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Blurring the boundaries between home and school: how videoconference-based schooling places American education’s cultural values at risk during COVID-19

Historically, U.S. public schools have been seen as a bastion of liberal democracy, an idealistic vision in which schoolchildren of all backgrounds come together to absorb a vision of the country that is committed to equity, rigorous thinking, and the theory that education supports a more equitable America and a more informed citizenry. Late twentieth-century anti-labor politics, reconceptualization of public charter schools from potential hubs of innovation to tools of resegregation backed by venture capital, and the media and social media’s politicization and polarization have upended traditional thinking about the roles of schools and the teachers who staff them. Despite those undercurrents, nearly 90% of American schoolchildren are entrusted to public education (National Center for Educational Statistics, 2020), and the “alternative facts” of the radical left and alt-right have mostly been kept at bay because of another American tradition: a clear hand-off between home and school, with minimal interaction between the two. However, as the United States federal government has failed to promote or fund a COVID-19 containment policy, the nation is, at the time of publication, nearly a year into a chaotic, piecemeal approach to K-12 public education in a pandemic. A great majority of public institutions converted face-to-face instruction to online-only or hybrid education, depending on two-way, synchronous videoconferencing tools such as Zoom, Google Meet, or GoToMeeting. These platforms facilitated remote instruction, connecting teacher and students in real time, and, pragmatically, providing a predictable daily schedule so as to minimize disruptions for working parents, many of whom were also at home. Approximately 75% of surveyed U.S. teachers reported that they required students turn on their cameras as part of virtual instruction (Will, 2020). Videoconferencing and always-on camera policies blur the boundaries between home and school and have unintended consequences. Many parents are hovering over their student’s shoulder, observing lectures, and weighing in on instruction. Similarly, educators are requiring that children share more of what were once private spaces and family behaviors. This increased scrutiny places schools’ 20th-century centrist views at risk as more adult voices weigh in on what is being taught.