Where do the umbrellas and a year's worth of knowledge and learning go?

"Where do umbrellas go" is the title of a book by Afonso Cruz. One of the characters tells us that this mystery fascinated his mother, who, although she kept losing them, could never find them. Perhaps they went to a distant land or a sacred mountain.  

But outside the novelist's imagination, this mystery doesn't seem to concern anyone. Losing our umbrellas is an inevitability that only causes us the trouble of catching raindrops or invites us to run to escape them. But the parable makes us think about far more important things that we get used to losing as if they were inevitable.  

What happens to all the knowledge and learning we've accumulated during the school year? The "big" holidays come and a multitude of experiences gained by teachers, psychologists, headmasters and staff seem to be lost, as if they were as disposable as a simple umbrella. 

Many will say that they aren't lost, that they are well stored in files, memories, emotions and even in the computer system. Are they? Well, take a break from reading and go and have a look, you'll probably repeat the experience of not finding the umbrella where you were sure you'd left it. 

Everything we have learnt up to the grade 

A class is not a collection of grades, nor does a grade say everything about a student. To arrive at the final grade, the teacher has built relationships with pupils and colleagues, motivated, discovered, suffered and helped to overcome, shared challenges and fears, worked hard and recorded.   

Each year requires different strategies and methods to get to know a pupil, to understand interests, difficulties, motivations and potential. Unfortunately, this is a journey that is made more alone than as part of a team. Sometimes it seems that each teacher makes the long pilgrimage alone, the teacher's road to Santiago, meeting only for a few moments to share stories and perceptions. 

Class records get lost in notebooks and files as the teacher tries to capture his or her vision of each student's performance and competencies. Then, perhaps, he has time to look at these records calmly and produce information that can be transferred to a scoreboard. Inevitably, this whole process involves systematic losses, delays the student's discovery and forces observations to be selected over others.  

But the knowledge gained by one teacher is not immediately combined with what other teachers have recorded about the same student, and we have to wait for meetings and gatherings to generate shared knowledge. Many observations are never discussed or are recorded in rigid texts and reports that cannot be quickly integrated and processed. 

And where is all the other data that only emerges after we have cross-referenced the information? Important indicators of engagement, learning, attitudes and opinions that are never discovered.  

In interdisciplinary work and projects, everyone's discussions and efforts are also spread across the notebooks, documents and platforms of different teachers, in conversations spread across emails, chats, corridors and meeting tables. And the same goes for so much of what happens in the relationship with parents or staff. What about the issue we discussed in October? And who did what for an innovation we want to secure for next year?  

So we can say that many of the lessons and experiences of the school year don't carry over from one year to the next. They go to a distant country.   

New teachers, old challenges 

Every year headteachers struggle to stabilise their teams, but the most common thing is that some teachers leave and others arrive. Where is the profile of each pupil that each teacher has helped to develop and deepen? Perhaps in minutes, agendas and reports. In their personal notes. Where is the daily work of the teams? Do we have to start from scratch, repeating questions, doubts and debates, or can we refer to what has already been done? Where are the promoted lessons, with all their dynamics, interactions and teaching materials?  

All that is lost does not change us.  

If they are in e-schooling, they will always be in the school, guaranteeing a cumulative knowledge that allows the school to grow and change when it needs to.   

If they are in e-Schooling, they are always in the school, ensuring cumulative knowledge that allows the school to grow and change when it needs to.   

Records, observations, lessons, assessments, documents, working groups, smart diaries, debates and collaborative work are all in e-Schooling. Every day the school grows with the dynamics, learns from all the work done and helps each teacher to integrate into the team and the mission of contributing to a deep and engaged knowledge of each student.  

It's not just about registering and working on a platform. E-schooling is where all the teaching and learning takes place, where teams meet, communicate, share and create knowledge that never stops growing. Knowledge that is easier to gain and harder to lose. 

For a teacher, e-Schooling saves a lot of time on paperwork and ensures that all the information they deal with on a daily basis in lessons, meetings and projects always makes sense and has an impact on their vision and management of the teaching and learning process.  

For the principal, it's a guarantee of integration and orientation for his teams, including those who arrive each year, with less stressful and fruitless procedures, and much more value for all the information generated by his team.   

At the end of each school year, we can be sure that the lessons learnt and the knowledge acquired by everyone will not be lost like umbrellas. They will always be available and accessible to the school.