“Known Knowns” and “Unknown Knowns” - Redefining Success During COVID
“Known Knowns” and “Unknown Knowns” - Redefining Success During COVID
During
a February 2002 press conference about Iraq, then Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld famously said “there are known knowns….but there are known unknowns.”
These phrases derive from an analysis technique called the Johari Window
created in 1955 by psychologists Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingham.
While
the Johari options seem straightforward, Slavoj Zizek, a Slovenian philosopher,
said in 2004 that there is yet another category: the unknown knowns,
which he said are things we would prefer not to admit. Or, as Daase and Kessler
wrote in 2007, these things are “what we do not like to know.”
This
brings to mind one of my favorite education articles, “Pretending Not to Know
What We Know,” by Carl Glickman in the May 1991 issue of Educational
Leadership. Glickman listed 11 educational practices or realities that
experienced educators knew to be true at the time. A few of them were: corporal punishment does not help students;
students learn from real activities; effective teaching is not a set of generic
practices, but instead is a set of context-driven decisions about teaching. Glickman argued that for education reform to
take place, as Joyce Carol Oates wrote, “We can’t pretend to not know what is
known.”
When
it comes to COVID there are plenty of unknowns, both small and large. Whether
it’s the best way to set up in-school learning pods, how to organize PE
classes, how to decide when to send students (or an entire grade) home, or to
predict what the nature of schooling or Jewish life will be, we have an endless
combination of guesses and “wisdom” to guide us. Very little is predictable;
much of it is terrifying.
We
know that great things are happening in our school communities. Truly Herculean
efforts have been made to make the best of a challenging situation, including
innumerable acts of Hesed (lovingkindness), creativity in teaching, and
great flexibility in community-building. Yet we know that there are still
challenges to be faced. What are those
elements of school life that, in our heart of hearts, we know need our
attention? What do we need to own at this moment? What are the known knowns
and the unknown knowns?
Here’s
my list:
·
Online education has led to
uneven learning among students.
·
Many of our students show
symptoms of anxiety, loneliness, and depression.
·
Many of our parents are
anxious, and all of them are functioning as best they can.
·
Teachers are experiencing
high levels of stress.
·
Administrators are juggling
the needs of teachers, students, and parents while dealing with ever-changing
governmental regulations.
Even
before COVID struck, anxiety levels were high, and educators were taking notice.
Last March, before online learning began, Jewish day schools in L.A.
participated in a BJE Leadership Retreat titled “Thriving in An Anxious World.”
This program was facilitated by the UCLA’s Semel Institute (CARES Program),
Jewish Family Service, and community professionals. Some of the framing
questions included:
·
How do we
help our students move beyond anxiety to accomplishment?
·
Can we more
effectively emphasize the importance of “thriving” and “wellness”?
·
Can we
broaden (or get back to) other definition(s) of success?
Even
before COVID, mental health surveys showed that anxiety levels among teens and
young adults were at an all-time high; a Pew study revealed that 70 percent of
teens considered anxiety and depression a “major problem” among their peers.
Academic and social pressures were continuing to grow, and technology and
social media were adding an additional layer of stress and anxiety, affecting
increasingly younger students.
The
academicians and mental health professionals reinforced our sense that the
prevailing definitions of success (e.g. “it has to be Harvard or my child will starve”)
were leaving parents, students and teachers with high levels of pressure,
anxiety, and depression. We needed to find new definitions of success.
That
need is even greater now.
If
educators agree with the “COVID reality” statements above (or some version of
them), then a first step for schools is to create new definitions of success
and help parents understand them.
Given
the commitment to mission, and the creativity we see in our schools, new
definitions of success will lead to changes in a variety of school
practices: student attendance, time on
task, homework, testing, instructional methods, amount of time on Zoom, report
cards, and how to partner with parents, to name but a few. “COVID-time” success
will look and feel different. Each school must create the “criteria for
success” and apply them to all areas of their programming.
What
has been true for decades is certainly true today: school leaders can’t know,
and don’t need to know, everything. But knowing why they do what they
do, and making a compelling case for doing so, have always been what drives
successful schools. Confronting the unknown
knowns as well as the known knowns is a school leader’s
responsibility. Acting on them is what educational excellence looks like right
now.
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