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Education in Crisis

Covid-19 is shaking up the entire system of education and not just for students and teachers. They and many others who comprise and support the education system are being confronted by measures to ensure the containment of Covid-19 and ensure that schools are safe. And so they should to avoid schools becoming sites of contagion – the next versions of long term care facilities.

Universities and colleges, kindergartens and high schools, as educational spaces, are congested and interactive. They are ideal breeding grounds for anything contagious like Covid-19. And while youngsters are unlikely to succumb, their older teachers are definitely vulnerable.

The August 8-14th issue of “The Economist” published an article entitled “Uncanny University” that highlights Covid-19 related troubles facing colleges and universities. The article cites the impact of declining registrations and tuition’s especially for those that rely heavily on foreign students facing travel restrictions and outright bans. System adaptations include: increasing of Online program delivery, restricting campus usage, and increasing emphasis on delivering employment related programs and those for higher wage earners. The article concludes that the golden age of extraordinary growth for universities and colleges is over. FOR MORE PLEASE READ HERE

The closing of K-12 schools in the spring exposed the many vulnerabilities of the public school system:

Teachers – individually and as a unionized profession have spoken out. Covid-19 is dangerous; they do not feel safe to return to the former classroom.

Parents – are anxious about having their children return to school – unless it is safe to do so and learning can continue. Also, so they can get back to work, resume earning a living, and heal the economy.

Service Suppliers – of which there are many, are out of work: janitors and administrators, bus drivers and librarians, and others who supply services and materials for schools.

What can be done and who is to decide? Teachers are reluctant to return. Parents generally agree. The higher-ups are scrambling, most seeking some version of the past, the familiar – kids in the classroom with a teacher. Until Covid-19 is no longer a continuing threat that is just not going to happen.  Many are of the view that education as we have known it may be in for a significant transformation. As chaotic as it has been for so many, perhaps Covid-19 is the trigger for reforming public systems established for the student but designed for the supplier.

We’d like your view – please let us know by contacting us here.

Introducing Telepresence in Education

What follows is a somewhat futuristic scenario employing robotic technologies to restore safety to education.

Consider telepresence – robo-teachers in the classroom providing personal audio-visual rendition of the teacher who is elsewhere. In this scenario a teacher – of any age or vulnerability, can “virtually” return to a full classroom and it is safe to do so. Advanced telepresence also gives the teacher mobility in the classroom to personalize their interaction with each student. Discipline is maintained. The curriculum is sustained. Education suppliers resume.

Some progressive differences to former educational practices can be anticipated. For example, each school would routinely monitor individual learning progress and arrange for tutouring, supplemental support, when special circumstances dictate. Some schools may opt to have a single teacher serve multiple classes simultaneously. Those teachers freed up would join the supplementary support cadre – advancing the teaching profession to a whole new level…a commitment to learning. Schools would assign designated assistants to be on hand for extracurricular activities: toilet breaks and lunch, recess and emergencies, come first to mind.

Introducing telepresence to education is more than fanciful. Covid has already triggered examples in education where telepresence is being employed. FOR MORE visit https://www.doublerobotics.com/stories/  Also of interest: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_iYM1nD9u8 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdm4hLM7_fo

Please contact us with your comments. We are particularly interested to learn where and who are shaping the future of education.

Editor
Perry Kinkaide
Kinkaide Enterprises Inc. 
Founder, the Alberta and the Ontario Council of Technologies Societies

Contributor
Bud Norris
My Robots
www.MyRobots.ca

17 replies
  1. Jeffrey Cullen
    Jeffrey Cullen says:
    August 15, 2020 at 4:04 pm

    Perry, it’s awesome that you are leading the charge on these critical issues. While I am troubled by the response at the K-12 level (so far), I was blown away by how NAIT pivoted to online in a week.

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  2. Dr Moira Walker
    Dr Moira Walker says:
    August 15, 2020 at 4:31 pm

    Hi Perry education is indeed in crisis.Now is the time to innovate……think outside the box.Alas this is not how education systems generally work.Travelling in Alberta I am seeing all sorts of innovative ideas around safety.Surely education can do the same.
    Please keep me posted and let me know if I can participate in any way.

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    • Perry Kinkaide
      Perry Kinkaide says:
      August 15, 2020 at 4:53 pm

      Hi Moira,
      I’d love to have a chat on innovations that you see underway or that are on their way! I host a network every Friday in the lounge of the Chateau Louis after 3:30 if you have an inkling to join us and chat!

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  3. Fritz Krop
    Fritz Krop says:
    August 15, 2020 at 4:51 pm

    I really don’t understand how people who have never spent time in front of a classroom or taken a single curriculum and instruction course (much less graduated with a degree in education) can wade into the arena with any credibility. Technology is the tool, not the craftsman, but we seem hell bent on supplanting human interaction with a facsimile. Teaching is not training! The dance that is the teacher/student/student paradigm conveys so much more than information. Marshall McLuhan understood.
    ps. Unions are the only protection that workers have against exploitation.

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    • Perry Kinkaide
      Perry Kinkaide says:
      August 15, 2020 at 4:56 pm

      Hmm…so only teachers have credibility. They have accepted responsibility though not accountability. Regardless, the system as we have know it has more regard for the views and interest of the supplier and seems to have lost a vision of what is best for the consumer: the student, the parent and the tax payer.

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      • Julius Buski
        Julius Buski says:
        August 15, 2020 at 9:06 pm

        You are entirely off base in stating that teachers have not accepted accountability. That is a total falsehood. Teachers, both individually and collectively have accepted both responsibility and accountability. I also agree with a previous comment that technology is only a tool, such as many tools which have come before, albeit it’s uses and dangers are much more forceful.

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        • Perry Kinkaide
          Perry Kinkaide says:
          August 15, 2020 at 9:55 pm

          Julius…your view is not what a union negotiator informed me. Teachers accept “responsibility” but not “accountability”. It may be that they are deferring “learning” to the student.

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          • m nokleby
            m nokleby says:
            August 15, 2020 at 10:39 pm

            Suspected from the start you were no friend of teachers Perry…..your responsibility/accountability dichotomy makes no real sense. Please elaborate.

          • Fritz Krop
            Fritz Krop says:
            August 16, 2020 at 4:54 am

            The clients of education are the society at large rather than the parent, student or your treasured tax-payer (or tax-dodger in the case of your more well-heeled friends). Unlike toilet paper and hydroxychloroquine, education is not consumed but, rather, shared and nurtured. That is probably what is such a threat to the Kevin O’Learys of this world – that there is a field of human endeavour that evades their rapacious appetite.
            Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Dr. Buski. You were the kind of conservative educator I could look up to and I totally concur with your observation concerning teacher accountability. Personally, I think ‘accountability’ is conspeak and pervades the diatribes of the right much in the same way as ‘flexibility’ and ‘a level playing field’. As you can see, however, concessions to the corporate mind are never enough.

    • m. nokleby
      m. nokleby says:
      August 15, 2020 at 10:36 pm

      Exactly. Time to honour true expertise and insist that all who weigh in on how to innovate in education have some professional credentials and experience. Watching the current ucp government substitute ideological paranoia for specific knowledge…or evidence, is embarrassing to educators with degrees and years in front of live youngsters.
      I always wonder if they’re secretly working for textbook companies, or on line wannabe providers………directions real education wants to avoid.
      So by all means, lets have an update to our educational system, but ask teachers not oil and gas executives, accountants or other neoliberal con men, While we’re at it, lets stop penny pinching our kids and designing tax giveaways to those entre proners.

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      • Perry Kinkaide
        Perry Kinkaide says:
        August 20, 2020 at 8:13 am

        Hmm…we seem to be living in an age of ideological ping-pong. First the NDP do a curriculum overhaul and the the UCP. I’m not sure that turning to the ATA will help and teachers seem to be under their thumb. So where to turn…I for one have a lot of confidence in the role people ply in both democracy and in helping students find their way into society and a job. So why not engage the parents and the employers and stop the ideological war between the two suppliers – the government and the Union and allow the consumer – the student/parent/employer to play a role?

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        • Fritz Krop
          Fritz Krop says:
          August 22, 2020 at 8:38 pm

          I don’t know how you came by your view of the ATA but it can’t be by experience. Having been a member for decades, I can tell you that it is a much more democratic institution than you give it credit for. Although it reflects the heavy handedness of former administrators who occupy staff officer positions (your kind of people) it reflects the will of the majority better than any corporate board or even the politics that rule this country. I know you draw your low opinion of labour organizations from Hollywood and your corporate cohort but try attending a teachers’ convention and talk to the teachers you meet there about how “under the thumb of the ATA” they feel. I will accompany you, if you like, and gladly pay for a round of golf if the overwhelming majority of my colleagues don’t echo what I have maintained.

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    • Sandra Clark
      Sandra Clark says:
      October 15, 2020 at 2:38 am

      I could not agree more Mr. Fritz Krop.
      Once people, not just students; are no longer enamoured with the latest app or gadget, they need and want more meaning and connection.

      This is where teachers and fellow students are a priority, imho. Although technology can fill gaps it wii never replace the emotional connection humans need to thrive, not just survive!!

      My Granddaughter is a Teacher and before school ended this summer she was inundated online with students wanting to connect…she hardly had a chance to get herself a coffee, let alone lunch. They expressed appreciation for her on going availability and were non stop curious with questions about the welfare of their fellow students.

      The youth especially need the social contact. Teenagers are very much in an ever expanding developmental stage. A stage that last a number of years and creates a genuine need for hands on support, understanding and steady ongoing reliable resources. Therefore; schools play a major role as the platform from which to launch navigational paths. They also facilitate learning needed social skills with peers and others, ensuring greater success and entry into adulthood.

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  4. Ken
    Ken says:
    August 15, 2020 at 5:58 pm

    Excellent article…

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  5. Mark Kolke
    Mark Kolke says:
    August 16, 2020 at 6:09 pm

    Perry …. well, you kicked the hornet’s nest, my friend.

    First, good to see you back in action – Albertans need your elbow in our collective ribs; and sadly some of the commentators here don’t know you and your stellar history of good works and persuasive nest-kicking in the world of government, social services, and education.

    Not all teachers are educators, and not all educators are teachers. If we aren’t learning ourselves, we should shut up. If we are contributing to the discourse, contributing our ideas and contributing our constructive critique – then we are part of the education cohort too …

    I’ve been involved in planning and execution of a number of education facility solutions – worked with planners, administrators, senior officials and elected ones – and I’ve yet to meet one who didn’t care about the fundamentally most important ingredient: STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT. While we are all a little COVID-freaked-out right now, we need to keep focused on THE most important part.

    I am concerned for my grandchildren in the classroom, for their teachers and for their parents – the air in a busy school is like cold-virus soup at the end of the day.

    Safety first, NEW ways of learning require NEW ways of teaching – and that will drive NEW ways of using facilities.

    Let’s start with outdoor classrooms, let’s take field trips to mask-factories, let’s focus on individual vs. team sports, let’s take a breath – and put on our mask.

    This will not pass, as so many think – but this will change us. It already has, and we’re still at the beginning.

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  6. Jacquie Clarke
    Jacquie Clarke says:
    August 18, 2020 at 4:28 pm

    Hi Perry,
    I’ve been looking for the right crowd to join and have these discussions. I want to contribute my skills, abilities, expertise to solving the long term problems of why, where, and how, learning happens.

    I’d like to start with the need to understand and promote the human experience of learning, determine what type of learning is most valued, and by whom, and then start sorting out the ‘how’ of distribution and delivery – with technology or otherwise. There is a great need to learn from people, whatever title we give them – parents, teachers, leaders – and to remember that our learning doesn’t start or stop due to the room we are in.

    I wonder if your “network every Friday in the lounge of the Chateau Louis after 3:30” will continue for Fridays in September? Hope to see you and the others in your circle and let’s get something started!!! ~Jacquie Clarke, Learning Strategist

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    • Jacquie Clarke
      Jacquie Clarke says:
      August 18, 2020 at 4:36 pm

      Oh! I just realized Chateau Louis is in Edmonton. I am in Calgary. How about an online discussion circle – it would be refreshing to talk with like-minded people across Canada!

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