Reimagining the Classroom

Introduction: Everything Is Education; Everywhere Is a Classroom

A child sits alone, staring at a screen.

This is the enduring image of the COVID pandemic: the sad and lonely child, learning “remotely.” It is the child who encapsulates this moment, the child who forces a reckoning with the world we've made, the future we've mortgaged, the cost of our hubris. It is perhaps then the only logical consequence of this system that our children should end up this way: alone, staring at a screen. This loneliness a manifestation of a deeper, cosmic loneliness, the spirit of rugged independence made flesh.

Its cost is apparent to any parent. Every gift of childhood—joy, exploration, play, wonder—sacrificed at the altar of the system. And so, it is ...