Covid Quiet

Prior to the pandemic, our children would be greeted at their schools with an opening bell and homeroom. Then a bell would ring and off to first period. At the end of that class, a bell would ring, everyone would pack up their books and supplies, the halls would fill will talk, laughter, and movement, and the children would be off to their next class. Midday, another bell would ring that would make many hungry children salivate because it was lunch time. Much like Ivan Pavlov’s famous dogs, we have classically conditioned our children to be able to change tasks (shift) with the help of auditory aids. But what happens when the bells go silent?

What is classical conditioning and why might the lack of bells matter to our children? For those of us who have tucked high school psychology or psychology 101 away in the recesses of our memories, classical conditioning is when a learning process occurs because an action is tied to a desired response and then repeated over and over. If we think about this in terms of school and schoolwork, students are taught to shift through multiple, daily passing bells and hall time which is taught in early grades and continued through high school. The bell rings and students know to pack up their materials, move to their next class, and change their focus. Covid and distance learning have removed the bells and movement from our children’s school days.

In March, we thought that the difficulty of transitioning to distance learning was due to the abrupt shift in the classroom, workload, and expectations. But students are still struggling as this year begins. Our new schoolyear is scheduled to be distant; it’s planned to be distant; we all understand Zoom and love the time that is given back by not commuting. Yet the workload is already presenting huge challenges for many children. It appears that one possibility for this rough start, for the students who are already falling behind, is their inability to shift attention without the bells and passing time. Without shift, students are not initiating or engaging with their work with the same focus or motivation that was present in their traditional brick and mortar classrooms. After all the years of classical conditioning, we want to honor the importance of the helping our children shift.

So, what can families do to support our children’s need for the bells and passing time? Set alarms! You can set a clock alarm, your phone alarm, the kitchen timer, or use apps that allow for alarms. Then during the “free’ time between online classes, have your child get up and move. March, walk, run, exercise, talk, sing, put away one set of books and take out the next. Simulating the passing time may be just what is needed to shift, initiate, and engage. Bells and passing time have always been an important part of school schedules, now we realized that they may be even more important than we had ever considered.