Failing to Reset: A Critical Examination of COVID-19’s Impact on the Grammar of Schooling

• In Event: Teaching amidst the Covid-19 Pandemic: The Importance of Self-study, Vulnerability and Fugitivity

Abstract

While current discourse has framed the COVID-19 pandemic as an opportunity to drastically change the education system, extant research has revealed the immense difficulties behind enacting effective school reform. To examine whether the pandemic can challenge “the grammar of schools,” we address the following research question: how do teachers conceptualize the changes to education that have occurred in response to the COVID-19 pandemic? We present interview data collected from 8 different high school teachers working in 4 different project-based learning schools. 3 separate interviews were conducted between Spring 2020 and Winter 2021/22. Findings show that teachers have seen and implemented changes related to pedagogy, curriculum, and school structures over the course of these two years but have also abandoned most of these changes once in person schooling resumed, challenging the pandemic’s ability to shape education without concerted and system wide efforts to challenge the grammar of schools.

Authors

• Peter Jacob Woods, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

• Emma Anderson, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

• Avneet Hira, Boston College