It’s not hard to find perspectives about what the future could hold for education post-pandemic. Articles and ideas are everywhere, including my own thoughts in this post I wrote on the topic.

Everyone has ideas for education and where it can go, what it should change, and how it should improve and transform in response to the experience of the COVID-19 pandemic.

It remains to be seen the scope and scale of any transformation or if the experience of the pandemic and remote learning will change much of anything.

However, here are some samples of what could be transformed, from the articles I have been reading:

Seat time, grading, assessment, accountability, graduation pathways, ensuring technology access, making future-ready a priority (1)
Build empathy, build educator connections, help families provide powerful home-based learning (2)
Continuous learning during the summer, smart ramps for this school year, mastery-based learning, teacher learning, and engage parents more (3)
Close the digital divide, strengthen distance/blended learning, assess what students need (!), social-emotional learning support, stronger relationships, empathize authentic and culturally responsive learning, expanded learning time, establish community schools, and more funding (4)
The increased use of online tools, and potential shifts to homeschooling and fully virtual instruction, charter schools, private schools, and competency-based learning. Add in shifting roles of students, parents, and teachers (5)

That’s just a small sample - I could go on. But it’s quite the list, right? Most likely, these could be the focus of decades of worthwhile efforts to transform education. But if you are in education, none of these will necessarily surprise you -many of the ideas have been around for a while. And, I’m guessing that you could add to the list.

If you could select several from the above, what would you choose? What is most critical to the future of learning in school?

There is one significant omission in these suggestions and in the other articles that I have read.

Most of these improvements, these efforts to transform, to get better, to offer a different experience at school - must occur in some type of space. If you know of some change articles that mention the need to improve or transform learning spaces, please put a link in the comments. Blog posts from architecture firms or furniture companies don’t count.

Not a single article that I have read about changing and transforming the experience of school includes addressing the need to significantly improve the physical plant and spatial conditions of schools.

Would you expect that most of the transformations listed above could occur in a typical 800 square foot square classroom with furniture from the 1980’s?

A single idea from the Learning Policy Institute (#4 in my list above) is the one that catches my eye - the one I think most matters among all of the ideas. It is: Redesign Schools for Stronger Relationships.

At this point, the pandemic should have reinforced and made clear to everyone the timeless need for the face-to-face interaction between teacher and student. It’s what’s missing in sterile Zoom meetings. Simply stated, I believe the strength of the school experience is rooted in the foundational relationship between teachers and students. It’s why people show up every day to school…

Developing meaningful relationships at school is complex and it requires a school that has spaces for the interaction of teacher and student, and student to student. I’m not talking steel-frame desks in rows, teacher desk in the front of the classroom stuff. I’m talking spaces intentionally designed to promote the human interactions that are required to make a school a school. Create those spaces if you really want to transform education.

I am involved in a current project in the design of a new high school. The architecture firm and the school district have gone to great lengths to design a school that has an incredible array of spaces for teaching, learning, and interacting. It is my belief that when this school is finally built and is operational, it will be in the position to truly transform it’s current practice Why? It will have the learning spaces that can support anything it wants to accomplish.

In my opinion, the true transformation required for the next iteration of school won’t be about grading, it won’t be engaging parents more, and it won’t be about technology. It certainly won’t be about seat time.

It will be about creating the conditions that support the development of rich and purposeful relationships that lead to belonging and being part of an inclusive community.

The schools that truly want to transform will be those schools that develop a contemporary and comprehensive physical facility that will be capable of nurturing the face-to-face relationships and the belonging that means everything to kids and their growth and development.

Start there.

Banner image from Suzanne D Williams via Unsplash