When historians study the public response to coronavirus 20 or 30 years from now — assuming humanity still exists in some identifiable way (sorry, dark thoughts) — one of the conclusions they may reach is that it was a turning point for education.
Because of COVID-19, many of the nation’s public schools, including all of Ohio’s, are marching into remote learning, distance learning, e-learning, or whatever name is given to a delivery system that does not involve daily, face-to-face interactions with a teacher.
Distance learning is not new, of course. Correspondence courses, in the era before the Internet, allowed students to snail mail assignments to their teachers and wait weeks for a response.
And e-learning has been around for some time, too. In many cases, such courses blend face-to-face meetings a few times a semester with copious online interaction. Other models are completely digital, with students and instructors never meeting in person. This type of e-learning is tailored to students who can’t commit to in-person attendance because of work schedules or illness.
Readers may remember the uproar over Ohio’s ill-fated digital academies, where lack of government oversight mixed with greed on the part of service providers created a crisis when it couldn’t be determined how often students logged into class, or if they did at all.
But this is the first time when all of Ohio’s students, including those who prefer face-to-face interactions, have been funneled into computer-only classes for a limited (we hope) time.
In the short term, it should work, albeit with many hiccups. One unintended consequence: The experience will force us to grapple with the very definition of what school is.
For instance, time in the seat. While old models of compulsory attendance are crumbling, replaced by systems that favor demonstrated competence, many of us still equate education with completing (some say “enduring”) a set number of hours in a common location.
E-learning could challenge that assumption. If students can show mastery of two-variable equations in half the time, why should they have to wait for classmates to catch up? If students want to complete all the assignments in a composition course in four weeks, why should they have to sit in class for two more months? Showing mastery of a concept and moving on is easier online than anywhere else, provided the coursework is free of a lockstep structure to keep students from advancing too quickly.
Online work involves a ruthless paring down of curriculum to the bare essentials. It forces teachers to select outcomes that are the most important, along with the assignments that teach those outcomes, and to let the fluff fall aside. Under such a system, capable students could finish required coursework with time left over for activities they enjoy. A student with a natural inclination toward chemistry, dance or welding could spend more time doing that, and less time reading literature, or vice versa.
If schooling becomes more efficient, schools — and especially high schools — may find it more practical to run schedules that require students’ in-person attendance half as long as they are required now. A school could operate a morning and an afternoon shift, with the same teachers seeing different groups of students during the course of a day. Or schools could schedule some students for Monday/Wednesday classes and others for Tuesday/Thursday rosters, with little to no overlap.
On their “off” time or days, students could complete coursework online, getting assistance during in-person visits the following class day. Classes could last for as little as, say, 20 minutes for students who understand the material, longer for students who require extra help.
Teachers would model the work to be done, and students would complete it outside of class, online. Discipline problems could be separated by shift; two students can’t butt heads if they aren’t in school together.
The implication for taxpayers would be profound. Districts could operate in spaces much smaller than the ones they currently occupy, since at any given time, fewer students would be in the buildings. Fewer buses would be needed, but they would run twice as much, for different shifts.
An online model would also force society to deal with inequities that impact education. Schools, in conjunction with private business, would have to provide Internet services for students, so that everybody could access class materials. Unequal online access is a major concern in this coronavirus-forced sabbatical.
Nothing I’ve described here is revolutionary, and much of it is happening already, but on a smaller scale. This forced exodus from the school building, coupled with a mandate that education must continue, could accelerate the pace.
Nothing good can come from the coronavirus. Indirectly, however, it could irrevocably change what it means to be “in school.”
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
Friday, March 20, 2020
Thursday, March 12, 2020
Betcha can't NOT touch your face
Fourteen.
Fifteen.
Sixteen.
I’m counting how many times I touch my face while writing this column. Face-touching is a no-no in this Era of the Coronavirus, and I read an article on the Internet, so it has to be true, that says one way to gain awareness is to count.
Obviously, looking up stuff took me 16 face touches. I’m a slow researcher.
But what constitutes a touch? I mean, obviously anytime my fingers make contact with my face or my eyes, but what about resting my chin on my knuckles while I read? Does an extended face-touch like that count as one strike, or do I give myself extra hash marks?
Seventeen. I just brushed my cheek.
I miss the days when you could get information and not question it. Remember the Dracula sneeze? Sneeze into your inside elbow, experts advised, so you look like Bela Lugosi in an old vampire movie.
That was advice to stop flu transmission, and nobody ever doubted it. It was better than sneezing into your hand and then using that hand to shake with new acquaintances, open doors or — wait for it — touch your own face.
Eighteen. Dammit.
The Dracula sneeze, stay home when you’re sick, and wash your hands were uncontestable flu-era cautions.
In this coronavirus debacle, everybody has slightly different opinions. The president indicated it might be okay to go to work while sick, that the virus will retreat when the spring arrives, and that everything is under control. He even suggested the whole scare was a hoax by the Democrats and the Fake News Media, although his cronies later walked back that assertion.
Ever notice how the role of many Republicans in Washington these days is to go on TV and explain what the president really meant to say? But I digress.
Most health experts say don’t go to work if you’re sick, that while the virus may subside with warmer spring weather it could roar back with a vengeance in the fall, and that maybe things are less under control, coronavirus-wise, than we’d like to hope.
Nineteen, 20. Ugh.
Older people should stay away from public places. Anybody who wants to be tested can be tested. The virus lives for X-amount of time on surfaces. It can’t live on food, at least not for very long — unless it can. The mortality rate is (fill in your percentage).
For every piece of information, you don’t have to look very far to find somebody saying something diametrically opposite.
And it’s not just the folks on Fox, who have always lived in an alternate reality. Conflicting advice is everywhere. Wash your hands, but not so much that you dry them out. Dry, cracked skin can be an entry point for viruses. So wash your hands a whole lot, but in moderation.
Then there are the opportunists. The folks selling protection kits at ginned-up prices. The educational companies pushing study-from-home platforms to schools where classes have been cancelled. Retailers who move paper towels and cleaning supplies to the front of the store, capitalizing on high-traffic areas even as experts tell us not to stockpile. Or to stockpile only a little bit.
Twenty-one. Rubbed my eye.
This coronavirus stuff is enough to make anybody stress out. And when I stress out, guess what I do?
That’s right.
Twenty-two through thirty.
Coronavirus, here I come.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
Fifteen.
Sixteen.
I’m counting how many times I touch my face while writing this column. Face-touching is a no-no in this Era of the Coronavirus, and I read an article on the Internet, so it has to be true, that says one way to gain awareness is to count.
Obviously, looking up stuff took me 16 face touches. I’m a slow researcher.
But what constitutes a touch? I mean, obviously anytime my fingers make contact with my face or my eyes, but what about resting my chin on my knuckles while I read? Does an extended face-touch like that count as one strike, or do I give myself extra hash marks?
Seventeen. I just brushed my cheek.
I miss the days when you could get information and not question it. Remember the Dracula sneeze? Sneeze into your inside elbow, experts advised, so you look like Bela Lugosi in an old vampire movie.
That was advice to stop flu transmission, and nobody ever doubted it. It was better than sneezing into your hand and then using that hand to shake with new acquaintances, open doors or — wait for it — touch your own face.
Eighteen. Dammit.
The Dracula sneeze, stay home when you’re sick, and wash your hands were uncontestable flu-era cautions.
In this coronavirus debacle, everybody has slightly different opinions. The president indicated it might be okay to go to work while sick, that the virus will retreat when the spring arrives, and that everything is under control. He even suggested the whole scare was a hoax by the Democrats and the Fake News Media, although his cronies later walked back that assertion.
Ever notice how the role of many Republicans in Washington these days is to go on TV and explain what the president really meant to say? But I digress.
Most health experts say don’t go to work if you’re sick, that while the virus may subside with warmer spring weather it could roar back with a vengeance in the fall, and that maybe things are less under control, coronavirus-wise, than we’d like to hope.
Nineteen, 20. Ugh.
Older people should stay away from public places. Anybody who wants to be tested can be tested. The virus lives for X-amount of time on surfaces. It can’t live on food, at least not for very long — unless it can. The mortality rate is (fill in your percentage).
For every piece of information, you don’t have to look very far to find somebody saying something diametrically opposite.
And it’s not just the folks on Fox, who have always lived in an alternate reality. Conflicting advice is everywhere. Wash your hands, but not so much that you dry them out. Dry, cracked skin can be an entry point for viruses. So wash your hands a whole lot, but in moderation.
Then there are the opportunists. The folks selling protection kits at ginned-up prices. The educational companies pushing study-from-home platforms to schools where classes have been cancelled. Retailers who move paper towels and cleaning supplies to the front of the store, capitalizing on high-traffic areas even as experts tell us not to stockpile. Or to stockpile only a little bit.
Twenty-one. Rubbed my eye.
This coronavirus stuff is enough to make anybody stress out. And when I stress out, guess what I do?
That’s right.
Twenty-two through thirty.
Coronavirus, here I come.
chris.schillig@yahoo.com
@cschillig on Twitter
Wednesday, March 4, 2020
Serving Up a Sample of Jimmy's Jams
Jimmy’s Jams is not something to spread on toast.
Instead, it’s the name of a musical thought-project created by my friend, former English teacher extraordinaire Jim Christine.
Like any good puzzle, Jimmy’s Jams is deceptively simple: For every band or artist that you like, pick one song, and one song only, that you could listen to repeatedly without growing tired of it. Pretend the rest of that musician’s work doesn’t exist, because for this project, it doesn’t. You get just that one song.
I have the sneaking suspicion Jimmy’s Jams is a way to collect music to play at one’s funeral, minus the morbidity of calling it Heavenly Hymns or Coronavirus Compositions. But whatever.
The last time I talked with Christine, his list was around 500 songs. That’s 500 tunes by 500 different artists, no repeats. That in itself is intriguing.
The kicker is that each song has to have near-endless repeatability, which eliminates many selections that sound great the first four or five times, but then become the musical equivalent of a mother-in-law prattling endlessly in the backseat. (Jonas Brothers’ “Sucker,” I’m looking at you.)
For some artists, this is easy. The Rolling Stones? “Paint It Black.” Elvis? “Jailhouse Rock.” Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers? “Mary Jane’s Last Dance.” Alice Cooper? “The Ballad of Dwight Fry.” (Trivia time: The Cooper song is named for Hollywood horror actor Dwight Frye, minus the “e” in case Frye’s estate took exception.)
The more you like a band or an artist, the harder it is to cull the herd and find that one special song. I can listen to just about anything by Led Zeppelin frequently, but to narrow it to one song? “Black Dog,” “Rock and Roll,” “The Immigrant Song,” “Whole Lotta Love” — all great, but not enough to sacrifice the others. “Stairway to Heaven” or “Kashmir”? Classics, but overplayed. I guess I have to go with “In My Time of Dying,” which changes tempo and mood often enough to feel like several songs.
If I understand the rules of Jimmy’ Jams correctly, musicians with solo careers before or after their time in a band can have multiple entries, as can musicians who played in multiple bands.
This means the members of the Beatles can make repeat appearances on Jimmy’s Jams. I’ll scrawl down “Paperback Writer” for the band. I imagine John Lennon’s solo song would be “Imagine.” Paul McCartney and Wings land with “Jet.” Ringo Starr’s “It Don’t Come Easy” comes easily to my list. I’ve got my mind set on George Harrison’s “I’ve Got My Mind Set on You.”
Harrison was also a member of the Travelling Wilburys. My Jimmy’s Jams entry for them is “Maxine.” Bob Dylan was also a Wilbury; he makes my track listing as a solo artist, after much soul-searching, with “Like a Rolling Stone,” but it could just as easily have been almost any song from “Blood on the Tracks,” the quintessential album from an artist with a career of quintessential moments.
What about one-hit wonders, you ask? (I know you’re out there because I can hear you breathing.) Does Billy Thorpe make the list with “Children of the Sun”? What about Nine Days and “Absolutely (Story of a Girl)”?
I could not listen to Thorpe endlessly, so no. But Nine Days, yes. And if you were listening to the radio in the summer of 2000, I guarantee you turned up “Absolutely” each of the 1,234 times it played each day.
I need to ask Christine about cover tunes. Specifically, I don’t know if Alien Ant Farm can make the list with “Smooth Criminal” if I’ve already claimed Michael Jackson’s version.
Mentioning Michael Jackson reminds me that Soundgarden’s lead singer, Chris Cornell, did a killer acoustic version of “Billie Jean,” and Alien Ant Farm prompts me to include Dave Matthews’ “Ants Marching” on the list.
Then there’s my opening mention of toast, which reminds me I still need to break the three-way tie among Pearl Jam’s “Yellow Ledbetter,” “Rearviewmirror,” and “Man of the Hour.”
One song and artist leads naturally to the next, and before you know it, you have a pretty tasty spread of Jimmy’s Jams all your own.
Readers inspired to create their own Jimmy’s Jams may send it to me at chris.schillig@yahoo.com. I’ll pass them along to the original Jimmy.
Instead, it’s the name of a musical thought-project created by my friend, former English teacher extraordinaire Jim Christine.
Like any good puzzle, Jimmy’s Jams is deceptively simple: For every band or artist that you like, pick one song, and one song only, that you could listen to repeatedly without growing tired of it. Pretend the rest of that musician’s work doesn’t exist, because for this project, it doesn’t. You get just that one song.
I have the sneaking suspicion Jimmy’s Jams is a way to collect music to play at one’s funeral, minus the morbidity of calling it Heavenly Hymns or Coronavirus Compositions. But whatever.
The last time I talked with Christine, his list was around 500 songs. That’s 500 tunes by 500 different artists, no repeats. That in itself is intriguing.
The kicker is that each song has to have near-endless repeatability, which eliminates many selections that sound great the first four or five times, but then become the musical equivalent of a mother-in-law prattling endlessly in the backseat. (Jonas Brothers’ “Sucker,” I’m looking at you.)
For some artists, this is easy. The Rolling Stones? “Paint It Black.” Elvis? “Jailhouse Rock.” Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers? “Mary Jane’s Last Dance.” Alice Cooper? “The Ballad of Dwight Fry.” (Trivia time: The Cooper song is named for Hollywood horror actor Dwight Frye, minus the “e” in case Frye’s estate took exception.)
The more you like a band or an artist, the harder it is to cull the herd and find that one special song. I can listen to just about anything by Led Zeppelin frequently, but to narrow it to one song? “Black Dog,” “Rock and Roll,” “The Immigrant Song,” “Whole Lotta Love” — all great, but not enough to sacrifice the others. “Stairway to Heaven” or “Kashmir”? Classics, but overplayed. I guess I have to go with “In My Time of Dying,” which changes tempo and mood often enough to feel like several songs.
If I understand the rules of Jimmy’ Jams correctly, musicians with solo careers before or after their time in a band can have multiple entries, as can musicians who played in multiple bands.
This means the members of the Beatles can make repeat appearances on Jimmy’s Jams. I’ll scrawl down “Paperback Writer” for the band. I imagine John Lennon’s solo song would be “Imagine.” Paul McCartney and Wings land with “Jet.” Ringo Starr’s “It Don’t Come Easy” comes easily to my list. I’ve got my mind set on George Harrison’s “I’ve Got My Mind Set on You.”
Harrison was also a member of the Travelling Wilburys. My Jimmy’s Jams entry for them is “Maxine.” Bob Dylan was also a Wilbury; he makes my track listing as a solo artist, after much soul-searching, with “Like a Rolling Stone,” but it could just as easily have been almost any song from “Blood on the Tracks,” the quintessential album from an artist with a career of quintessential moments.
What about one-hit wonders, you ask? (I know you’re out there because I can hear you breathing.) Does Billy Thorpe make the list with “Children of the Sun”? What about Nine Days and “Absolutely (Story of a Girl)”?
I could not listen to Thorpe endlessly, so no. But Nine Days, yes. And if you were listening to the radio in the summer of 2000, I guarantee you turned up “Absolutely” each of the 1,234 times it played each day.
I need to ask Christine about cover tunes. Specifically, I don’t know if Alien Ant Farm can make the list with “Smooth Criminal” if I’ve already claimed Michael Jackson’s version.
Mentioning Michael Jackson reminds me that Soundgarden’s lead singer, Chris Cornell, did a killer acoustic version of “Billie Jean,” and Alien Ant Farm prompts me to include Dave Matthews’ “Ants Marching” on the list.
Then there’s my opening mention of toast, which reminds me I still need to break the three-way tie among Pearl Jam’s “Yellow Ledbetter,” “Rearviewmirror,” and “Man of the Hour.”
One song and artist leads naturally to the next, and before you know it, you have a pretty tasty spread of Jimmy’s Jams all your own.
Readers inspired to create their own Jimmy’s Jams may send it to me at chris.schillig@yahoo.com. I’ll pass them along to the original Jimmy.
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