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The “new normal” in education

• Viewpoints/ Controversies
• Published: 24 November 2020
• Volume 51 , pages 3–14, ( 2021 )

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• José Augusto Pacheco   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-4623-6898 1  

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Effects rippling from the Covid 19 emergency include changes in the personal, social, and economic spheres. Are there continuities as well? Based on a literature review (primarily of UNESCO and OECD publications and their critics), the following question is posed: How can one resist the slide into passive technologization and seize the possibility of achieving a responsive, ethical, humane, and international-transformational approach to education? Technologization, while an ongoing and evidently ever-intensifying tendency, is not without its critics, especially those associated with the humanistic tradition in education. This is more apparent now that curriculum is being conceived as a complicated conversation. In a complex and unequal world, the well-being of students requires diverse and even conflicting visions of the world, its problems, and the forms of knowledge we study to address them.

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From the past, we might find our way to a future unforeclosed by the present (Pinar 2019 , p. 12)

Texts regarding this pandemic’s consequences are appearing at an accelerating pace, with constant coverage by news outlets, as well as philosophical, historical, and sociological reflections by public intellectuals worldwide. Ripples from the current emergency have spread into the personal, social, and economic spheres. But are there continuities as well? Is the pandemic creating a “new normal” in education or simply accenting what has already become normal—an accelerating tendency toward technologization? This tendency presents an important challenge for education, requiring a critical vision of post-Covid-19 curriculum. One must pose an additional question: How can one resist the slide into passive technologization and seize the possibility of achieving a responsive, ethical, humane, and international-transformational approach to education?

The ongoing present

Unpredicted except through science fiction, movie scripts, and novels, the Covid-19 pandemic has changed everyday life, caused wide-scale illness and death, and provoked preventive measures like social distancing, confinement, and school closures. It has struck disproportionately at those who provide essential services and those unable to work remotely; in an already precarious marketplace, unemployment is having terrible consequences. The pandemic is now the chief sign of both globalization and deglobalization, as nations close borders and airports sit empty. There are no departures, no delays. Everything has changed, and no one was prepared. The pandemic has disrupted the flow of time and unraveled what was normal. It is the emergence of an event (think of Badiou 2009 ) that restarts time, creates radical ruptures and imbalances, and brings about a contingency that becomes a new necessity (Žižek 2020 ). Such events question the ongoing present.

The pandemic has reshuffled our needs, which are now based on a new order. Whether of short or medium duration, will it end in a return to the “normal” or move us into an unknown future? Žižek contends that “there is no return to normal, the new ‘normal’ will have to be constructed on the ruins of our old lives, or we will find ourselves in a new barbarism whose signs are already clearly discernible” (Žižek 2020 , p. 3).

Despite public health measures, Gil ( 2020 ) observes that the pandemic has so far generated no physical or spiritual upheaval and no universal awareness of the need to change how we live. Techno-capitalism continues to work, though perhaps not as before. Online sales increase and professionals work from home, thereby creating new digital subjectivities and economies. We will not escape the pull of self-preservation, self-regeneration, and the metamorphosis of capitalism, which will continue its permanent revolution (Wells 2020 ). In adapting subjectivities to the recent demands of digital capitalism, the pandemic can catapult us into an even more thoroughly digitalized space, a trend that artificial intelligence will accelerate. These new subjectivities will exhibit increased capacities for voluntary obedience and programmable functioning abilities, leading to a “new normal” benefiting those who are savvy in software-structured social relationships.

The Covid-19 pandemic has submerged us all in the tsunami-like economies of the Cloud. There is an intensification of the allegro rhythm of adaptation to the Internet of Things (Davies, Beauchamp, Davies, and Price 2019 ). For Latour ( 2020 ), the pandemic has become internalized as an ongoing state of emergency preparing us for the next crisis—climate change—for which we will see just how (un)prepared we are. Along with inequality, climate is one of the most pressing issues of our time (OECD 2019a , 2019b ) and therefore its representation in the curriculum is of public, not just private, interest.

Education both reflects what is now and anticipates what is next, recoding private and public responses to crises. Žižek ( 2020 , p. 117) suggests in this regard that “values and beliefs should not be simply ignored: they play an important role and should be treated as a specific mode of assemblage”. As such, education is (post)human and has its (over)determination by beliefs and values, themselves encoded in technology.

Will the pandemic detoxify our addiction to technology, or will it cement that addiction? Pinar ( 2019 , pp. 14–15) suggests that “this idea—that technological advance can overcome cultural, economic, educational crises—has faded into the background. It is our assumption. Our faith prompts the purchase of new technology and assures we can cure climate change”. While waiting for technology to rescue us, we might also remember to look at ourselves. In this way, the pandemic could be a starting point for a more sustainable environment. An intelligent response to climate change, reactivating the humanistic tradition in education, would reaffirm the right to such an education as a global common good (UNESCO 2015a , p. 10):

This approach emphasizes the inclusion of people who are often subject to discrimination – women and girls, indigenous people, persons with disabilities, migrants, the elderly and people living in countries affected by conflict. It requires an open and flexible approach to learning that is both lifelong and life-wide: an approach that provides the opportunity for all to realize their potential for a sustainable future and a life of dignity”.

Pinar ( 2004 , 2009 , 2019 ) concevies of curriculum as a complicated conversation. Central to that complicated conversation is climate change, which drives the need for education for sustainable development and the grooming of new global citizens with sustainable lifestyles and exemplary environmental custodianship (Marope 2017 ).

The new normal

The pandemic ushers in a “new” normal, in which digitization enforces ways of working and learning. It forces education further into technologization, a development already well underway, fueled by commercialism and the reigning market ideology. Daniel ( 2020 , p. 1) notes that “many institutions had plans to make greater use of technology in teaching, but the outbreak of Covid-19 has meant that changes intended to occur over months or years had to be implemented in a few days”.

Is this “new normal” really new or is it a reiteration of the old?

Digital technologies are the visible face of the immediate changes taking place in society—the commercial society—and schools. The immediate solution to the closure of schools is distance learning, with platforms proliferating and knowledge demoted to information to be exchanged (Koopman 2019 ), like a product, a phenomenon predicted decades ago by Lyotard ( 1984 , pp. 4-5):

Knowledge is and will be produced in order to be sold, it is and will be consumed in order to be valued in a new production: in both cases, the goal is exchange. Knowledge ceases to be an end in itself, it loses its use-value.

Digital technologies and economic rationality based on performance are significant determinants of the commercialization of learning. Moving from physical face-to-face presence to virtual contact (synchronous and asynchronous), the learning space becomes disembodied, virtual not actual, impacting both student learning and the organization of schools, which are no longer buildings but websites. Such change is not only coterminous with the pandemic, as the Education 2030 Agenda (UNESCO 2015b ) testified; preceding that was the Delors Report (Delors 1996 ), which recoded education as lifelong learning that included learning to know, learning to do, learning to be, and learning to live together.

Transnational organizations have specified competences for the 21st century and, in the process, have defined disciplinary and interdisciplinary knowledge that encourages global citizenship, through “the supra curriculum at the global, regional, or international comparative level” (Marope 2017 , p. 10). According to UNESCO ( 2017 ):

While the world may be increasingly interconnected, human rights violations, inequality and poverty still threaten peace and sustainability. Global Citizenship Education (GCED) is UNESCO’s response to these challenges. It works by empowering learners of all ages to understand that these are global, not local issues and to become active promoters of more peaceful, tolerant, inclusive, secure and sustainable societies.

These transnational initiatives have not only acknowledged traditional school subjects but have also shifted the curriculum toward timely topics dedicated to understanding the emergencies of the day (Spiller 2017 ). However, for the OECD ( 2019a ), the “new normal” accentuates two ideas: competence-based education, which includes the knowledges identified in the Delors Report , and a new learning framework structured by digital technologies. The Covid-19 pandemic does not change this logic. Indeed, the interdisciplinary skills framework, content and standardized testing associated with the Programme for International Student Assessment of the OECD has become the most powerful tool for prescribing the curriculum. Educationally, “the universal homogenous ‘state’ exists already. Globalization of standardized testing—the most prominent instance of threatening to restructure schools into technological sites of political socialization, conditioning children for compliance to a universal homogeneous state of mind” (Pinar 2019 , p. 2).

In addition to cognitive and practical skills, this “homogenous state of mind” rests on so-called social and emotional skills in the service of learning to live together, affirming global citizenship, and presumably returning agency to students and teachers (OECD 2019a ). According to Marope ( 2017 , p. 22), “this calls for higher flexibility in curriculum development, and for the need to leave space for curricula interpretation, contextualization, and creativity at the micro level of teachers and classrooms”. Heterogeneity is thus enlisted in the service of both economic homogeneity and disciplinary knowledge. Disciplinary knowledge is presented as universal and endowed with social, moral, and cognitive authority. Operational and effective knowledge becomes central, due to the influence of financial lobbies, thereby ensuring that the logic of the market is brought into the practices of schools. As Pestre ( 2013 , p. 21) observed, “the nature of this knowledge is new: what matters is that it makes hic et nunc the action, its effect and not its understanding”. Its functionality follows (presumably) data and evidence-based management.

A new language is thus imposed on education and the curriculum. Such enforced installation of performative language and Big Data lead to effective and profitable operations in a vast market concerned with competence in operational skills (Lyotard 1984 ). This “new normal” curriculum is said to be more horizontal and less hierarchical and radically polycentric with problem-solving produced through social networks, NGOs, transnational organizations, and think tanks (Pestre 2013 ; Williamson 2013 , 2017 ). Untouched by the pandemic, the “new (old) normal” remains based on disciplinary knowledge and enmeshed in the discourse of standards and accountability in education.

Such enforced commercialism reflects and reinforces economic globalization. Pinar ( 2011 , p. 30) worries that “the globalization of instrumental rationality in education threatens the very existence of education itself”. In his theory, commercialism and the technical instrumentality by which homogenization advances erase education as an embodied experience and the curriculum as a humanistic project. It is a time in which the humanities are devalued as well, as acknowledged by Pinar ( 2019 , p. 19): “In the United States [and in the world] not only does economics replace education—STEM replace the liberal arts as central to the curriculum—there are even politicians who attack the liberal arts as subversive and irrelevant…it can be more precisely characterized as reckless rhetoric of a know-nothing populism”. Replacing in-person dialogical encounters and the educational cultivation of the person (via Bildung and currere ), digital technologies are creating uniformity of learning spaces, in spite of their individualistic tendencies. Of course, education occurs outside schools—and on occasion in schools—but this causal displacement of the centrality of the school implies a devaluation of academic knowledge in the name of diversification of learning spaces.

In society, education, and specifically in the curriculum, the pandemic has brought nothing new but rather has accelerated already existing trends that can be summarized as technologization. Those who can work “remotely” exercise their privilege, since they can exploit an increasingly digital society. They themselves are changed in the process, as their own subjectivities are digitalized, thus predisposing them to a “curriculum of things” (a term coined by Laist ( 2016 ) to describe an object-oriented pedagogical approach), which is organized not around knowledge but information (Koopman 2019 ; Couldry and Mejias 2019 ). This (old) “new normal” was advanced by the OECD, among other international organizations, thus precipitating what some see as “a dynamic and transformative articulation of collective expectations of the purpose, quality, and relevance of education and learning to holistic, inclusive, just, peaceful, and sustainable development, and to the well-being and fulfilment of current and future generations” (Marope 2017 , p. 13). Covid-19, illiberal democracy, economic nationalism, and inaction on climate change, all upend this promise.

Understanding the psychological and cultural complexity of the curriculum is crucial. Without appreciating the infinity of responses students have to what they study, one cannot engage in the complicated conversation that is the curriculum. There must be an affirmation of “not only the individualism of a person’s experience but [of what is] underlining the significance of a person’s response to a course of study that has been designed to ignore individuality in order to buttress nation, religion, ethnicity, family, and gender” (Grumet 2017 , p. 77). Rather than promoting neuroscience as the answer to the problems of curriculum and pedagogy, it is long-past time for rethinking curriculum development and addressing the canonical curriculum question: What knowledge is of most worth from a humanistic perspective that is structured by complicated conversation (UNESCO 2015a ; Pinar 2004 , 2019 )? It promotes respect for diversity and rejection of all forms of (cultural) hegemony, stereotypes, and biases (Pacheco 2009 , 2017 ).

Revisiting the curriculum in the Covid-19 era then expresses the fallacy of the “new normal” but also represents a particular opportunity to promote a different path forward.

Looking to the post-Covid-19 curriculum

Based on the notion of curriculum as a complicated conversation, as proposed by Pinar ( 2004 ), the post-Covid-19 curriculum can seize the possibility of achieving a responsive, ethical, humane education, one which requires a humanistic and internationally aware reconceptualization of curriculum.

While beliefs and values are anchored in social and individual practices (Pinar 2019 , p. 15), education extracts them for critique and reconsideration. For example, freedom and tolerance are not neutral but normative practices, however ideology-free policymakers imagine them to be.

That same sleight-of-hand—value neutrality in the service of a certain normativity—is evident in a digital concept of society as a relationship between humans and non-humans (or posthumans), a relationship not only mediated by but encapsulated within technology: machines interfacing with other machines. This is not merely a technological change, as if it were a quarantined domain severed from society. Technologization is a totalizing digitalization of human experience that includes the structures of society. It is less social than economic, with social bonds now recoded as financial transactions sutured by software. Now that subjectivity is digitalized, the human face has become an exclusively economic one that fabricates the fantasy of rational and free agents—always self-interested—operating in supposedly free markets. Oddly enough, there is no place for a vision of humanistic and internationally aware change. The technological dimension of curriculum is assumed to be the primary area of change, which has been deeply and totally imposed by global standards. The worldwide pandemic supports arguments for imposing forms of control (Žižek 2020 ), including the geolocation of infected people and the suspension—in a state of exception—of civil liberties.

By destroying democracy, the technology of control leads to totalitarianism and barbarism, ending tolerance, difference, and diversity. Remembrance and memory are needed so that historical fascisms (Eley 2020 ) are not repeated, albeit in new disguises (Adorno 2011 ). Technologized education enhances efficiency and ensures uniformity, while presuming objectivity to the detriment of human reflection and singularity. It imposes the running data of the Curriculum of Things and eschews intellectual endeavor, critical attitude, and self-reflexivity.

For those who advocate the primacy of technology and the so-called “free market”, the pandemic represents opportunities not only for profit but also for confirmation of the pervasiveness of human error and proof of the efficiency of the non-human, i.e., the inhuman technology. What may possibly protect children from this inhumanity and their commodification, as human capital, is a humane or humanistic education that contradicts their commodification.

The decontextualized technical vocabulary in use in a market society produces an undifferentiated image in which people are blinded to nuance, distinction, and subtlety. For Pestre, concepts associated with efficiency convey the primacy of economic activity to the exclusion, for instance, of ethics, since those concepts devalue historic (if unrealized) commitments to equality and fraternity by instead emphasizing economic freedom and the autonomy of self-interested individuals. Constructing education as solely economic and technological constitutes a movement toward total efficiency through the installation of uniformity of behavior, devaluing diversity and human creativity.

Erased from the screen is any image of public education as a space of freedom, or as Macdonald ( 1995 , p. 38) holds, any image or concept of “the dignity and integrity of each human”. Instead, what we face is the post-human and the undisputed reign of instrumental reality, where the ends justify the means and human realization is reduced to the consumption of goods and experiences. As Pinar ( 2019 , p. 7) observes: “In the private sphere…. freedom is recast as a choice of consumer goods; in the public sphere, it converts to control and the demand that freedom flourish, so that whatever is profitable can be pursued”. Such “negative” freedom—freedom from constraint—ignores “positive” freedom, which requires us to contemplate—in ethical and spiritual terms—what that freedom is for. To contemplate what freedom is for requires “critical and comprehensive knowledge” (Pestre 2013 , p. 39) not only instrumental and technical knowledge. The humanities and the arts would reoccupy the center of such a curriculum and not be related to its margins (Westbury 2008 ), acknowledging that what is studied within schools is a complicated conversation among those present—including oneself, one’s ancestors, and those yet to be born (Pinar 2004 ).

In an era of unconstrained technologization, the challenge facing the curriculum is coding and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), with technology dislodging those subjects related to the human. This is not a classical curriculum (although it could be) but one focused on the emergencies of the moment–namely, climate change, the pandemic, mass migration, right-wing populism, and economic inequality. These timely topics, which in secondary school could be taught as short courses and at the elementary level as thematic units, would be informed by the traditional school subjects (yes, including STEM). Such a reorganization of the curriculum would allow students to see how academic knowledge enables them to understand what is happening to them and their parents in their own regions and globally. Such a cosmopolitan curriculum would prepare children to become citizens not only of their own nations but of the world. This citizenship would simultaneously be subjective and social, singular and universal (Marope 2020 ). Pinar ( 2019 , p. 5) reminds us that “the division between private and public was first blurred then erased by technology”:

No longer public, let alone sacred, morality becomes a matter of privately held values, sometimes monetized as commodities, statements of personal preference, often ornamental, sometimes self-servingly instrumental. Whatever their function, values were to be confined to the private sphere. The public sphere was no longer the civic square but rather, the marketplace, the site where one purchased whatever one valued.

New technological spaces are the universal center for (in)human values. The civic square is now Amazon, Alibaba, Twitter, WeChat, and other global online corporations. The facts of our human condition—a century-old phrase uncanny in its echoes today—can be studied in schools as an interdisciplinary complicated conversation about public issues that eclipse private ones (Pinar 2019 ), including social injustice, inequality, democracy, climate change, refugees, immigrants, and minority groups. Understood as a responsive, ethical, humane and transformational international educational approach, such a post-Covid-19 curriculum could be a “force for social equity, justice, cohesion, stability, and peace” (Marope 2017 , p. 32). “Unchosen” is certainly the adjective describing our obligations now, as we are surrounded by death and dying and threatened by privation or even starvation, as economies collapse and food-supply chains are broken. The pandemic may not mean deglobalization, but it surely accentuates it, as national borders are closed, international travel is suspended, and international trade is impacted by the accompanying economic crisis. On the other hand, economic globalization could return even stronger, as could the globalization of education systems. The “new normal” in education is the technological order—a passive technologization—and its expansion continues uncontested and even accelerated by the pandemic.

Two Greek concepts, kronos and kairos , allow a discussion of contrasts between the quantitative and the qualitative in education. Echoing the ancient notion of kronos are the technologically structured curriculum values of quantity and performance, which are always assessed by a standardized accountability system enforcing an “ideology of achievement”. “While kronos refers to chronological or sequential time, kairos refers to time that might require waiting patiently for a long time or immediate and rapid action; which course of action one chooses will depend on the particular situation” (Lahtinen 2009 , p. 252).

For Macdonald ( 1995 , p. 51), “the central ideology of the schools is the ideology of achievement …[It] is a quantitative ideology, for even to attempt to assess quality must be quantified under this ideology, and the educational process is perceived as a technically monitored quality control process”.

Self-evaluation subjectively internalizes what is useful and in conformity with the techno-economy and its so-called standards, increasingly enforcing technical (software) forms. If recoded as the Internet of Things, this remains a curriculum in allegiance with “order and control” (Doll 2013 , p. 314) School knowledge is reduced to an instrument for economic success, employing compulsory collaboration to ensure group think and conformity. Intertwined with the Internet of Things, technological subjectivity becomes embedded in software, redesigned for effectiveness, i.e., or use-value (as Lyotard predicted).

The Curriculum of Things dominates the Internet, which is simultaneously an object and a thing (see Heidegger 1967 , 1971 , 1977 ), a powerful “technological tool for the process of knowledge building” (Means 2008 , p. 137). Online learning occupies the subjective zone between the “curriculum-as-planned” and the “curriculum-as-lived” (Pinar 2019 , p. 23). The world of the curriculum-as-lived fades, as the screen shifts and children are enmeshed in an ocularcentric system of accountability and instrumentality.

In contrast to kronos , the Greek concept of kairos implies lived time or even slow time (Koepnick 2014 ), time that is “self-reflective” (Macdonald 1995 , p. 103) and autobiographical (Pinar 2009 , 2004), thus inspiring “curriculum improvisation” (Aoki 2011 , p. 375), while emphasizing “the plurality of subjectivities” (Grumet 2017 , p. 80). Kairos emphasizes singularity and acknowledges particularities; it is skeptical of similarities. For Shew ( 2013 , p. 48), “ kairos is that which opens an originary experience—of the divine, perhaps, but also of life or being. Thought as such, kairos as a formative happening—an opportune moment, crisis, circumstance, event—imposes its own sense of measure on time”. So conceived, curriculum can become a complicated conversation that occurs not in chronological time but in its own time. Such dialogue is not neutral, apolitical, or timeless. It focuses on the present and is intrinsically subjective, even in public space, as Pinar ( 2019 , p. 12) writes: “its site is subjectivity as one attunes oneself to what one is experiencing, yes to its immediacy and specificity but also to its situatedness, relatedness, including to what lies beyond it and not only spatially but temporally”.

Kairos is, then, the uniqueness of time that converts curriculum into a complicated conversation, one that includes the subjective reconstruction of learning as a consciousness of everyday life, encouraging the inner activism of quietude and disquietude. Writing about eternity, as an orientation towards the future, Pinar ( 2019 , p. 2) argues that “the second side [the first is contemplation] of such consciousness is immersion in daily life, the activism of quietude – for example, ethical engagement with others”. We add disquietude now, following the work of the Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa. Disquietude is a moment of eternity: “Sometimes I think I’ll never leave ‘Douradores’ Street. And having written this, it seems to me eternity. Neither pleasure, nor glory, nor power. Freedom, only freedom” (Pesssoa 1991 ).

The disquietude conversation is simultaneously individual and public. It establishes an international space both deglobalized and autonomous, a source of responsive, ethical, and humane encounter. No longer entranced by the distracting dynamic stasis of image-after-image on the screen, the student can face what is his or her emplacement in the physical and natural world, as well as the technological world. The student can become present as a person, here and now, simultaneously historical and timeless.

Conclusions

Slow down and linger should be our motto now. A slogan yes, but it also represents a political, as well as a psychological resistance to the acceleration of time (Berg and Seeber 2016 )—an acceleration that the pandemic has intensified. Covid-19 has moved curriculum online, forcing children physically apart from each other and from their teachers and especially from the in-person dialogical encounters that classrooms can provide. The public space disappears into the pre-designed screen space that software allows, and the machine now becomes the material basis for a curriculum of things, not persons. Like the virus, the pandemic curriculum becomes embedded in devices that technologize our children.

Although one hundred years old, the images created in Modern Times by Charlie Chaplin return, less humorous this time than emblematic of our intensifying subjection to technological necessity. It “would seem to leave us as cogs in the machine, ourselves like moving parts, we keep functioning efficiently, increasing productivity calculating the creative destruction of what is, the human now materialized (de)vices ensnaring us in convenience, connectivity, calculation” (Pinar 2019 , p. 9). Post-human, as many would say.

Technology supports standardized testing and enforces software-designed conformity and never-ending self-evaluation, while all the time erasing lived, embodied experience and intellectual independence. Ignoring the evidence, others are sure that technology can function differently: “Given the potential of information and communication technologies, the teacher should now be a guide who enables learners, from early childhood throughout their learning trajectories, to develop and advance through the constantly expanding maze of knowledge” (UNESCO 2015a , p. 51). Would that it were so.

The canonical question—What knowledge is of most worth?—is open-ended and contentious. In a technologized world, providing for the well-being of children is not obvious, as well-being is embedded in ancient, non-neoliberal visions of the world. “Education is everybody’s business”, Pinar ( 2019 , p. 2) points out, as it fosters “responsible citizenship and solidarity in a global world” (UNESCO 2015a , p. 66), resisting inequality and the exclusion, for example, of migrant groups, refugees, and even those who live below or on the edge of poverty.

In this fast-moving digital world, education needs to be inclusive but not conformist. As the United Nations ( 2015 ) declares, education should ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. “The coming years will be a vital period to save the planet and to achieve sustainable, inclusive human development” (United Nations 2019 , p. 64). Is such sustainable, inclusive human development achievable through technologization? Can technology succeed where religion has failed?

Despite its contradictions and economic emphases, public education has one clear obligation—to create embodied encounters of learning through curriculum conceived as a complicated conversation. Such a conception acknowledges the worldliness of a cosmopolitan curriculum as it affirms the personification of the individual (Pinar 2011 ). As noted by Grumet ( 2017 , p. 89), “as a form of ethics, there is a responsibility to participate in conversation”. Certainly, it is necessary to ask over and over again the canonical curriculum question: What knowledge is of most worth?

If time, technology and teaching are moving images of eternity, curriculum and pedagogy are also, both ‘moving’ and ‘images’ but not an explicit, empirical, or exact representation of eternity…if reality is an endless series of ‘moving images’, the canonical curriculum question—What knowledge is of most worth?—cannot be settled for all time by declaring one set of subjects eternally important” (Pinar 2019 , p. 12).

In a complicated conversation, the curriculum is not a fixed image sliding into a passive technologization. As a “moving image”, the curriculum constitutes a politics of presence, an ongoing expression of subjectivity (Grumet 2017 ) that affirms the infinity of reality: “Shifting one’s attitude from ‘reducing’ complexity to ‘embracing’ what is always already present in relations and interactions may lead to thinking complexly, abiding happily with mystery” (Doll 2012 , p. 172). Describing the dialogical encounter characterizing conceived curriculum, as a complicated conversation, Pinar explains that this moment of dialogue “is not only place-sensitive (perhaps classroom centered) but also within oneself”, because “the educational significance of subject matter is that it enables the student to learn from actual embodied experience, an outcome that cannot always be engineered” (Pinar 2019 , pp. 12–13). Lived experience is not technological. So, “the curriculum of the future is not just a matter of defining content and official knowledge. It is about creating, sculpting, and finessing minds, mentalities, and identities, promoting style of thought about humans, or ‘mashing up’ and ‘making up’ the future of people” (Williamson 2013 , p. 113).

Yes, we need to linger and take time to contemplate the curriculum question. Only in this way will we share what is common and distinctive in our experience of the current pandemic by changing our time and our learning to foreclose on our future. Curriculum conceived as a complicated conversation restarts historical not screen time; it enacts the private and public as distinguishable, not fused in a computer screen. That is the “new normal”.

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My thanks to William F. Pinar. Friendship is another moving image of eternity. I am grateful to the anonymous reviewer. This work is financed by national funds through the FCT - Foundation for Science and Technology, under the project PTDC / CED-EDG / 30410/2017, Centre for Research in Education, Institute of Education, University of Minho.

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Pacheco, J.A. The “new normal” in education. Prospects 51 , 3–14 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11125-020-09521-x

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The Teacher in the 'New Normal': Questions of Impact Sustainability and Changed Roles

2020, The New Leam

The article looks at how the pandemic has opened up a plethora of challenges before the teaching community and even those who are soon to join the vocation.

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Teaching in the New Normal

As educators and students, you and your learners have faced unprecedented challenges. We recognize that a fluid context for teaching and learning is the new normal, such as the capacity to accommodate quarantine, isolation, and other stressful uncertainties. Yet as we have navigated these difficulties, we have also developed new levels of resourcefulness, creative problem-solving, and compassion for one another.

How can we equip ourselves to offer a rich and supportive learning environment for our students, to anticipate the unexpected? Below are five practices that will improve the experience of your learners, increase their sense of belonging, and help everyone transition as needed between on-ground and remote learning with minimal disruption.

High-Value Course Practices

A supportive syllabus addresses students’ anxieties read more, canvas as home base provides guidance and continuity read more, access to lectures beyond class extends learning read more, connecting with peers promotes belonging read more, expanded instructor access provides guidance read more, how catlr can help.

• Request an individual or unit consultation
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1. A supportive syllabus addresses students’ anxieties

Why? According to the national Survey of Student Engagement , 53 percent of incoming undergraduates reported a substantial increase in mental and emotional exhaustion. Of those students, 70 percent anticipate “high expectations of academic difficulty.” Students may feel unsure of themselves and anxious. They will be better positioned to focus on their studies if you help connect them with support and offer flexibility in your course policies.

Supportive Syllabus Suggestions

With a few tweaks, your syllabus can anticipate and help address the concerns of anxious students, providing a supportive first impression of your course .

• Consider revising your attendance policies to provide a pathway for students who may need to be in quarantine. If students are sick, it is important that they do not feel pressure to attend class in person. How do you want them to communicate with you if they cannot attend in person? What are possible alternatives for in-class activities? For example, these could include discussions or assignments they can do in Canvas.
• Offer flexibility in deadlines, such as the option to submit up to a certain number of the assignments late with no penalty in the event of illness or quarantine. Set target dates instead of deadlines.
• Provide links to support resources such as WeCare , letting students know that you value their health and wellbeing. CATLR provides a list of university resources related to teaching and learning that you may want to consult as you decide what to include in your syllabus. If you are teaching first-year students, link to the MentorHub NU app (available in the Apple and Google Play stores) so they can quickly connect with Student Success Guides who can answer questions and recommend resources.
• Help students prepare in advance for the possible need to attend class online by having them complete the self-paced module Getting the Most Out of Online Learning at Northeastern . This module provides helpful resources and suggestions for learners across all modalities, including hybrid and remote contexts. Encourage students to install and use the Canvas app on smartphones, if feasible. (See Canvas as Home Base for additional explanation.)

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2. Canvas as home base provides guidance and continuity

Why? The period from March 2020 to present day has been a disorienting time for students. The location and format of learning have changed multiple times during the year. It can be challenging to keep track of assignments and deadlines. If you use Canvas as a home base where all course materials are located and organized — and where all work is submitted — your students will experience less anxiety, do what is expected of them, and produce better work.

Canvas as A Home Base Suggestions

• Look at your course outline. What are the natural dividing points, such as units or topics? Create a module for each unit and upload all related materials for that unit into the module (e.g., links to readings, lectures, assignment information).
• When you make announcements in class, post a similar message using the announcements tool so that all students are in the loop.
• Use Canvas assignments to receive, provide feedback on, and grade work. Consider using the Canvas mail tool as the primary means for individual communication.
• If your learners or you need to go into isolation unexpectedly, or need to care for loved ones, they may temporarily encounter issues with poor wireless connection. It can be helpful to install the Canvas smartphone app for continued access to course materials, discussions, and assignments through a cellular connection. Consider adding this suggestion to your syllabus.
• View Academic Technologies’s Canvas Start of Term Checklist for additional ideas and links to support resources that will help you implement these recommendations, especially for setting students up for success in Canvas . Academic Technologies also offers this resource to help you increase the accessibility of your course materials .

3. Access to lectures beyond class extends learning

Why?   It may not be possible for your students to attend class in person — for example if they need to quarantine after contact with someone who has COVID-19. If your course involves in-class lectures, students who cannot attend class will be able to access this critical component of your course if you post presentations online. In addition, students who can come to class have the option of referring to lecture materials while studying.

Online Lecture Suggestions

• Help students learn how to actively engage with recorded lectures before, during, and after they view them — for example by uploading this guide for students on how to get the most out of recorded lectures into the introductory course module in Canvas and assigning it as reading.
• If you pre-record your lectures , note that they don’t need to be polished. Imperfections such as barking dogs in the background will make you seem more approachable. You are also modeling agility in challenging circumstances!
• You don’t have to record your lectures to make them available online. If you use PowerPoint, you can enter your talking points in the notes area. Note that you will probably need to add more explanatory text than you usually include in your notes because you won’t be present to address in-the-moment questions. If you are more comfortable speaking instead of writing out your notes, another option is to record audio summaries as a companion to the slides.
• Add your recordings or slides to the Canvas module for each part of your course so that they are easy to locate and view within the context of other related work. (See Canvas as Home Base for additional explanation.) Even if you do record your lectures, students will appreciate having access to slides so that they can have more than one way to engage with the material.
• Students will learn more if you ask them to do something with the lecture materials, whether they are in class or accessing the materials online. The KWL (“Know-Want-Learned”) process helps focus learner attention. Before the lecture, ask students to spend several minutes writing about what they think they already know about the topic and what they are wondering about or want to know. At the end of the lecture, ask them to write for a few minutes about what they think they learned and any additional questions they have. Have all students submit their KWLs in Canvas. If you make a KWL submission the criteria for having “attended” the class, both on-ground and online students will have equivalent accountability. As an added benefit, you will gain more insight into the meaning they made of your talk. Note that KWLs don’t have to be graded. Points are based on submission only, and therefore this activity will not add to your assessment workload

4. Connecting with peers promotes belonging

Why? Students have been isolated, and now more than ever they need to feel connected. They may have missed graduations, been separated from friends, and lost loved ones. Students learn best when they feel a sense of belonging in the class community — for example, through class discussions and group activities. Students who cannot attend in person will be more likely to maintain motivation if they have an opportunity to connect with others around coursework online, especially in the context of large classes.

Peer Connection Suggestions

• Use discussions in Canvas for class introductions. For example, in the first week of class give students the option to record a 30-second introduction, write a short message, or post a picture that represents their interests or personality.
• Consider kick-starting class by having students post questions or observations in a Canvas discussion board before each session, and then post follow-through thoughts after the session. Include prompts for things you want students to consider. If group work is involved, have groups select one person to post a summary of their learning to a discussion. Give students the option of posting messages in writing or using the record tool to post video messages.
• Plan for how your remote learners will interact with one another while your on-ground students are engaged in class activities and discussions. If there are a few remote students, have those who are remote form their own group if the class includes breakout discussions and group work.
• Consider opportunities for combining online and in-class discussions. This increases student perceptions of connectedness and interdependence. For example, in the jigsaw activity, the instructor assigns a different set of readings to small groups before class, having them develop expertise in their assigned readings and post summaries online. In class, the instructor forms heterogeneous sharing groups in which students share their different expertise and take the conversation to a deeper level — for example, drawing upon all of the readings to develop a response to a complex problem. A heterogeneous group of remote learners can do this part of the assignment online in a discussion or in Zoom.
• Create groups in Canvas for your students’ collaborative work . Students will be able to share files and create their own Google or Microsoft Office 365 documents using the Collaborations tool. Provide them with a video overview of how groups work in Canvas.
• Let students know that they can schedule their own group meetings in Zoom if they would like to meet outside of class or form study groups.
• A 2020 Northeastern student survey found that one of the most valuable things instructors could do is check in briefly with students on how they are doing and ask them for feedback on how the class is going. This simple act demonstrates care for student well-being, and also lets students know that you value their perspectives.

5. Expanded instructor access provides guidance

Why? While we all have experienced challenges with web conferencing, meeting in real time online has been normalized since the start of the pandemic. In addition, Canvas discussions make it possible for students to pose questions at any time of day, and you have control of when you respond. Students will appreciate this expanded range of opportunities to connect with you.

Instructor Access Suggestions

• You don’t need to hold separate online and in-person office hours. Create a recurring Zoom meeting for office hours in your Canvas course. Open that meeting room on your computer when you hold your in-person office hours.
• Hold a special Zoom session at the start of major assignments and prior to major exams. If you record these sessions, they will be saved within Canvas so that all students have access to your advice and input.
• Create an “Ask the Instructor” discussion that students can use to pose questions for clarification about assignments. Communicate your schedule and response time in the discussion to manage expectations (e.g., 9:00-5:00 on weekdays, 24-hour turnaround on weekdays, 48-hour turnaround on weekends). Subscribe to the discussion so you get an email notification when messages are posted, eliminating the need to constantly check the discussion.

Teaching in the New Normal: How K-12 Educators Can Support Students Inside and Outside the Classroom This Year

For young people across the U.S., fall is synonymous with “back to school.” But while the end of summer break often stirs mixed emotions, K-12 students may feel especially conflicted this year. For some, the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent stay-at-home orders may have made them even more excited to reunite with friends and rediscover some form of normality. For others, the prospect of returning to the classroom may be the source of anxiety and fear.

These anxieties are not helped by the enormous variation in student experiences across the country and the uncertainty that remains. While some schools are fully reopening, others are adopting a blended learning approach, combining in-person classes with online education to limit the number of students in the building at any given time. Others still are keeping classes entirely virtual, at least for the time being. And as the pandemic runs its course, it’s likely that even the best-laid plans will change, meaning schools must be prepared to make sudden pivots as the situation evolves.

All this means it’s a challenging time to be an educator, and it’s natural to feel stressed about what this school year will bring. But supporting students is what you do best, and we’re here to help you in any way we can. That’s why we’ve compiled some tips and resources, as well as best practices recommended by experts in the field, to help you prepare for any eventuality—and ensure your students (and their parents) feel safe and supported, no matter what.

Make the classroom a place of inspiration, not fear

Whether it happens now or in six months, your students will eventually return to the physical classroom. When that day comes, one of the most important things you can do is provide a calm, cheerful, and welcoming presence that helps to offset students’ anxiety and makes them feel positive about being back at school.

This is true no matter what age range you teach. While younger kids may find the situation confusing or overwhelming, older students may be more tuned in to the news, leaving them with different concerns.

You can help put students’ minds at ease by having an open and honest conversation on their first day back, clearly outlining what safety precautions the school has put in place, what they can expect over the coming week, and why certain steps have been taken. Leave plenty of room for them to ask questions, and avoid the urge to oversimplify things. It’s tempting to say that everything will be fine and no one will get sick, but this is a promise you might not be able to keep. Instead, focus on everything the school is doing to minimize risk—and what role students can play.

Frame steps like washing their hands more regularly and avoiding moving their distanced desks as simple ways they can help, and encourage kids to feel proud of themselves when they follow the guidelines. You can also discuss the pandemic in an academic context—for example, during science lessons—to enhance student’s understanding of the situation and give them the language they need to process their feelings constructively.

Throughout these conversations, however, it’s crucial to remember that some students may have lost family members or faced financial hardship as a result of the pandemic. Lead your class with empathy, and gently discourage students from making jokes that some of their classmates may find distressing.

For more tips about easing the transition back to the classroom, download Playworks’ free School Reopening Workbook .

Keep students engaged and productive from anywhere

For teachers who will be leading online classes, keeping students engaged from afar is top of mind. While you may have taught a few remote classes in the final weeks of the previous school year, adopting this approach for the foreseeable future is understandably daunting.

To give yourself the tools you need to be a successful virtual educator, consider taking one or more of these LinkedIn Learning courses:

• Moving Your Class Online Quickly and Efficiently —for tips on adapting your syllabus to suit a virtual environment
• Teacher Tips —for tips on using a variety of productivity apps, learning management systems, and other technologies
• Learning Google Classroom 2016 —for tips on optimizing eLearning through the Google Classroom app
• Teaching Future-Ready Students —for tips on weaving technology into your lesson plans

Another way to stay up to date with the latest teaching strategies is to join a dedicated LinkedIn Group. For example, this group for elementary teachers , which currently has more than 80,000 members, is described as a forum for sharing what works in your classroom, and this group for teachers on LinkedIn encourages members to share stories, concerns, and ideas. Groups like this provide an opportunity to stay connected to the wider teaching community—and remind yourself you’re not in this alone.

When classes begin, aim to make lessons as interactive as possible. While you might ask students to mute their mic at times to avoid cross-talk and disruptions, delivering the whole lesson this way may encourage some to watch TV or play games when they should be paying attention. To avoid this, build moments of participation into your lesson plans—like asking students to share their perspectives during the discussion or holding fun trivia-style quizzes.

Adopting a somewhat improvisational approach can also help boost engagement. It’s good to have an outline to keep things on track, but reading from notes for extended periods may cause students to tune out, so look for ways to keep lessons spontaneous.

While remote teaching will take some getting used to, you already have most of the skills you need. The medium is different, but your ability to support and inspire your students hasn’t changed.

“We know that effective distance learning draws on the same ingredients that are essential inside the classroom—setting and maintaining high expectations for all students and delivering on those expectations with coherent, knowledge-building instruction,” says Lynne Munson , founder and CEO of Great Minds . “We are working to ensure high-quality instruction continues no matter the circumstances teachers face this fall.”

Have a plan in place for anything

Even if your school will soon open its doors again, it’s worth having a communication plan ready to deploy at short notice, should circumstances change and you suddenly need to transition to remote learning. Consider compiling a list of resources to help students and parents manage the transition, such as:

• This article on proactively preparing for distance learning
• This LinkedIn Learning course on supporting kids’ learning at home
• These tips for managing the unexpected costs associated with eLearning
• This guidance around creating an optimal school space at home
• This list of simple, healthy snack recipes for kids

Providing resources like this can make a world of difference to families who may be struggling. LEARN Charter School Network discovered this when it went above and beyond to ensure its students had everything they needed to be successful.

“LEARN Network is committed to our families, which is noted in our values under family involvement,” explains Michelle N. Pierre-Farid , LEARN’s Chief Schools Officer. “With that in mind, we had 100% of our schools contact 100% of their families. In those conversations, teachers wanted to know the family’s needs and any technology support. We then set up a family support program where we provided gift cards directly to families to meet any of their immediate needs. We also provided Chromebooks to any family that requested it. We know that this strengthened school-parent relationships because we had families personally reach out to the CEO to state how much they appreciated the one-to-one contact from our staff.”

Whatever happens, try to provide updates to students and parents on a regular basis to keep them in the loop about any upcoming changes. Constantly shifting schedules can be especially difficult for working parents and anxious students, but you can take some of the weight off their shoulders by being a beacon of clarity in a sea of uncertainty.

As you support your students and their families, we are here to support you. To be the first to hear about new resources and tips, subscribe to the LinkedIn for Nonprofits blog today .

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An educator’s reflections on “a new normal” for schools.

August 21, 2020 by Justin Birckbichler

In this post, educator and instructional technology coach, Justin Birckbichler, shares his thoughts on the “new normal” that schools across the country are facing. 

In Virginia, where I work as an instructional technology coach, all schools completely shut down for in-person instruction in March due to the pandemic. While the state gave an option to reopen schools in the fall, my district chose to begin this school year in an all-virtual manner. Given that the current situation has only gotten worse since spring, this was clearly the safest choice. Despite knowing this was the best option from a seemingly impossible decision, I’m still left with a hard to describe feeling.

While I don’t have my own classroom anymore, I do have the pleasure of connecting with over 650 kids each and every day. Although the vast majority of them don’t quite grasp my job – I’m either the science, computer, TV, or maintenance guy, depending who you ask, none of which are my official job title – I like to think they know that I’m there for them. I already miss seeing every single kid from the beginning of the day to the end, but it’s not about me.

For many of these kids, school is a safe, special, and important place for them… even if they don’t always show it in the “best” ways. The ones who will fight you hardest are the ones who secretly love being there most. Through the shutdown, throughout the summer, and beginning this year, my thoughts have been with these students – my current Lions, as well as my former Cardinals, Bobcats, and Bears. Wow, I really need to learn to stay in one school for a while.

However, we have a unique opportunity here to make a commitment to being there for the kids. Undoubtedly, it sucks that they’ve missed out on face-to-face instruction for over six months and counting now, but realistically they will be fine in the long run. When was the last time you added fractions with unlike denominators, or had to know the French nobleman who aided the Continental Army? We’ll work out the logistics of distance/e-learning in time, but we can start on the far more important mission immediately.

We can’t change the decision to be virtual or this scale of virus (although wearing a mask will help). But what we can change is how we use this time to impact our students’ lives on a far greater scale.

What we must do (and now is a good time to say that this is solely my views and are not necessarily reflective of the opinions of my school, district, or state) is use this time to connect with the kids on a daily basis. When I missed three months of school as I underwent chemo in 2017 , I wrote back and forth on Google Classroom with each of my kids every single day. I learned more about those kids through that three months of writing than I did in an entire year of some previous classes. I made video calls and phone calls to keep up with them. These were moments that the students and I truly treasured, even when one student exclaimed, “Wow Mr. B you’re really fat now and have no hair!” Yes, Neil, that’s what chemo does.

Though I wasn’t physically present with them, I never felt like I was missing out on anything because I was there in the only way I could – and we worked together to make it count.

The point of this post is to focus on what matters. It’s not how we feel about it. Yes, we’re upset and sad. It’s not about the teaching and curriculum that’s being missed. Yes, these skills are important and it’s literally our job to provide them with the required knowledge. But what truly matters is growing strong connections and creating safe spaces for our students.

Ten years from now, they’re not going to remember how they did on their end of year tests or what they learned in class… unless it’s that the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell – that’s important and they will remember that forever.

They will remember how we rallied around them to make them feel loved and supported even when we couldn’t physically be there.

So I will wrap up this “teacher as a martyr post that Justin usually hates” and get off my soapbox by saying I know educators are all upset about the decisions of their respective districts. There’s really no right answer and not everyone will be pleased with whatever choice is made. 

But we must – and I repeat, must – do everything in our power to make sure that our students know just because school will look drastically different than in any previous year, our love, support, and care for them will never change.

Be sure to check our blog for new posts from our amazing community every week!

Kids Discover

Justin Birckbichler Justin Birckbichler is an Instructional Technology Coach in Spotsylvania, VA and a Google for Education Certified Innovator. In his work, he is very passionate about forming strong relationships with students, purposeful technology integration, and thinking outside the box. Connect with him on Twitter at @MrBITRT and read his blog at blog.justinbirckbichler.com. Outside of the education world, he’s is a testicular cancer survivor and spreads awareness at www.aballsysenseoftumor.com.

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Adjusting to the New Normal

• Posted August 14, 2020
• By Jacqueline Zeller

As the summer winds down, there are still many unknowns about what school will look like in some communities. Schools and parents are working hard to plan for how to best keep children and educators safe while providing quality education to students.

Below are some ideas parents and other primary caregivers may consider to help children adjust to the circumstances of this school year, with its many uncertainties. Many of these ideas are in line with the National Association of School Psychologists and American School Counselor Association’s Reentry Considerations and guidance regarding talking to children about COVID. This piece is meant to be informational in nature and not to provide medical advice or recommendations. These are general considerations, but parents should contact their own providers for individualized advice for their families and children.

• Talk with your child’s school and/or medical or professional provider to consult on what makes the most sense to support your child and family in the transition back to school. Each child is unique, and parents can adapt ideas to the individual needs of their children and family.  
• Provide developmentally appropriate and honest information regarding the beginning of the school year to help students understand what to expect. It is important to leave time for children to ask questions . When adults remain calm in the conversation, while offering information about successfully transitioning back to school, they can help children gain an increased sense of control. It is best not to overly focus on the news or unnecessary details that might cause increased distress to children. In general, with younger children, brief descriptions (with accurate information) are helpful. Children will respond to your emotions. Offer love and reassurance and remind children that adults, including their teachers and parents, are working to keep children safe.
• Listen to children’s questions and concerns . Remember that young children might also communicate through play.
• If children return to in-person school, they will need to be taught new routines regarding physical distancing, hygiene, wearing masks (when required), sharing, etc. It will be important that these new social expectations are taught and reinforced with patience and care. Parents may communicate with the school to understand the new expectations so that they can also have discussions and/or practice at home as needed. For example, parents might practice wearing masks or hand-washing at home. Social stories, books, comic strips, and role-playing that model and educate about the new social routines may also be useful ways to reinforce new school expectations at school and at home.  
• Connecting with the school and reading school communications can also help parents reinforce expectations with common words/phrases in both the home and school settings, when appropriate, so that children are better able to connect concepts. For example, if the phrases “social distancing” or “hygiene” are used in the school setting it might be helpful to use the same words at home when reinforcing expectations regarding the new routines.

"When children have predictable routines, feel cared for, and have a sense of safety, they have a stronger foundation to learn. Making sure that there is a balanced approach to the curriculum that acknowledges the importance of supporting children’s well-being during the start of the school year will be important."

• Connect with your child’s school if you have specific questions or concerns regarding fall plans, mental health, and family support needs, including food and/or housing assistance, etc. If parents notice significant behavioral or mood changes, they can also connect with school and/or community agencies to get referrals, if needed. Parents can connect with school counselors, school psychologists, school adjustment counselors and/or school social workers if they feel a child might benefit from additional supports at school and/or in the community. Some families might choose to reach out to their medical providers for referrals and resources for their needs. Even if these needs aren’t apparent at the beginning of the school year, keep lines of communication open with the school and providers should such needs arise at a later point. Every family and child will have their own needs, and connecting with a professional trained to help can offer more tools and resources.
• If children will be returning to school in-person, prior to the start of school, parents may consider walking or driving by the school if it is safe to do so, and if they feel it would support their child’s comfort with the transition back to school or to starting a new school.  
• If the school provides a way to do so, connect with the new teacher ahead of time to help increase the child’s comfort level. For example, some schools may have a teacher familiar to the child from a previous year introduce the new teacher or offer back-to-school events to meet teachers (even virtually). This way, students can see the teacher is excited to meet them and work with them.
• Parents of children with special needs may want to communicate any additional questions or concerns to school staff regarding available supports in the upcoming school year and how they can help their children with the beginning of the school year.
• Providing a routine is helpful to children. Knowing that the routine might need to change depending on the ongoing health situation, parents can try to plan and give warnings as much as possible if changes occur. Visual reminders of routines can also be helpful with young children.

Given the current situation, focusing on the well-being of the child will be important — especially during the beginning of the school year. The adjustment back to school is always just that — an “adjustment” — and this year brings unprecedented challenges. When children have predictable routines, feel cared for, and have a sense of safety, they have a stronger foundation to learn.  Making sure that there is a balanced approach to the curriculum that acknowledges the importance of supporting children’s well-being during the start of the school year will be important.

Parents are working hard and balancing multiple responsibilities. Parents who remember to be kind and patient with themselves, and to reach out for support when they need it, can more effectively care for their children and model positive coping strategies.

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