Serendipity35

You may have heard it said that since the decade after the 1918 flu epidemic was the Roaring Twenties in the U.S>, there is a theory that when the current pandemic ends we might have another Roaring Twenties for the 21st century. The roaring 1920s roared in economics, invention, and cultural craziness.

Much of the roaring was based on “pent-up demand” and I'm hearing that again now even in this spring when the vaccines are being distributed and some people seem to think the pandemic is over. I hear people say that at least we can see "the light at the end of the tunnel." Of course, when you do see the light, you are still in the tunnel.

With the virus under control, local restrictions lifting and spirits improving, the idea is that consumers will be rushing out to spend their government stimulus checks and money saved while sheltering in. 

As far as economics, we have all kinds of indicators, such as consumer confidence (how Americans are feeling about the economy) and recently it was at its highest point since the pandemic started.

The post-pandemic and post-WWI decade had a wide range of inventions: quick-frozen foods, the Band-Aid®, electric blenders, early television, vacuum cleaner, bulldozers, cheeseburgers, the radio altimeter and penicillin. The war had contributed to innovations and now that soldiers were home and money shifted from wartime needs to other things, inventions roared.

There is also a pent-up desire to get out and enjoy life again. I don't know that we'll have some of the cultural craziness we often associate with the 1920ss, but certainly, people are eager to go out to restaurants and go on vacations again. The hospitality and entertainment industries are eager for a comeback.

But will there be a comeback? I wonder if movie theaters will return to pre-pandemic levels ever again, even if there is a brief pent-up surge early in the recovery. We have become very comfortable with watching movies on streaming services including brand new films and libraries of old and new programs to binge comfortably from our home couch.

What about the 9 million jobs that still need to return? Not everyone has been saving monet the past year and eager to spend. Millions of people struggled and are still struggling.

Finally, I don't hear much discussion about a roaring twenties for education. There is pent-up desire to get back to "normal" schooling in K-12 and higher education. It seems like that will happen this fall. But will it last? Parents are eager to have their childdren return. Some students and some teacher are also ready to return, but not all. I suspect that some teachers and students have found online learning appealing. It would not surprise me if in the 2020s we see more online learning than pre-pandemic and more hybrid education with online and some face-to-face.

As students around the world resume their education - perhaps in a physical classroom - probably online - there is still a lot of uncertainty.

The nonprofit Internet Archive is dedicated to Universal Access to All Knowledge. They provide a number of free resources for parents, students, teachers, and librarians around the world—check out these tools for remote learning!

Over the past several months, the Internet Archive has collaborated with a number of educational specialists to determine how our collections can best serve teachers. You can leverage the Open Library to get new material or find lesson plans to make curriculum preparation easier.

Students can also access the Open Library books. For younger students, there are Kid-Friendly resources. For homework help, The Internet Archive has a huge array of textbooks and study guides. If you’re looking for primary sources to cite in your History assignments, our 26 million historical books and texts are a great place to start; if you’re trying to get through English class we also have thousands of works of literature from around the world.

There is even a huge collection of educational (and some less-educational) software and computer games if you need a study break.

The American Libraries collection includes material contributed from across the United States including the Library of Congress, many local public libraries, including material in the public domainand materials sponsored by Microsoft, Yahoo!, The Sloan Foundation, and others.

Jeff Selingo's new book - Who Gets In and Why: A Year Inside College Admissions - will be out September 15 and he has been doing a number of virtual events around the topics in the book. Here are three that are coming up this week. 

There's no doubt that the past 6 months have changed much of the admissions process for high school students and for college admissions officers. Will we ever return to the admission process of the past?

• For parents of high schoolers: On Monday at 8 p.m. ET, I’ll be hosting another discussion on college admissions in the COVID era – this one focused on how to conduct the virtual college search when admissions representatives aren’t visiting high schools and campus tours are canceled. More details and register here.
• For college officials: On Tuesday at 2 p.m. ET, I’ll be in conversation with one of the leading accreditors as well as two academic leaders in online learning about how to assess students in remote instruction this fall. More details and register here.  
• For parents and counselors: On Wednesday at 7 p.m. ET, I’ll be joining Education Consultant Katy Dunn of PrepMatters for a town hall on admissions. Join us to hear more about the book and what I’ve learned from admissions officials in recent months. Register here.

The book as described online:

"From award-winning higher education journalist and New York Times bestselling author Jeffrey Selingo comes a revealing look from inside the admissions office—one that identifies surprising strategies that will aid in the college search.

Getting into a top-ranked college has never seemed more impossible, with acceptance rates at some elite universities dipping into the single digits. In Who Gets In and Why, journalist and higher education expert Jeffrey Selingo dispels entrenched notions of how to compete and win at the admissions game, and reveals that teenagers and parents have much to gain by broadening their notion of what qualifies as a “good college.” Hint: it’s not all about the sticker on the car window.

Selingo, who was embedded in three different admissions offices—a selective private university, a leading liberal arts college, and a flagship public campus—closely observed gatekeepers as they made their often agonizing and sometimes life-changing decisions. He also followed select students and their parents, and he traveled around the country meeting with high school counselors, marketers, behind-the-scenes consultants, and college rankers.

While many have long believed that admissions is merit-based, rewarding the best students, Who Gets In and Why presents a more complicated truth, showing that “who gets in” is frequently more about the college’s agenda than the applicant. In a world where thousands of equally qualified students vie for a fixed number of spots at elite institutions, admissions officers often make split-second decisions based on a variety of factors—like diversity, money, and, ultimately, whether a student will enroll if accepted.

One of the most insightful books ever about “getting in” and what higher education has become, Who Gets In and Why not only provides an usually intimate look at how admissions decisions get made, but guides prospective students on how to honestly assess their strengths and match with the schools that will best serve their interests."

 

Here's an idea from aasa.org:

"Imagine you had to begin each school year with a brand new staff.

Every year, every professional and every support specialist working in your school had begun his or her first year there. Every principal, teacher, custodian and food service worker wouldn’t know the routines, the curriculum or the procedures you expected them to follow.

There would be no building upon last year’s successes. In addition, the personalities of individual staff members and their impact on the culture of the school would be unknown to everyone as they started the year.

As an administrator, you wouldn’t anticipate high productivity until staff members learned what was expected of them and how to work together to benefit the students. For most administrators, the idea of 100 percent staff turnover is an unpleasant one to consider. Successful schools (and districts) depend on continuity of staff, curricula and programs from one year to the next in order to continually improve.

Some educators are discovering that this continuity on which schools rely also can work in the classroom. Instead of starting each school year with a completely new group of students, some teachers are staying with their students for a second year at the next grade level, a practice that is known as 'looping'."

Having been in classrooms for 45 years in secondary schools and also college, my first reaction would be to consider personalities. What about the teachers or students who don't work well together? Do you force them to endure another year together? Parents already have a lot of say in those decisions. This would cause more input from them. I had a year when I moved with my students from grade 8 to grade 9. there were advantages and disadvantages. But it's an interesting approach to consider.