Return to normal?

There is no question that Covid has disrupted the status quo in education. Schools have had to adapt to new challenges about how we deliver our programmes, how we support student wellbeing, how we assess and a whole lot more. Across the country and across the world, different populations, people and families have all been affected differently too, whether it is due to days, weeks or months of lockdown, extended periods of illness, or the financial ramifications of covid exacerbating inequity even further. However, when speaking to many of my teaching colleagues, they frequently identify that perhaps one of the biggest challenges, if not the biggest challenge that we have faced as a result of Covid, is the large amount of uncertainty that covid has introduced.

One might argue that for some time now, in many contexts, teaching has involved large degrees of certainty. We have steady salaries and steady timetables. We are able to make assessment plans and exam timetables because of the certainty we have in our routines. We have been able to plan ahead because we knew what to anticipate from year to year. In fact, many of us even plan our bathroom breaks ahead of time because we know where those busy blocks in our week are! While schools often bring in new changes and initiatives, these are usually cumulative small changes over time, rather than distinct disruptions that result in sudden systemic or radical change. We might have a new open-plan building, new curriculums, try new pedagogies, but students still came to school five days a week. Student to teacher ratios stayed similar, assessments were carried out in fairly similar ways. (Think first order vs. second order change - "First order change relies upon step-by-step incremental learning, expansively building upon previous capabilities while simultaneously modifying what has been learned before. In contrast, second order change demands fundamental shifts in students' thinking, a reframing of previous learning which serves as a springboard for a transformation to new levels of comprehension" (source).

Nek minute...* Covid happened.

Some schools had months of operating online. Schools that were still device free at the start of 2020, suddenly had to start teaching and learning online completely, for weeks (if not months) on end. Assessments that were usually done in class, often under test conditions, suddenly had to be done from home, on a device. Students used to come to school 5 days a week for about 40 weeks of the year. Yet for some Auckland students, they had no school on-site from August 2021 right through to the start of February 2022. Some of us went to sleep one night and woke up the next morning to find that while we slept, we entered another snap lockdown and there would be no school for the next week. Even school holidays were moved suddenly. 

Of course, this doesn't even touch on the degree of uncertainty in our personal lives. There is the constant question of will I or won't I get covid? Will my loved ones and I be okay if we do get covid? Can my family financial support ourselves with such rapid increases in the cost of living? Does my incredibly mild sore throat mean I should stay home, or that I just talked too much with my mask on? Taken together, for many of us this uncertainty seems to have led to more stress and anxiety. In fact, there is research that has shown links between uncertainty and mental health outcomes. 

While the uncertainty generated from covid has in some cases felt novel after such long periods of stability in many parts of the world, experts have long called our attention to an increase in VUCA, that is an increase in volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity in the world. In the last few years we have seen everything from the current situation in the Ukraine and the fear around nuclear escalation, the election of Trump and consequent capitol riots, Brexit, and even an increased numbers of natural disasters. This doesn't even begin to touch on the uncertainty generated from climate change that will only increase if we remain on our current trajectory - increased risk of additional pandemics and diseases, increases in food scarcity, loss of land leading to escalated conflicts about land, climate refugees, more natural disasters, etc. 

As we navigate this uncertainty, I keep hearing myself and others talk about "when things are back to normal...".  And despite hearing myself and others talk about the "new normal",  I can't hep but wonder if either subconsciously or consciously, we are waiting for things to return to a "normal" closer to what we were used to? Are we waiting for a return to the predictability that we had gotten so used to? I know that I have caught myself in this particular waiting around mindset a few times. 

However, I think it is time that we ask ourselves; just how useful is it to be waiting around for the 'old normal' to return?

• Many times I have caught myself thinking "when things are back to (old) normal, I will...[insert designated activity, plan, etc.]". Unfortunately, I suspect that that the constant postponing and waiting for things to be able to happen 'as normal', leaves me with a greater sense of uncertainty. Some things definitely needs to be postponed, concerts, international travel, etc. And some things that keep being postponed is definitely beyond my circle of influence. However, I have noticed that the "when things are back to (old) normal, I will..." thinking is often an excuse for postponing something that I find difficult, uncomfortable, frustrating, boring, and so forth. Other times, I have found that my postponing is an excuse for not being willing to do the mental work of rethinking an activity - how could we change this activity to make it feasible in our current conditions? 
  
  
• Next, in the "old normal", many of us had stability, predictability and routines that made use feel safe and secure, financially, emotionally, physically, etc. However for many people, the 'old normal' sucked too. Long before Covid came along, we have been surrounded by racism, poverty domestic abuse and epidemics of mental health. While the "old normal"  might have been a comfortable place for myself and my immediate family, this is definitely not the case for large parts of our population. So it is only right to ask myself whether my wish for a return to "old normal" is really preferable to a wish to move to a "new normal" that might be better than the old? In other words, perhaps I need to stop wishing for things to go back to how they were, and instead wish for things to be radically improved in a new normal?
  
  
• Third, yet perhaps the most important question I have been asking myself... What opportunities am I missing by waiting for a return to (old) normal? There is a tendency for complex systems to maintain their momentum along a particular path until sufficiently disrupted by competing phenomenon. One might argue that schools and the education system is enmeshed in significant amounts of system momentum - while there are small fluctuations, mutations, disruptions, etc. these rarely change the whole system. Just think about the LONG list of school and education initiatives that have been discontinued, rather than becoming fully embedded and changing the way the system operates. For example, there is overwhelming evidence that our education systems are not equitable and in many places, racist. There are numerous initiatives to address this, yet gaining sufficient momentum within these initiatives to overhaul the whole system often seems an insurmountable task. Covid has managed to disrupt numerous systems at various levels. So while I could focus on "when things are back to normal...", I wonder how instead we might focus on what opportunities for radical change has been created through large scale system disruption?
  
  
• Following on from thinking about opportunities created by disruption and uncertainty, I have to wonder, are we just making things harder on ourselves by waiting for things to go back to the 'old normal'? By waiting around in limbo, are we stopping ourselves from truly adapting to our 'new normal' because subconsciously (or consciously) we are still waiting for things to return to the stability we were used to? Perhaps it's like a breakup? If we are still waiting around for and ex partner to change so that we can be better together, we stop yourself from really being available and open to finding better possibilities with a new partner. 

In summary, when I consider how often I have found myself thinking about a return to normal as I navigated the uncertainty brought about by covid, I have also had to question my capabilities for managing this uncertainty. What skills and habits do I need to develop further to better cope, and perhaps thrive in uncertainty? What opportunities can be found in uncertainty? 

I'm curious, have you experienced this 'return to normal' bias? 

*If you are not familiar with 'nek minute', it's a New Zealand thing. It just means next minute.