How the education system has been forever changed by COVID-19

As we move closer to the end of the pandemic, CHCH News has been taking a look at ‘Your Road Ahead’, to better understand how life will be different afterward. This week, Matt Ingram focuses on how the education system is changing.

Brock University Professor of Education, Louis Volante says the difficulties students faced trying to learn online, has made it clear that the education system needs to be more than just tests and assignments. “We need to have a much more holistic orientation that balances academic considerations with all these other things like mental and physical health.”

Volante cites a study that found 60 to 70 percent of Ontario students experienced some form of mental health deterioration during the pandemic and says research shows the impact on students’ physical health was even worse. “The best numbers show that only five percent of students are meeting their recommended daily physical activity.” But Volante says despite the negative, he expects online options to continue to be available for a very long time, especially at the post-secondary level because it was already trending that way before the pandemic.

Hamilton Public School Board Chair, Dawn Danko says online options will continue to be the right call for a small number of elementary and secondary students and could be improved by creating ways for students to better connect with teachers. “Our staff are looking at what are the opportunities to actually build in some live time, whether its office hours, maybe a recording of a session so you have some teacher presence.” But there is no substitute for the classroom, “for the vast majority of students we cannot replace in-person learning online.”

Danko is calling on the province to spend more money to support the physical and mental health of children like having social workers available to proactively check-in with students instead of waiting for kids to show red flags.

Danko says the pandemic has also highlighted the importance of school in developing children’s social skills, saying some teachers have noticed some kids returning to class are struggling to resolve conflicts between themselves.

The president of one of the largest teacher’s unions Karen Littlewood says it will take time for kids to catch up, and hopes online learning is only used sparingly in the future. “The hybrid version where you have a teacher in a classroom with a laptop and kids in the classroom and kids at home, that’s not effective, nobody gets the attention they deserve.”