Humanizing Distance Learning
Centering Equity and Humanity in Times of Crisis
- Paul Emerich France - Education Consultant
“In some ways, shouldn't we always be teaching from a distance?”
Paul France asks this not as pitch for distance learning. But because part of the reason distance learning has been so challenging, Paul asserts, is that we’re replicating long-standing practices that promote dependent learning in our students. Why not use this unique moment of time to reconnect with the true purpose of teaching: to help our students become liberated learners and free thinkers?
The next logical step in teachers’ months-long distance learning “journey,” Humanizing Distance Learning describes how to center humanity and equity in our process of reimagining learning. Even while teaching and learning miles apart through screens, you’ll discover how to
- Build independence within your students so they’re better equipped to tackle challenges with persistence and learn how to learn
- Make collaboration and human connection essential components of your pedagogy, offering students the chance to socialize and learn from one another
- Center and unpack students’ identities, helping them develop a conscious knowledge of themselves, all the while using their self-identified strengths to overcome any obstacles
- Plan, prepare, and implement humanized instruction while teaching for student liberation—both digitally and in person.
- Investigate technology integration, including the Digital Divide, as well as ways to minimize EdTech integration so that our collective sense of humanity can continue to be front and center
“The future,” Paul writes, “may be unclear, the road may be rocky, and the story may continue to be long and winding as we push forward through this global crisis. But the answer will always be simple: We must teach and learn in pursuit of a deeper sense of collective humanity—and for no other reason.”
“This book is equal parts visionary and practical, courageous and invitational. It addresses foundational needs and wrenching challenges teachers faced during the recent time when U.S. teachers abruptly found themselves teaching remotely. . . . It is a deeply humanizing book.”
~Carol Ann Tomlinson, William Clay Parrish, Jr.
Professor Emeritus, University of Virginia
"Humanizing Distance Learning is a book for our times not only because it addresses how to build a culture of thinking and teach for understanding at a distance, but also because it challenges the status quo of education by offering a more liberated and humane vision.”
~Ron Ritchhart, Senior Research Associate,
Harvard Graduate School of Education
“Paul France has produced a timely and necessary book that will help educators humanize distance learning. Recognizing incredible dimensions of complexity, this book will surely help educators traverse times of uncertainty in distance learning.”
~H. Richard Milner IV, Cornelius Vanderbilt
Chair of Education, Vanderbilt University
Free resources
Using the Workshop Model to Foster Independence
"The popular lesson framework can help keep remote teaching manageable while encouraging students to develop self-reliance." Read the full article by Paul Emerich France, author of Humanizing Distance Learning, on Edutopia.
"Drawing from years of experiences and insights about teaching, Paul France has produced a timely and necessary book that will help educators humanize distance learning. By co-constructing with students and families norms of trust, collective problem solving and advocacy, educators are challenged to reflect on the best of their established toolkit while simultaneously co-creating new ways to build communities of learning. Recognizing incredible dimensions of complexity, this book will surely help educators traverse times of uncertainty in distance learning.”
"This book is equal parts visionary and practical, courageous and invitational. It addresses foundational needs and wrenching challenges teachers faced during the recent time when U.S. teachers abruptly found themselves teaching remotely—a time defined by multiple crises with little time for careful reflection. More to the point, the book’s deeply thoughtful guidance from an educator with rich experience in both technology and teaching points the way to more promising practices in times ahead that can dignify both teaching and learning both in classrooms and on-line. It is a deeply humanizing book."
"Humanizing Distance Learning is a book for our times not only because it addresses how to build a culture of thinking and teach for understanding at a distance, but also because it challenges the status quo of education by offering a more liberated and humane vision. Through his personalized writing, examples, and stories, Paul France helps us explore how all of us can do a better job of cultivating independence, agency, and empowerment in our students even as we attend to the need of the curriculum we are charged to teach."
