We Have to Always Follow the Evidence
In the spring of 2020, Mr. Levy was a 7th science teacher and department head at a junior high school in suburban western Michigan. He was following the news of the emerging COVID pandemic, so he was unsurprised when the school decided to switch to an asynchronous virtual approach following spring break. With the fear, uncertainty, and stress of the emerging pandemic and the change in learning format and routine, Mr. Levy recognized that his students were in no condition to learn detailed science concepts. Instead, he prioritized their mental health and physical activity by creating lessons that would get them outdoors.
I wanted them to go explore a park close by them, go for a walk and observe nature with their immediate family members. . . . I loosely tied it to the standards, but they were mainly elementary standards, like, “What do you observe? What do you notice? What could this mean?” I just wanted the kids to get outside and do something and get out of their house versus just sitting by a screen all day long.
Some in leadership questioned Mr. Levy’s less rigorous approach given that he was the science department head. But Mr. Levy’s decision was based on the reality of the situation, and he successfully defended his actions.
Our curriculum director sent me an email . . . “Why are you teaching this material? Because that’s not part of your standards.” I didn’t realize there would be any accountability. My response was totally honest. I basically told her, “The kids are highly stressed right now. They’re not caring about the fine aspects of science. . . . I’m thinking of the kids’ mental state versus what are they really going to learn the last eight weeks of school.”
When the 2020–21 school year started, families could choose to send students to school in person or remain online, and all but a handful of Mr. Levy’s students returned to the classroom. However, this arrangement presented a new set of challenges because Mr. Levy was responsible for planning and delivering science instruction to both groups of students. He took an approach where students in the classroom performed hands-on labs and then shared photos and data with the students at home so that they could still do the analysis. However, he was aware that this approach was only sustainable if he and his students stayed well. He knew COVID case numbers could surge at any time and force a return to virtual-only instruction, or he or his own children could get sick, causing him to be out of the classroom for two weeks at a time. Therefore, he diligently worked ahead, planning lessons and activities that could be carried out despite changing circumstances.
It made me question what I was doing and try to make it as efficient as possible. Realizing, “Hey, I need to get through certain material, because I don’t know what tomorrow will be, like if all of a sudden we’re going to be online again.”. . . So as a science teacher, I just tried to make sure that I was ready for anything to happen. . . I’d try to be two to three weeks ahead fully planned, as organized as possible in case I had to step out of the classroom for a couple weeks.
As he made thoughtful, fact-based instructional decisions, Mr. Levy also made it a priority to develop that skill in his students. Specifically, he carved out time to help his students consider the varying, often contradictory, pieces of information they were hearing about COVID.
I view my job as to never try to persuade kids to think a certain way, but to have an open mind and look at the facts. So, I would show them two sides. Like, “Hey, this is in the news, and this is in the news, and they’re obviously opposite. So, what evidence supports both sides? And then what are some fallacies of both arguments?” And try to have them come up with a conclusion for what might be causing different things to spread or different things to appear. I think one benefit was just for the kids to be more cognizant of what they’re hearing and not just take everything that they see or read as fact.
Among his in-person students, Mr. Levy noticed a range of opinions on the severity of COVID, from blasé and unconcerned to fearful and avoidant. In response, he shared scientific information about the virus and its spread and historical information about past pandemics. The class looked for trends in the case data on the Johns Hopkins website and made predictions about what would happen to case rates after holidays. Whether motivated by fear of the disease or simply wanting to avoid another shutdown, Mr. Levy felt his students were all giving more thought to the consequences of their actions and making decisions accordingly.
You could tell that all the decisions were a little bit more conscious. Like, “Do I want to walk out right now, or do I want to wait until the crowd dissipates?” You could see that most of the kids, they’re smart enough to think, “How could I be as safe as possible while still being at school?” Because when they came back in August of 2020, they were thrilled to be back at school. They were like, “Man, that was a long time since March when we were at home, locked inside, couldn’t see my friends.” So they were just glad to be back at school and they just made the best of it as they could.
Mr. Levy’s school required all students to return in-person in the spring of 2021, then opened without any COVID-related restrictions for the 2021–22 school year. In Mr. Levy’s opinion, teaching essentially went back to normal, with just a few small changes brought on by COVID. For one, Mr. Levy was mindful that living through the pandemic affected his students. Some students were still particularly anxious about becoming sick, so he softened his stance on group work assignments, recognizing that it was important for students to feel safe at school.
Normally, I like to force kids to be in groups just because I think so much of life is knowing how to deal with people, especially if you don’t like them. But I thought, there’s still kids out there that are traumatized by all this, and especially kids that willingly chose, “Hey, I’m going to wear a mask all year even though I don’t have to.” You could tell that me forcing them to be in a group might be too much for them. So I always provided the out. . . . I never chose groups this year, and I never forced groups this year.
The other change influenced by COVID was prioritizing teaching critical thinking. COVID continued to be a socially and politically fraught topic in the world in 2021–22, so when his students discussed it at school, he prompted them to base their claims on evidence.
Whenever I would hear a kid make some really random untrue statement. . . . I would always call him out on it and say, “Hey, tell us more about that, and where did you hear that?” And try to make them back up their thought. On the flip side, I would also do that with kids who would say something that I view as true. I would say, “Hey, give me some evidence to support that as well.” So they’re still needing to back up all their arguments they’re making with evidence. They were realizing that nobody in the class was able to make some random statement and expect me or anybody else to view that as true, because I was always going to call them out on why they believe it or where they heard it and to give me support about that. And I think that cut down on some of the misinformation being spread.
Mr. Levy modeled critical thinking and evidence-based decision making constantly throughout the pandemic. And though living through the uncertainty of COVID was difficult, Mr. Levy helped his students understand that by being in school during the pandemic, they were not only learning science— they were experiencing the process of science.
Hopefully, down the road, we’ll look back, like, “Wow, that was a cool and a crazy time to live through, because here’s all that we learned from it.” . . . Science is always changing and medicine’s always changing. We go with the evidence supporting things at that time, and we might find new evidence tomorrow or next year that might change our train of thought. But we have to always follow the evidence.
