Megan O'Connell Consulting

2021 has been a year of transition. Transitioning from remote schooling to physical attendance at school. From working from home to, at least at times, enjoying the company of colleagues who I had only met in person a few times prior to the lockdown.

Nearly halfway through the year, my reflections on what is important in life, and education, continue to evolve.

1. The importance of belonging. This was paramount during COVID-19, when my family hunkered down as a little unit. Now emerging from hibernation we’re all seeking belonging further afield. For my children it is about being accepted for who they are, respected and challenged to be their best. Transition to high school hasn’t been smooth with a large tide of boys seeking to enforce the dominant masculine culture, and being unaccepting of unique less stereotypical children. 
2. Feeling safe.  We’ve all realised how important safety is, and worked at times with anxiety during the height of COVID-19. So too for my children on re-entering school. Whist once upon a time academic results were my main focus, like many parents I now just want my children to finish school mentally well. School culture is so important, perhaps the most important thing and also the most fragile. How can we build cultures that nurture all children?
3. Seeking meaning. I choose my work based on where I can make a difference in the world – most often in the early years or secondary school spaces. My children are similarly inclined and struggling to understand why they must absorb facts and figures and spit them out in random testing. Why must they read Shakespeare when Orwell is their bent? The answer, ‘because it is the curriculum’, doesn’t cut it. And nor does the answer ‘you’ll need this knowledge for life’.  Yes, there are core understandings young people need, and a wide range of capabilities, but we need to get the balance right and where possible show young people their relevance to the world. Young people need to be able to seek and create their own meaning, to find and use their passion to drive their success. I keep remembering a quote, although not who it is from – that it is statistically impossible to be fully engaged in something that you don’t care about.

Where to for the remainder of 2021?

I’m excited to be taking on a new role that will see me in an office, with humans, more often, making a difference I hope for our youngest learners.

I will also keep working on pathways to education, and more broadly contributing to education debates. We need our education system to change – to find time to free up teachers and children to pursue passions and engage in real world learning.

To build our future we need young people to understand and advocate for themselves, each other, their community and the world – the challenge is how we build this.

Better, broader end of schooling measures would assist. Building ethical, collaborative, and discerning young people is a key – the new basics to append to literacy and numeracy perhaps.

Prior to COVID we had 40% of secondary children missing a month or more of school a year. Post COVID I fear that these figures will have increased.

Surely, if nearly half our learners are not thriving it is time to urgently have a rethink. And if our young people aren’t feeling nurtured and connected we need to do things differently.

Perhaps we need to approach our education system with the naivety of a toddler and ask ‘but why?’, and only keep the bits we can genuinely agree will support the development of a capable generation.