The Previous Reality Complex
In response to COVID-19 restrictions, schools seem almost neurotic in how much they aspire to replicate pre-COVID conditions. Nevertheless, in times of uncertainty, it’s proven that hewing close to established routine is known to provide a sense of much needed security as means for coping.
And yet, ironically enough, faithfulness to the previously known model may actually hinder a school’s ability to pivot and meet safety protocols. Meeting safety protocols may require schools to trade the typically sought-after means of security for a model that is radically different than anything previously experienced in spite of the uncertainty that such a shift may bring.
The pandemic has drastically altered life, penetrating the deepest aspects of society across all domains. Yet, in the face of this moment lies opportunity. If the crisis has indeed wrought pain and suffering upon society, then we ought to glean some constructive meaning from the experience, else the misery of any sacrifices is for naught. Similarly, if the crisis is as profound as it appears—a sure sign of not only a historical inflection point, but perhaps an evolutionary one as well—then we might as well strive to be agents in the process by meeting the moment and exploiting the moment as a prompt to excuse doing something radically innovative in the education space.
Education, however, is notorious for resisting innovation. So committed is education to, in the words of Jane Jacobs, “imitating empiric failure and dismissing empiric success.” The past risks tyranny for everyone, but, historically, schools have chosen to burden the oppression in ways other fields haven’t, opting to remain subjugated under its own previous reality. The truth of this previous reality complex betrays a sad irony that has become near orthodox within the field. That is to say, the very purpose of education, which is enlightenment, itself, is undermined by our own aversion to bold thinking. Yet, here we are, in the midst of a global pandemic that, as an inflection point along the path of human history, may very well force education to reform, since doing so may have the added benefit of keeping teachers and students safe and alive.
Education and its historical reluctance to innovate has wreaked immeasurable damage on society, causing the nation to lose so much treasure in the way of human potential. The difference now is that such obstinacy constitutes a practical failure to adapt and, quite possibly, at our physical peril.
