Let's start re-imagining 1. smaller classes

Lots of people have talked about either getting back to normal or creating something new. I want to talk about what that could look like. For real.

Much of what I've seen about reopening schools in August or September 2020 is focused on logistics. That's how we measure progress these days. That's how we mark time.
There's the time when we had schedules packed with activities and we ate dinner on the go.
That was before.
Now life is about endless waiting. It's about 6 feet apart, less than 10 people gathering, no handshakes, face masks, PPE, etc.

Education is more than logistics but let's start with scheduling - it's complicated. We know.
I teach middle school and that means 7 50-minute classes a day for my students. 

That's 100 kids mingling for 4 hours and over 200 mixing for the other 3 hours in a building that holds over 600 students plus staff. Clearly that's a public health concern but I want to imagine what I could do if you cut my classes in half and I only saw about 15 kids at a time and maybe just for 25 minutes?

Focus will be the key. An activity can really only engage a student for 7-8 minutes. That allows for 3 activities in a class period. Something like:
1. Build community with a question or discussion.
2. Introduce or connect to our essential question.
3. Explain a tool we will use to investigate - assign homework to begin the investigation on their own.
4. Be sure to clarify before they leave how to ask for help before we meet again!

Why?
1.Relationships and opportunities to connect are what my students miss most. This is non-negotiable.
2. Keeping the instruction consistent and establishing continuity with an essential question that is relevant to students' lives will be essential to focusing on how to best use time inside and outside of class.
3. In my classroom we build understanding together and we learn skills through content
Class time will be precious and it will be hands on and focused on doing. Before digital learning we allowed 20-25 minutes of work time during each class period in almost every class but that model won't work any more and for some kids it wasn't working already.
In an ideal situation kids get to work investigating, practicing a skill, building understanding and learning. With 30 kids in a class, however, a portion of this time ends up being social time. Teacher time ends up being behavior management instead of checking in with students or helping kids build connections and grow.
4. Yes homework has to be part of this new reality. Effective distance learning over the past two months has shown that kids can be curious. Free from distraction some can thrive and stretch themselves to demonstrate true curiosity.