeing the inner results played out loud makes the need clear.