Since COVID-19 forced many of America’s schools to teach kids remotely, parents and elected officials have been rightly concerned about when things will get back to normal. But there are certain aspects of education where a return to a pre-pandemic “normal” may not be in the best interests of America’s students.

As an environmental psychologist who works to improve young people’s access to nature, I recently completed a review that brings two bodies of research together: one on connecting children and adolescents with nature, and the second on supporting healthy coping when they realize they are part of a planet in peril.

To use online proctoring apps, students are required to provide full access to their devices including all personal files. They are also asked to turn on their computer’s video camera and microphone. Some national advocacy groups of parents, teachers and community members argue that requiring students to turn on their cameras with rooms in the background during virtual classes or exams for a stranger to watch would violate their civil rights.

Bias can make it harder for people from different backgrounds to become friends with each other. That includes implicit biases that lead to things like microaggressions – everyday verbal and nonverbal insults that are often unintentional but nevertheless convey negative messages about others based on personal characteristics.

All of us try to provide best practice instruction to our students. Sometimes, though, in our enthusiasm to provide the children the instruction they need, we end up using some instructional methods that work against our goals. Here are a few things we know work in literacy instruction, some ways we can turn those good practices into unproductive ones, and then some things we can do instead.

Teachers need teacher and learning conditions that make their work as professionals possible, but the current movement to legislate the “science of reading” will further erode teacher autonomy and distract from the real work needed.