Things Learned About Human Development at Home During the Pandemic

by Stacey Lett, Director of Operations – Eastern U.S. – Proactive Technologies, Inc.

For those of us who have children and were thrust into the new role of being an “adjunct,” at-home teacher during the pandemic shut down, we have come away from the period with new experiences and new understanding of how people learn in a remote environment. I personally have a newfound respect for our teachers and instructors who have spent their days building on my child’s, and other people’s children, skills foundation they will need to succeed in life, further education and careers.

We started the pandemic shut down with very little guidance as to how parents would now play an integral part of their children’s learning – most with no experience in teaching, no support materials or guidance to do so, distractions in our own lives. Some of us experimented with online resources the best we could – provided we had the wireless access to do so. An estimated 14 million people lack access to the internet in this country and another 25 million lack fast enough speeds to access many of the resources available, according to the FCC, with Microsoft placing the combined number at more like 163 million people. We know that, prior to the shutdown of schools, internet access was an important part of a student’s learning in school and homework at home for homework and exploration of topics. Still, parents tried to provide the facilitation needed to help our children learn even though our skills in those particular areas might’ve been weakened by many years of nonuse.

My take away from this experience has been that not all online resources have the same quality, of content and delivery, and that not all learners respond well to a two dimensional delivery method. Some need more instructor facilitated engagement in order to make the content stick. Some can watch an online tutorial and immediately pick up the topic. In between these two learning styles parents found themselves with very little experience in human development – other than their parental role in nurturing. We won’t know how much of what was learned is retained until schools reopen and we hand off the children to those better able to assess.

I hope that our leaders and our educational systems look back on this era as a wake up call that we as a country were so grossly ill prepared for disruption. We need equity in every school district with regard to back-up facilities, back-up strategies,  back-up resources and back-up systems in order to accommodate a disruption like what we have just experienced. And although states have maintained their autonomy over their state’s school strategies, as with the response to the virus itself a national strategy would have worked better, would have been cheaper and more effective without a doubt.

It is not OK to allow any disruption in a future worker’s development at a vulnerable age since it determines their trajectory in life. If we are honest, parents, in general, cannot adequately provide help during this challenge while they have their own disruption of work, economic means, and social interaction to deal with.

I hope much is written about this experience so we can create a library of resources; what worked and what didn’t work and what might work with adaptation. Any time that is lost in a future citizen and worker’s development in the early K through 12 years is going to leave workers at a disadvantage regardless if they are preparing for college or preparing for a new and improved workforce. Knowledge is vital to a civil and productive society.

Proactive Technologies’ structured on-the-job training system approach develops incumbent, new-hire and cross-training workers to full job mastery through the accelerated transfer of expertise^TM. To see how it might work at your firm, your family of facilities or your region. Contact a Proactive Technologies representative today to schedule a GoToMeeting videoconference briefing to your computer. This can be followed up with an onsite presentation for you and your colleagues. A 13-minute promo briefing is available at the Proactive Technologies website and provides an overview to get you started and to help you explain it to your staff.