Post-COVID Education: Keeping the main thing the main thing

by Trish Barbarick, Dean of Students Success Center

Have you noticed a shift in our students since the pandemic? Even in the best of pandemic-instruction circumstances, students lost. Our school was able to switch to remote learning in March of 2020 over the course of a weekend and was able to maintain instructional integrity for the remainder of the 2020 school year- something we are quite proud of, actually. Our teachers and families were fully supportive and diligent about keeping up with educational standards at that time. Upon returning in-person Fall of 2020, we were cautious just like everyone else and rode the roller-coaster of questioning “do we or don’t we” when anyone fell ill. We opted to go to remote learning only if and when absolutely necessary. Since that time, however school has gone back to normal. Just like it was before Covid. Hasn’t it?

If you have any connection whatsoever to the world of academia, you likely caught the sarcasm intended above. Nothing is quite like it was before. We now have second graders in our schools who attended Kindergarten completely online. We have fifth graders who cannot read at even a third or fourth grade level. We have eight graders whose attention span and social filters are seemingly nonexistent. Parents who saw the glaring flaws of government schools came seeking private schools, hoping that their children would receive the sort of education they deserve. We- private schools, that is- took them in, integrated them into the appropriate grade levels, met with parents to assess how to best make up for learning losses, and utilized resources to address student academic needs. At the same time, the pandemic is over so they’re supposed to be back to normal (whatever that is). In the rush to maintain everyone’s physical safety and compromise learning as little as possible, it seems we neglected to consider the spiritual well-being of our students.

But God.

The world right now is unsettling. Scary, even. Upside down. We feel it and so do our students. As Classical Christian Educators, we understand that we teach by modeling. And modeling. And modeling. Much repetition is involved in learning and much of that repetition is in the modeling of an academic concept being taught. Since Covid, we’ve been furiously trying to “catch our students up” and to recoup learning loss. Have we done the same with their Faith-loss?

But God. THIS is the main thing. God. God is THE main thing. Soli Deo gloria - all glory to God alone. How have we modeled THE most important concept since Covid? If we’re being completely honest, perhaps not with as much intensity and intentionality as we’ve given to reading and math skills. Friends, this should not be the case. And it’s not too late to shift the focus of our intention.

Remember what The Word says in Deuteronomy 6: 6-9: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

What’s the solution, then? Pray. Repent. Move forward. Consult first the Word of God in your child’s education, in your students’ education, in training your faculty, and in encouraging your pastors. Many pastors do not understand that Classical Christian Education is done according to the above passage in Deuteronomy, Soli Deo gloria! Let’s get back to the main thing- in our homes, in our churches, AND in our schools.

~In His Truth.