Before the pandemic snarled daily routines around the world, Aria Jones’ 3- and 4-year-old students had a reliable schedule down pat in their Washington, D.C., preschool. They’d have breakfast at 8 a.m., come together for a morning meeting and then spend an hour in the library or doing dramatic play before nap time and a hard stop at 3 p.m. It was a pretty structured day.
Since March, things have been different as her school moved to a completely virtual model. She typically starts her day around 8:30 a.m. with a series of short one-on-one academic lessons, just 15 minutes each, giving her time to connect with each family. Then the whole class comes together for a 20-minute morning meeting where they might talk about patterns, simple math concepts or how the kids are feeling. Later there might be a story read aloud or a group activity mixing paints to make new colors before Jones dives into another round of one-on-ones. When they’re not on screen, students are asked to work independently with their caregivers on suggested activities—a game of kickball, maybe, to develop motor skills or an art project.
It’s a long day for teachers like Jones, working to schedule time with each student. But it’s an effective way to keep school engaging for young learners, and screen time light. “Each student might only be getting an hour’s worth of screen time,” says Jones, who teaches at AppleTree Early Learning Public Charter School in the southeast corner of D.C. “I don’t think that’s a lot in a day to be in school, but the learning is truly there.”
As virus cases surge, and schools yo-yo between in-person and remote models, educators like Jones, along with other experts in the field, are confronting a perplexing dilemma: Can a quality preschool education be conducted online when overwhelming evidence suggests that face-to-face learning is the best option for this age group?
“For many of us in the field, when we hear ‘online’ and ‘preschool’ used together, we think it’s an oxymoron,” says Kathy Hirsch-Pasek, an early childhood expert and psychology professor who directs the Infant Language Laboratory at Temple University in Philadelphia. But the constraints of the pandemic present a new set of considerations—namely the safety of educators and families, some of whom are not yet ready to consider in-person schooling. “Is getting something better than getting nothing? Probably so. Should it just be what we did when we were offline, now moving it online? Probably not.”