Learning pods: It’s controversial
The pandemic has pushed educators, schools, and families to implement and adopt new models of learning. Due to continuing COVID outbreaks and school closures, as well as fears around health safety, many parents have opted to keep their children at home. To continue their education and recreate a semblance of a school environment, many Americans are organizing learning pods or micro-schools. This alternative method of schooling has ignited much criticism and raises a host of difficult questions around equity, personalized vs. standardized education, and the future of public schools. Although there are valid concerns about the kind of precedent such a trend could set, learning pods have sparked important conversations that can lead to reimagining the concept of school itself.
What exactly are learning pods? Families who choose to keep their children at home due to health risks and concerns about school closures pool their resources to hire a private tutor. The tutor teaches a pod of about 8–10 children in one of their homes. Rather than continue online learning these families essentially create a school in which their children can socialize safely with peers (often friends from the neighborhood) while receiving guided instruction from a professional educator.
Its appeal is undeniable. As this Aljazeera article explains:
“Parents say these pods will allow their children to remain on track academically, learn together, collaborate on activities, and socialize with one another. It would also provide at least some childcare, so parents can go to work, or allow them to focus on their remote jobs at home.”
Most parents feel ill-equipped to support their child academically or provide them adequate socialization at home while juggling jobs and other responsibilities. Learning pods, or pandemic pods, are a massive relief for a growing number of families who question the ability of the public school system to protect their children from COVID and who are frustrated with online learning.
The problem of equity
But it is an expensive relief that comes with its unique challenges. Arranging the logistics of a learning pod and tutor salaries can cost at least $1,500 a month. Despite this, learning pods are on the rise. Many are meeting the demand; it turns out that learning pods are a lucrative business model and career choice. Education centers are sprouting up; even resorts are cashing in as suitable venues for pods. Some teachers are leaving the profession to become pod tutors because of the better pay and less stressful teaching environment.
The reality is that most American families cannot afford to run learning pods that meet the educational needs of their children. Economically disadvantaged families have few options: either send their children to potentially unsafe public schools or facilitate online learning on their own with little resources, time, and essential skills. The resulting inequity is the main point of contention between proponents of standardized education/public schooling and those who support school choice.
Although pods are a convenient solution for continuing learning during difficult times, there are credible concerns that it undermines public schooling. Learning pods could trigger a brain drain, where underpaid and overwhelmed teachers pursue private tutoring instead of remaining in underfunded public schools.
With limited oversight and a lack of set standards learning pods could lead to educational disparities that “ create a patchwork system that could have long-term effects on standard public education.” Some parents hire professional tutors while others band together and facilitate the learning of their children in the best way they can.
The opportunities for innovation
Are pods just a last resort for desperate families, or are there benefits to this model of learning?
Pods provide smaller, intimate settings that allow for deeper, more focused learning. As a result, children can enjoy the undivided attention of their tutor. Studies have shown that small group instruction allows for more individualized support and creativity that boosts student motivation to excel.
Families have more control over the educational environment of their children by working with people they know and trust. Hiring tutors and forming groups with children from their neighborhood transform parents into decision-makers rather than passive participants. Families engage in communal ownership and accountability, thereby making education a cooperative endeavor.
Designing tailored micro-schools has helped families escape the problems that plague traditional schooling. One such challenge is implementing a culturally diverse and inclusive curriculum. Some African American families have started Afrocentric homeschooling initiatives that provide a “more rigorous and culturally affirming learning experience.”
Reconciling the good and the bad
Learning pods reveal controversial issues around equity and access, particularly in America. But there are ways of reconciling this. Grants and private funding are being provided to low-income families to organize pods that fit their unique cultural and socio-economic needs. However, it is far from enough. There are growing calls for federal funding.
Giving communities agency to organize the education of their children, irrespective of their wealth, should be seen as an opportunity, not a threat.
The efficacy of traditional schooling and what constitutes a good education was hotly contested, even before the pandemic. Now, it is more necessary than ever to question if “we need to use children’s ‘time spen[t] in school’ as an indicator of learning.” For many educators and researchers, a far more revealing indicator is engagement in project-based and blended learning strategies outside the classroom.
Although contentious and in need of rigorous research, learning pods have paved the way for innovative ideas that can disrupt education for the better, and hopefully, for students everywhere.
