A few weeks ago, I participated in a webinar with K-12 students, parents and teachers about how online learning is going. You might be surprised to hear that the news was not all bad. The students, in particular, had some good things to say about their virtual experience: They liked that teachers were focusing more on everyone’s mental health and wellbeing, and less on grades. They liked that the standardized tests for the year had been cancelled.

The gift of a crisis is that it reveals to us what really matters. And this particular crisis has revealed what matters in education, and what doesn’t. At a time when we are trying to do the best we can with limited resources, the things that aren’t critical have fallen away out of necessity. If the test was really important, we’d be holding on to it.

This pandemic may be unprecedented in its nature and scale. But the problems it has exposed are not.

Here are the things we have learned are actually the most important. First of all, children cannot learn without access to adequate food. For many students, school was previously their only source of breakfast and lunch, and school districts around the country set up food pickups for families who need it during remote learning. Access to technology, we have learned, is also critical. Millions of children don’t have reliable access to the internet on a computer or tablet that can be used for schoolwork. Millions lack broadband. Internet providers and businesses have in some cases stepped up to help. Without these basic needs met, learning cannot take place—and that was true before the pandemic.

A focus on social and emotional wellbeing, previously considered a nice add-on to the school day, is now understood to be critical. When children are scared and grieving, when their lives are in a state of upheaval—as many children’s lives were even before the pandemic—it’s very difficult for them to learn what a simile is, or how to add fractions. And if the adults are not doing well socially and emotionally, the children cannot do well either.

Read the full article about what matters in education by Kamilah Drummond-Forrester at EdSurge.