In this Special Guest Educator Speaker series, Scott Spector, Coordinator of Innovation and Academic Events in the Santa Barbara County Education Office shares some of the challenges and solutions they have experienced this year in Cali. To say they have had it rough may be an understatement, but there is much to learn in turbulent times. According to Spector, “I've heard from a lot of people in a lot of different counties here in California. I've heard from a lot of different people throughout the United States and the way they approve it, the way they approach it. And I think for most of them, it's pretty consistent. They're trying to get away from the, the terms of accelerated learning, achievement loss, and all that. They're trying to move in a whole bunch of directions other than those, because it's got such a negative connotation. I think a lot of them now are going with accelerated learning. And one of the things that I'm seeing right now is trying to work with districts and not get them to decelerate the learning for kids.
“So there’s a third grade teacher I spoke with a couple of days ago and he’s like, ‘Hey, my kids have not even gotten to where they need to from the second grade, how am I supposed to start with science in the third grade, with NGSS performance expectations when they have barely gotten through first grade, haven't gotten through the second grade because they've really had science here in California at the elementary level and it’s not always taught on a consistent basis as is.’ And then you throw in the COVID situation. You still have a lot of administrators telling a lot of the elementary teachers to focus on math and English language arts because those are the two that are going to assess the sciences. There are so many different factors playing into that, but I think the biggest one for every teacher at any grade level in any content area is don't decelerate the teaching for your students because of the fear of learning loss.”
Don’t miss this candid, revealing discussion from California. You’ll find so much that you can use in your own state, and you’ll be amazed at the creative solutions that are in play.
