Learnit’s top stories of 2020

A list of the team’s top education stories, and why we picked them. We hope you enjoy them as much as we did.

Jenny Anderson: Alec McGillis, The Students Left Behind by Remote Learning. Because this experiment did not work for a lot of kids. I love narrative journalism and The New Yorker is the heavyweight champion of this art form.

Laurie Forcier: Justin Reich, A Crisis-Management System for Education Leaders. This opinion piece is, by far, the one I shared with the most people this year. Many leaders I spoke to shared their concerns about how to best manage the day-to-day of the crisis, while maintaining instructional leadership, and keeping an eye on the weeks and months ahead. Written in April, this piece has buckets of pragmatic, practical advice that is useful still, all in the course of a very short article.

Katy Fryatt: Lindiwe Matlali, Founder and CEO of Africa Teen Geeks, told me a story this week about a teacher in Limpopo, South Africa. During lockdown, he pivoted from teaching in person to teaching remotely. Ninety per cent of South Africans don’t have broadband. Despite not owning a computer himself, this teacher broadcast classes on his phone. The only place he could get reception to broadcast his classes was in a tree. So each day, he would climb into a tree to get reception so he could teach maths classes to his learners. Despite physical constraints, his classes were some of the most popular with over 500,000 people watching and learners often downloading his lessons at midnight when data is free/cheaper. Whilst this hasn’t been ‘reported’, it’s a story that for me epitomises the resilience and passion of educators, the insatiable hunger of learners, and our ability as humans to overcome adversity.

Annaliese Griffin: Chana Joffe-Walt, Nice White Parents. This deeply reported and researched podcast challenges so many of the narratives surrounding the politics of public school. It’s a must-listen for anyone who cares about diversity, equity, and inclusion in education.

Floss Harwood: When Malala met Greta, a powerhouse moment with two young leaders to be continually inspired by.

Sam Nicholl: The Marcus Rashford campaign for free school meals to underprivileged children over holiday periods stood out to me as an example of just how far the impact of schools can be felt in a community especially in parts of the UK where poverty is highest.

And as a Learnit team, we might be biased, but we loved Jenny Anderson’s piece How One District Got Its Students Back Into Classrooms. At a time when there was a lot of panic, showcasing the forward facing solutions being trialled in Cajon Valley felt positive and action orientated.

We’ll continue to share the news, and important stories of educators leading change, throughout 2021. Join our mailing list to be part of the community.