Education after COVID-19 in Three Quotations and Three Questions
Mike Fleetham is an educator, international learning designer and founder or Thinking Classroom.
I did my governors’ meeting from my lounge. It took 45 minutes.
Why would I ever go back to 2 hours in school hall on a dark,
wet rainy November evening?
May 2020, Headteacher.
By accident not design, 2020 forced educators and leaders around
the world to examine and transform their professional practice. Like
a woodcutter losing her axe mid stroke, teachers suddenly lost the
tools of their trade – classroom, resources, relationships. But they
rallied, grappled with online learning, made it work and began to see
opportunity inside the chaos.
What have you learned or discovered during the pandemic that will
enrich your life once we reach a new kind of stability?
The younger children are having to grow up faster. In a normal year
we have the few children who’ll cry every day for half the year coz they
don’t want to leave mum (which is more about mum sometimes). We’ve
not had any of that this year. Parents can’t come in. The kids are more
independent. More resilient. They just have to get on with it.
November
2020 Early Years Leader.
I’ve wondered during my online work with teachers since March
2020, whether their loving concern for the emotional wellbeing and
mental health of their children is also, in part, a projection of their own
anxieties and fears. Kids are Dandelions or Orchids says paediatric
health expert W Thomas Boyce. Dandelions thrive in the ‘rough-and-tumble anywhere’; Orchids are more delicate, vulnerable, and need
a special kind of nurture. But when orchids are loved, they become
more beautiful than anything around them.
Where are the Dandelions; where are the Orchids in your class, your
school, your life?
Online chat during live lessons is brilliant. It has given a voice to the quiet
children, those who would not usually speak up or say anything in class.
January 2021 UK SENCO.
As we push on through the complexity and the challenge, one day at a time, sometimes using up the last of our energy, we are heading
into what might be a far more equitable educational landscape
– if we choose to listen for what that might be. In The Great Reset,
Klaus Schwab argues that a pandemic like this one accelerates and
amplifies. Look around and you will see that in action. Disadvantage
is amplified; technology and aspects of research accelerate; we see
more clearly what we value – especially when we are deprived of it;
and the speed with which we need to respond – often in the moment
– is faster than ever. No wonder you are exhausted!
But technology gives everyone a voice; it can amplify our words. Even
the quietest ones can now be heard. Let’s make sure that we listen
and hear what our children are saying. Because most of the children
whose learning in in your care – in class or online – will be alive when
the year begins with ‘21’ not ends with those digits.
Teaching is the world’s most important profession because without it
there are no other professions. And while our formidable healthcare
workers are saving the present, teachers are saving the future.
What are children asking of you for their futures and how can you
give them their voices?
From Engage issue 22.
BY MIKE FLEETHAM • July 16, 2021
How a simple act of practical solidarity is transforming the journey to school in The Gambia’s Central River Region North Policies have been written. Schools have been built. Yet for many children in The Gambia’s Central River Region North, access to education is still measured in kilometres, not opportunity.
‘In a single hour vast tracts of shaded woodland became a jumble of torn trees and upturned soil, exposed to the glare of the summer sun. Such land-clearing events are rare, but forests exhibit remarkable resilience in the face of disaster. I’m told that the Chinese character for ‘catastrophe’ is the same as that which represents the word ‘opportunity’. And, the blowdown, while catastrophic, presented opportunities for many species.’ (Wall Kimmerer, 2003: 89). In the context of a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world (Stein, 2021) what kinds of education for hope might support children’s and young people’s critical engagement in local and global issues? In the spirit of exploring the possibilities of hope further, this short article focuses on the area of global citizenship and sustainabilityrelated education. It will briefly open by sharing commonalities across pedagogical approaches that take up the concept and act of hope more critically, and close by offering reflective questions for educators, with suggestions for further reading. Perhaps it is a kind of hope that is grounded in the present, in future reimagining(s), in ethical solidarity, and an acknowledgement of our deep entanglement with the living metabolism of planet earth 1 our singular home (UNESCO, 2021); a hope that engages with complex root causes and lived realities of multiple overlapping crises in critically reflexive and contextually relevant ways. As McCloskey notes, ‘Hope can fire our collective imagination and critical consciousness as a mainspring to activism and intervention in the world.’ (2025: 3). Commonalities across critical pedagogical approaches to hope include: Acknowledging the context of a ‘seamless single story of progress, development and human evolution’ (Andreotti, V.D.O., 2021b Relating to social and ecological justice and the wellbeing of people and planet Using participatory, action-orientated and inquiry-based learning processes Exploring diverse worldviews and perspectives Practising grounding in the present with opening up possibilities for change (relational, embodied, response-able 2 ) Experiencing ‘struggle’ in different forms (dialogical, selfreflexive, open-ended) Engaging individual and collective agency, action and activism Looking for lifelong and life-wide learning and unlearning. 1 See ‘Co-sensing with Radical Tenderness’, in Machado de Oliveira Andreotti. 2021a 2 See ‘Crossing Borders’ in 2 Depth Education “Depth Education and the Possibility of GCE Otherwise, 2021b. Source: Andreotti, V. 2021a & 2021b., Atif, A. (2025)., Bourn, D. 2021., Bryan. A. and Mochizuki,Y., 2024., Giroux, H.A. 2025., Meade, E. 2025. Whilst engaging in the concept and act of hope more critically reflect upon: What kinds of education for hope might you explore further and why? How might you provide generative spaces for engaging in diverse worldviews and perspectives? In what ways can you facilitate individual and collective agency? How might you support learners’ practice grounding in the present in order to relate differently? In what ways can you support learners in navigating complex root causes and lived realities of local and global issues? As Chief Ninawa Hini Kui affirms, ‘The future depends much less on the images we project ahead than on our capacity to repair relations and build relationships differently in the present.’ (Andreotti et al, 2023: 73. An invitation for further reading: Transformative Learning for a Sustainable Future . d’Abreu, C., Belgeonne, C., Bourn, D. and Hatley, J. (2025) ‘Transformative Learning for a Sustainable Future’. DERC Research Paper 24. London: UCL Institute of Education. Hospicing Modernity: facing humanity’s wrongs and the implications for social activism. Machado de Oliveira Andreotti, V. (2021a) ‘Hospicing Modernity: facing humanity’s wrongs and the implications for social activism’ , London: Penguin Random House. Development Education and Hope . McCloskey, S. (2025). (ed) ‘Development Education and Hope’. ‘Policy and Practice: A Development Education Review’ , Vol. 41, Autumn. Centre for Global Education, Belfast. Link to and download the full reference list here
This summed up to me about why I volunteer for the Hands Up Project. HUP is a charity trust which, through its network of volunteers, connects children around the world with young people in Palestine. By means of online interaction, drama and storytelling activities, it enables the use of creativity and selfexpression to promote mutual understanding, personal growth, and the development of English language skills. I joined HUP in 2020 during COVID. After going to Palestine in 2017, I wanted to get more involved in working with Palestinian children in schools. HUP gave me the opportunity to link up with schools in the West Bank and Gaza. Every week I’d tell them stories from all over the world, then we’d discuss it, play games and I’d get them to retell it. Sometimes we would work from their coursebook English for Palestine’ in mutual team teaching sessions with their teacher. The simple act of telling a story became much more than entertainment. It became connection, healing, and a bridge to the world beyond their immediate reality to help them improve their language skills, and to give them a platform to speak about their lives in a language that connects them to people everywhere. I loved it, every week, seeing their smiling faces on the screen and building long lasting friendships with their teachers. I even went to Gaza in 2023 and met some of the kids I’d only seen on Zoom. It was a beautiful experience and something I will never forget. As hostilities escalated, I lost contact with everyone. I thought about where the kids were and what had happened to them. As I watched schools being bombed, universities flattened, and people killed in their thousands, I thought about where the kids I’d met were and what was happening to them. I kept in contact with many of the teachers I knew and heard daily news of displacement, destruction, hunger and bombing. Recently, I’ve started to link up again with children in Gaza, and it feels wonderful to be back helping them learn after being denied an education for over two years. Connecting with children in Palestine is more than just words. When a child in Palestine confidently tells their story to someone on the other side of the world, bridges are built, empathy grows, and the world gains a fuller picture of childhood in contexts far from peace and privilege. My work with these children is rooted in the belief that education and voice are inseparable. Through storytelling and English language learning, I witness children not just learning new vocabulary, but reclaiming their narratives, believing in their potential, and finding human connection in a world they perceive has abandoned them. And more than anything, this work reminds us all that children — everywhere — deserve to learn, to speak, and to be heard. Links to HUP information, books and resources: The Hands Up Project BY SUSAN PIPER Susan Piper is currently an ESOL teacher in Oldham, Greater Manchester and has worked in education for over 30 years. She is also a volunteer for the Hands Up Project and is the International Solidarity Officer and President of her NEU district. She believes in quality education for all and aims to make her lessons creative and inclusive so that effective language learning can take place.
