Evan Vucci/AP

President Joe Biden pauses as he signs his first executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House on Jan. 20, 2021, in Washington. 

“We must end this uncivil war that pits red against blue, rural versus urban, conservative versus liberal,” President Joe Biden implored from the Capitol steps Wednesday in his inaugural address. 

It was a sobering plea to a nation brought low by a raging pandemic, economic hardship, civil unrest, and long-building political dysfunction – punctuated just two weeks ago by a deadly incursion into that same building by fringe supporters of now-ex-President Donald Trump. 

Republican officials widely disavowed the Capitol attack, rooted in efforts to reverse Electoral College results for the 2020 election. Yet polls show that up to three-quarters of Republican voters still don’t believe President Biden was legitimately elected. Some political observers are even asking: Has the United States become ungovernable? 

President Biden, 50 years into his political career, is making the calculation of a lifetime that he can prove the naysayers wrong. And he’s asking Americans to do their part. “We can do this,” he said Wednesday, “if we open our souls instead of hardening our hearts, if we show a little tolerance and humility.” 

Biden allies argue that, in winning the election, the president won a mandate to take action and deliver results. 

“He believes with every fiber of his being that all Americans – Democrats, independents, Republicans – are looking for leaders who will work together, find common ground, and get the virus under control and get people back to work,” says Jack Markell, former governor of Delaware and a member of the president’s transition team on health care. 

Mr. Biden’s focus Thursday, his first full day in office, was the pandemic. He signed 10 executive orders aimed at expanding access to testing and vaccines, reopening schools, and getting people back to work. Masks will now be required on interstate planes, trains, and buses, and international travelers will have to quarantine upon arriving in the U.S. 

But executive action is one thing, used increasingly by presidents of both parties as a way to move fast. Working with an almost evenly divided Congress, necessary to fund the president’s ambitious plans, is another. Mr. Biden is hoping for quick approval of his $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package, which would supplement stimulus checks to American workers, fund vaccine production, and help state and local governments avoid laying off essential workers. Analysts see the plan as an effort to go big, knowing that some elements may get pared back.

Party rifts, and some optimism

Partisan battle lines are already taking shape, for example, around the proposed increase of the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. Republicans say now is not the time to add new burdens to struggling businesses. 

But viewed more broadly, and perhaps against the odds, the start of the new administration remains a time of hope and opportunity, a new poll shows. In many ways, the differences between former President Trump and Mr. Biden could not be more stark. Mr. Trump won the presidency without ever having served in public office, while Mr. Biden has made public service his life’s work, including 36 years in the Senate and eight years as vice president. Time and again, he has shown a willingness to work across the aisle. 

Perhaps because of Mr. Biden’s history of working with Republicans, a majority of Americans are at least somewhat optimistic that he can restore civility and unity in the nation’s politics, according to a bipartisan Battleground Poll released last week by the Georgetown University Institute of Politics and Public Service.

Some 92% of Americans want Mr. Biden and Congress to work together. And 63%, including 44% of Republicans, think they will be successful. 

Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

President Joe Biden speaks about his administration's plans to fight COVID-19 as Vice President Kamala Harris listens at the White House in Washington, Jan. 21, 2021.

In a Jan. 8 podcast, former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich argues that Democratic promises of bipartisanship are “baloney.” In their eyes, he says, all it means is that “conservatives surrender.” He points to the House plan to impeach Mr. Trump, which it did on Jan. 13, as evidence. What the former speaker didn’t know was that 10 Republicans would join all House Democrats in voting to impeach. 

Mr. Gingrich also doesn’t mention that, in fact, he and former Democratic President Bill Clinton worked effectively across the aisle in the 1990s to achieve welfare reform and a balanced budget. 

What’s more, says Ed Goeas, the Republican pollster on the Battleground Poll, “more than 90% of Americans want the president and Congress to solve problems relevant to their daily lives. But there’s a Catch-22: Republicans don’t trust Democrats to take a deep breath and move there, and vice versa. Independents don’t trust anyone.”

“Start out assuming that there’s common ground”

Celinda Lake, the Democrat on the Battleground Poll, argues that neither side has to compromise its principles to make achievements. 

“You start out assuming that there’s common ground and you look for it,” Ms. Lake says, pointing to the book she wrote in 2010 with former Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway. “Eighty percent of voters agree on 80% of things.” 

She dismisses Mr. Gingrich’s take as “old thinking” and “certainly not the approach the Biden-Harris team will take.”

What’s indisputable is that the impending impeachment trial of Mr. Trump will complicate Mr. Biden’s efforts to effect his agenda at a time of multiple national crises. The president’s spokespeople insist they can “walk and chew gum at the same time”; Democrats say the effort to convict Mr. Trump for “incitement of insurrection” over his rallying cries ahead of the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol is necessary. A conviction, though seen as unlikely, would lead to a vote to prevent the former president from running again. 

“Joe Biden is in a unique position, but that’s why he was chosen for this moment – because of his long-standing relationships with Republicans, and because of his compassion,” says Christina Greer, a political scientist at Fordham University. 

She echoes concerns of some progressives that Mr. Biden will compromise with Republicans too much. “But he’s the closest thing we have to someone who is ready to work on Day One,” Professor Greer says, noting his experience as President Barack Obama’s vice president. When they took office in 2009, the nation was in the midst of a financial crisis. Mr. Biden oversaw implementation of the 2009 Recovery Act. 

“Biden is not a fool; he understands that this won’t be easy,” says David Redlawsk, a political scientist at the University of Delaware. “He also knows that he doesn’t need to reach out to everybody. He can reach out to the 65% or 70% of Americans who would be on his side on many of his policies.” 

The power of sunshine

Don Ritchie, the former Senate historian, sees parallels with former President Ronald Reagan, who early in his career led the Screen Actors Guild in labor negotiations, and knew to declare total victory even if he only got half of what he wanted. Former President Jimmy Carter, on the other hand, thought that if he didn’t get 100% of what he asked for, he had failed, recalls Mr. Ritchie.

Likewise, Mr. Biden shares Mr. Reagan’s sunny disposition, he says. The former president told of a loved book from childhood, “The Contest Between the Sun and the Wind,” a test of strength to see which can get a man to remove his coat. The wind tries to blow it off the man, but he only clutches it tighter. The sun warms the man until he takes it off. 

“Reagan got a lot done by being warm and sunny, and after the years of Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter, both parties were happy to have a more genial president,” says Mr. Ritchie. He suspects the same will be true this time around.

Staff writer Francine Kiefer contributed to this report. 

Henry Gass/The Christian Science Monitor

Armed men demonstrate in front of the Texas Capitol in Austin, Jan. 17, 2021. The Capitol grounds were closed in the days leading up to President Biden's inauguration in response to an FBI warning of potential violent demonstrations at state capitols around the country.

Leaning against a fence near the stoop of the Georgia State Capitol, a man who goes by Nadir Xena and his friend Shadow call up to National Guardsmen standing above. “How’s your day going?” 

Some of the troops chuckle. 

Mr. Xena is in fatigues and combat boots. His partner wears a red bandanna as a mask; a streak of purple runs through his hair. Both are white. Like many gathered at the statehouse on Sunday, both had long rifles slung over their shoulders. But unlike the National Guard troops, these two armed men weren’t there to defend. They were there to protest what they call “tyrannical government”; to do their duty as American patriots. 

“They’re trampling all over the Constitution while they’re laughing at you,” says Mr. Xena. “I feel like we are doing our duty being out here, being armed.”

Nearby in Decatur, Georgia, Don Sapp, a Black construction worker, had heard about the threats to the Capitol and the troops mustering to protect it, and searched for words to describe it. One in particular was confusing.

“What’s a patriot?” he asks. It’s not a rhetorical question. He wants to know. 

Two weeks after the sacking of the U.S. Capitol by a mob of self-described patriots, many other Americans may want to know too. Yet as with so many concepts in this polarized era, the word fits the eye of its beholder. Patriots are thought of as those who defend America, but shared ideas of America are difficult to find. 

“I understand people wanting their grievances addressed, and I feel like that’s what they are doing more than defending the country,” says Mr. Sapp. “But I don’t share those grievances.” 

Crystallized in the Capitol raid, and the armed protests nationwide last weekend, is a countrywide identity crisis not seen for decades. Americans of all stripes are willing to protest what they see as injustice. But Americans who take to the streets today see radically different things – from centuries of systemic racism to threats to gun rights and, currently eclipsing all others, the Trump-engineered myth of a stolen election on Nov. 3.

Patrik Jonsson/The Christian Science Monitor

Construction worker Don Sapp stands at the downtown plaza in Decatur, Ga., on Jan. 17, 2021 as National Guardsmen and state troopers fortified the gold-domed capitol in nearby Atlanta. Like many Americans, he has been asking what it means to identify as a patriot in the current political climate.

As the nation tries to recover from the events of Jan. 6, reconciling these conceptions of patriotism – with divisions as deep as the country’s founding – may prove crucial, lest America risks being torn apart, not by enemies outside, but by self-described patriots who love their idea of it too much to see it change. And that also means rebuilding trust in public institutions. 

“We should be waving the flag and saying this is what America can be and should be,” says Carolyn Gallaher, a political geographer and expert on the far-right at American University. It’s about “taking the discourse [on patriotism] back.” 

A natural fit for conservatives 

But to take it back, Americans must first understand that “patriot” has not historically been a word of unity. For decades, in fact, the term has been an unofficial name tag for much of the American right.

The moniker is a natural fit, says John Pitney, a professor of politics at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, California. Conservatives value tradition and tend to express their patriotism through symbols and rituals, such as the American flag and national anthem. A term so associated with the country’s origins suits an ideology nostalgic for the political idealism of its founding.

But its use has grown more complicated since the McCarthy era, when the word became a political fault line, says Professor Gallaher. At that time, suspected communists, civil rights activists, and anti-war protesters were deemed unpatriotic – and un-American. Since then, left-leaning groups have mostly avoided the term, while those on the right embraced it. 

“The term patriot has always been used in many respects to exclude people you don’t want to see in the body politic,” says Professor Gallaher.

That sorting gave birth to the Patriot Movement, an upswell of anti-government groups in the 1980s and a godfather to the modern militia movement. Then and now, such groups rely on an iconography of the republic’s founding: pictures of early presidents, quotes from the Constitution, sometimes dressing in Revolutionary War garb while staging protests. 

Far-right groups use this imagery, in part, as ballast for their ideas, says Professor Gallaher. Associating their philosophy with America’s founding is an effort to monopolize patriotism itself. If they own what it means to be an American, they can justify any action.

“The perception of fear”

For precedents, Americans can look abroad to extremist Islamist groups that co-opt religious symbols, says Javed Ali, a former senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council. 

“Far-right extremists have weaponized symbols and images that have a positive connotation and made them into symbols and images that create the perception of fear,” he says. “Patriotism is being weaponized to justify violent action the same way that Islam was weaponized by ISIS and Al Qaeda to justify violent attacks.”

Certainly not all self-described patriots support the mayhem on Jan. 6. Paul Cangialosi, a self-described “constitutional libertarian” and militia member in Nelson County, Virginia, condemns the violence that took place at the Capitol and thinks inciters should be prosecuted. 

Elijah Nouvelage/Reuters

National Guard and Georgia State troopers stand guard outside the Georgia State Capitol in Atlanta on Jan. 17, 2021.

Still, he thinks Congress has forgotten the people it represents, and was long overdue for a wake-up call. 

“A patriot’s role is to try to rein the government back in and try to force it back into the box it belongs in,” he says. And that role “eventually gets to the point where it becomes more than philosophical.” 

Mr. Cangialosi, an outspoken gun-rights activist, is not yet at that point, but he knows his line. If the government during President Joe Biden’s administration comes for his AR-15 military-style rifle, he says, he is willing to fire it. (President Biden has said he supports a ban on the sale of such rifles and tighter regulation of their ownership.) 

“To me that’s part of being a patriot,” he says. “I’m not afraid. I’m gonna speak my mind. And I’ll let the chips fall where they may.” 

Love of country – or Trump?

The Constitution outlines a method of self-government – democratic elections – meant to give frustrated citizens an avenue for reform. But many citizens today feel too estranged from the system to act inside it, especially with a former president who sabotages its legitimacy. 

As the Republican Party came to orbit President Donald Trump, patriotism for many has become a matter of loyalty to him, says Professor Pitney, a former researcher at the Republican National Committee. As the two merged, some of his supporters have adopted some of his worst tendencies in the name of national pride.

“He is inflaming and directing some bad currents that have always been there,” says Professor Pitney. “Patriotism should be about love of country and he’s making it about hatred of countrymen.” 

And hating fellow Americans makes it even harder to resolve differences peacefully.

The Constitution doesn’t address the issues Americans are facing now, he says, because America wasn’t meant to get to this point. Self-government should be citizens’ political arena – rather than, say, a Hobbesian state of nature, where people use force to get what they want. When a democratic system falters, says Duke University law professor Darrell Miller, so do the laws, norms, and bonds that prevent violence.

“As we saw on Jan. 6, there’s always some cohort that thinks that a legitimate government is a tyrannical government – and that the time for revolution is now,” he says. 

An inclusive idea

Avoiding more rollback in this era of beleaguered democracy will be difficult, but not impossible. Rebuilding American institutions will take trusting a government many feel alienated by, and trusting fellow Americans at a time when differences in politics feel jarring. 

But even as far back as Shays’ Rebellion in the early years of the republic, when 4,000 Massachusetts farmers revolted against what they saw as an unsympathetic, tax-heavy state government, America has faced internal revolts. It took the state government mustering a militia to subdue the self-described patriots, but high tensions abated with time. 

And the Civil War will always be a reminder for what happens when they don’t. Then as now citizens couldn’t agree on what it meant to be American. It’s high time, says Professor Gallaher, for the country to get it right and adopt a more inclusive idea of patriotism.

That inclusiveness appeals to Rachel Goodloe, who was born abroad to Ecuadorian and Brazilian parents. Last weekend, on a visit to Austin, Texas, from San Diego with her husband, she seemed perplexed by the sight of armed protesters at the state Capitol. 

To Ms. Goodloe, who became a U.S. citizen when she was 13, patriotism means “honoring your country, loving your country, respecting your country and your fellow Americans.” What happened at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, she adds, wasn’t patriotism. “That’s terrorism.” 

That said, she believes that peaceful protesters, including self-styled patriots, have the right to gather. “That’s the beauty of America. We’re all allowed to have your opinions and your feelings of who should be the president.” 

Staff writer Henry Gass contributed reporting from Austin, Texas. 

Kenzo Tribouillard/Reuters

European Council President Charles Michel listens as French President Emmanuel Macron delivers a speech during the Climate Ambition Summit 2020 video conference to mark the fifth anniversary of the Paris Agreement on climate change, in Brussels on Dec. 12, 2020.

We’re just days into January, but the signs are already clear: 2021 is shaping up as a make-or-break year in the fight to curb climate change.

Very few world leaders now doubt the scale of the problem. They have vivid memories of last year’s record heat waves, ice melts, wildfires, and hurricanes, and now they have new scientific reports that global warming is still gathering pace.

The world’s key economic powers – the European Union, China, and the United States under the new Biden administration – have all announced more ambitious goals to limit reliance on the fossil fuels that do the most climate damage. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has also made new clean energy pledges, with an eye toward a major international climate conference he will host in November.

The make-or-break question is this: Will world leaders exhibit the political will to translate their words into action?

Two litmus tests bear watching, with the likelihood we’ll have a far clearer answer in the coming months.

One is political – whether, in the run-up to November’s conference, national governments will approach climate action not merely as a matter of importance but as a genuine emergency.

The second is economic. It’s about “following the money.” In this case, the historically huge sums that governments around the globe are poised to spend on rebuilding their pandemic-damaged economies. A number of leading governments have pledged to “build back better,” emphasizing low-carbon projects, but how green will their priorities actually be?

Both of these are distinctly 2021 challenges.

The November conference, in the Scottish city of Glasgow, will come six years after the last major international step toward fighting global warming: the Paris climate agreement. The recently heightened focus on Glasgow has a lot to do with what’s happened since.

In Paris, every nation – including the world’s two worst carbon emitters, China and the United States – pledged to take measures to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, with the goal of keeping global temperatures at most 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than pre-Industrial Revolution levels, and preferably only 1.5 degrees C higher.

The deal was seen as a turning point at the time, even though many scientists worried that the pledges were not ambitious enough to avert catastrophe by the end of this century. But over the past five years, not only have the signatories’ national commitments proved insufficient to put a brake on global warming, but the U.S. announced it was pulling out of the treaty.  

According to data published in recent days, 2020 and 2016 were the hottest years since the first reliable records over a century ago. Most record-hot years have now been registered this century, and the new data also confirmed another milestone: The global temperature increase since the 1800s now stands at 1.2 C, not far below the limit aspired to in Paris.

Last month, the United Nations projected that figure would reach 3.2 degrees C by the end of the century unless countries did far more to address climate change.

Carolyn Kaster/AP

Then-President-elect Joe Biden announced his climate and energy team nominees and appointees at The Queen Theater in Wilmington, Delaware, Dec. 20, 2020.

And it’s not just the numbers. The last 12 months have seen unprecedented wildfires raging through the western U.S., Australia, and northern Siberia; extremes of drought and record downpours have hit Africa and Asia, and more hurricanes and tropical storms than ever before battered the Americas. They have done billions of dollars of economic damage and taken countless lives.

Prime Minister Johnson has a huge political incentive to make Glasgow a success. Having led Britain out of the EU, he sees his role as chair of the climate conference as a chance to display his country’s undiminished influence on the world stage.

He will have been encouraged by Mr. Biden’s decision to reverse President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris accord as one of his first acts in office. Indeed, the British leader reacted with a tweet calling it “hugely positive news,” adding that he looked forward “to working with our U.S. partners to do all we can to safeguard our planet.”

But the question is how far the U.S. and other governments will go in Glasgow. Most climate scientists say they must set 1.5 degrees C as a firm target for temperature rises and give their steps toward that goal the force of binding legal commitments rather than the voluntary pledges agreed in Paris.

The second litmus test – the economic one – will also be telling.

Here, there have been encouraging early signs. The EU last year agreed to earmark nearly one-third of a roughly $900 billion pandemic-recovery fund for low-carbon projects. According to an analysis late last year by Britain’s Guardian newspaper, France, Germany, and Spain, as well as Britain, have unveiled recovery plans that will indeed yield a net reduction in carbon emissions.

The big potential game changer, however, is the U.S. During the presidential election campaign, Joe Biden laid out a historically large plan, worth nearly $2 trillion, for low-carbon energy infrastructure and other green initiatives over four years, though the final shape and size of the package may depend on the new president’s ability to win bipartisan support in Congress.

But not everyone is being so ambitious. Canada has earmarked only 2% of its COVID-19 recovery package for low-carbon projects, South Korea is investing heavily on carbon-intensive industries to pull itself out of the economic slump, and the Indian government has been reluctant to end subsidies for coal producers.

China, responsible for 80% of the growth in world carbon emissions over the past 20 years, will be key not just to the success of the Glasgow summit but to the overall battle against climate change. Its economy has pretty much recovered from the pandemic, and last year leader Xi Jinping unveiled a dramatic pledge to make China carbon-neutral by 2060. As yet, however, China has devoted just a tiny sliver of pandemic-recovery investments to low-carbon initiatives.

The real measure of its commitment should be apparent in the final shape of its new five-year plan, prioritizing investment plans across the economy, which comes into force in March.

In Beijing – as in Washington, Ottawa, Brussels, and Glasgow, where the world will gather this fall – it will be a case of not just what leaders say about climate change, but what they do.

Three weeks into its post-Brexit existence, the United Kingdom isn’t experiencing the sort of new world that “leave” supporters were expecting. Nor one that the “remain” side anticipated, either.

The endless political debate that had consumed society may finally be over. Take a walk around any British street and you’d be hard-pressed to find the quirky placards that had adorned bedroom windows immediately after the 2016 Brexit referendum. And the protesters clad in Union Jack blazers or EU colored hats jostling for attention outside Parliament are no longer to be found.

But instead of being rampant at the moment that it became real, Brexit has largely fallen from public attention. With the pandemic ravaging the U.K., most Britons are more concerned with lockdowns and social distancing than their country’s new geopolitical status. And even were the pandemic not a factor, the public still remains firmly divided over Brexit, with the new trade deal’s implications only starting to emerge.

“It’ll take a long time before anyone is able to come to a really objective assessment on what Brexit really means for the U.K.,” says Patrick Diamond, former head of policy at 10 Downing Street. “The disruptive effect of the pandemic has been so enormous. It’ll be several years before an objective understanding is possible.”

“Wall to wall COVID”

Britain’s bandwidth for Brexit talk has faded rapidly with broadcasters, newsstands, and politicians focused on a pandemic that has left the U.K. with the highest daily per capita death rate in the world.

“Since the deal was concluded, it’s been wall-to-wall COVID. The mood is oddly non-political at the moment,” says Mr. Diamond, now a politics lecturer at Queen Mary University of London. With the Brexit deal rapidly enacted at the end of the year, it “created a national sigh of relief, with people thinking ... ‘OK, we’ve got a basic deal in place. It wasn’t a disaster and some continuity is now possible.’”

Brexit opponents like Mike Buckley, director of the campaign group Labour for a European Future, say the muted response is down to public exhaustion. He argues that a trifecta of being “brow-beaten by the government, who want everybody to move on,” media which have “never reported Brexit well,” and ineffective political opposition that has “ill served the public” have all lowered the volume on Brexit.

Certainly, COVID-19 is responsible for drawing away the public’s attention. Almost three-quarters of Britons say the pandemic is the most important issue on their minds, according to an Ipsos Mori poll. With the public staying at home and unable to interact under lockdown restrictions, Brexit has fallen down the pecking order for Britons consumed by the impact of COVID-19 on daily life, says Keiran Pedley, Ipsos Mori research director.

As for how people feel about Brexit, little has changed and the mood remains divided. Political opinions have entrenched in the four-and-a-half years since the 2016 Brexit referendum took place, Mr. Pedley says.

According to an early January poll by Ipsos Mori, 45% of Britons think Brexit has had a negative impact on the country, figures that are relatively unchanged over the last year. Only 28% think Brexit has had a positive impact on the country – up a point from June, but down 5 points from January last year, while 17% say it has made no difference and 10% don’t know.

“When you look at those numbers it sums up Brexit quite nicely, because you can interpret it in two different ways. You can say the public are more negative than positive, which is true,” or that just as many people think the breakaway is positive or neutral as think it’s a bad thing.

Russell Cheyne/Reuters

A man holds a line as he stands on a fishing boat that remains moored at the port in Troon, Scotland, as delays to deliveries due to Brexit affect local fishermen.

Seeking opportunity through uncertainty

Still, there are signs that the reality of the Brexit deal – and some of its costs, not all expected – is starting to set in. “Trade barriers, food shortages in Northern Ireland … and Scottish fishermen having to throw away rotting food” because new bureaucratic delays have made it unsaleable, says Mr. Buckley, the Labour group director. “Facts are now cutting through,” he adds.

Britain’s fishing industry, long a vocal advocate of Brexit, has rapidly shifted its tone toward the new state of affairs after the new trade deal’s border controls pushed small British fish exporters to the brink of ruin. “Throughout the fishing industry there is a profound sense of disillusionment, betrayal, and fury that after all the rhetoric, promises, and assurances, the Government caved-in on fish,” says Barrie Deas, chief executive of the National Federation of Fisherman’s Organisations, which represents Britain’s fishers. On Monday, more than 20 shellfish trucks parked on roads near the British parliament and Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s residence in protest over post-Brexit bureaucracy.

There has also been disappointment that Britain has pulled out of the European university exchange scheme, ERASMUS. One of the most popular EU programs, ERASMUS has given hundreds of thousands of British students a chance to discover unfamiliar cultures and study foreign languages.

The decision to abandon the scheme was described by Nicola Sturgeon, first minister of Scotland, as “cultural vandalism.”

Much of the logistical detail around the trade deal remains murky, which is causing problems for small business owners. Abhilash Jobanputra and Gabriel Ungur left their banking jobs to set up a stall selling freshly brewed Indian chai in London two years ago. Unable to get basic cardboard packaging from Europe hinders their deliveries, the entrepreneurs say, and Brexit has “created a depressed mindset” among their fellow British startups.

“The inability to really plan ahead, and have some kind of idea of what the world will look like even with a trade deal, is a struggle,” says Mr. Unger. “But we’re trying to see opportunity amongst the uncertainty.”

One group of students is called the Golden Barrels, another Prickly Pears. For seventh graders in Jennifer Cale’s language arts class, this year’s theme is the cactus.

“They wrote all these metaphors about how they needed to be resilient like a cactus, and they needed to thrive in harsh conditions,” says Ms. Cale, whose Renton, Washington, school turned to remote learning last spring.  

That writing prompt helped them conclude that if they stuck through it, she explains, “they were going to bloom like the cactus.”

Ms. Cale’s students seem to have taken the theme to heart. On top of their good academics, she reports near-100% daily attendance online – on par with her pre-pandemic classes.

Resilience is more necessary than usual as districts in cities from Los Angeles to Detroit face decisions about whether to reopen or continue teaching remotely due to the pandemic. For months, distance learning has tested the mettle of families and school staff alike. It will likely linger through the spring in some places, although President Joe Biden is pledging to help get students back in classrooms quickly. In spite of the challenges, educators, parents, and students report silver linings: Some learners are thriving online.

For these students, remote models have meant more independence to work at their own pace, flexible formats for learning differences, or relief from social stressors. While research on student achievement since last March is limited, there is anecdotal evidence of remote learning success. 

Maria Aguirre, whose ninth grader studies remotely in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, says she’s seen positive changes in her daughter since pre-pandemic school – and not just an upgrade from her usual B’s and C’s. 

“She’s not as anxious all the time. … When she does her work, she’s more focused on it, and she gets it done,” says Ms. Aguirre. “She’s just a different person.”

For the 2020-21 academic year, about 60% of K-12 public school students began fully remote, consulting firm McKinsey & Company estimates, with white students more likely to study in person. Unequal access to digital devices and the internet have posed barriers to learning, and many students aren’t showing up for school. Educators are monitoring attendance and learning loss, with particular concern for students of color. 

“Hopefully we come out with new ideas about what engagement and motivation and building connections can look like at a distance,” says Nate Schwartz, professor of practice at the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University and co-founder of EdResearch for Recovery.

Learners with access to adults who are able to provide guidance during remote learning hours are faring relatively well, administrators say, though this arrangement isn’t practical for all. “Those students are finding a little more success with this than students whose family members are working, regardless of socioeconomic status,” says Niki Hazel, associate superintendent at Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland. 

While teacher effort should be included in discussion of students’ virtual success, she says, introverts and independent-minded students have also performed particularly well.

“We find that the students who can advocate for themselves ... tend to do well in this environment,” says Ms. Hazel. 

More time for rewards

Independent students like Beckett, a fifth grader from Manhattan Beach, California, are maximizing virtual learning’s flexible schedules. He uses spare time during school days to pursue his artistic interests. 

“He has complained to me for years that there’s so much wasted time at school. … He’s a quick learner,” says his mom, Nancy, who requested they be identified only by first names for privacy.

Courtesy of Beckett's mom

When not online for school, fifth grader Beckett in Manhattan Beach, California, practices trumpet and saxophone. "He has complained to me for years that there's so much wasted time at school," says his mom, Nancy, who requested they be identified by first names only for privacy reasons. "He's just really happy having that time back."

During breaks in his virtual day, Beckett rewards himself for completing work by drawing cartoons and practicing trumpet and saxophone. “He’s just really happy having that time back,” his mom says.

For Maggie H., a parent in the St. Louis area who has twin 12-year-olds with autism, keeping track of social and emotional development is important. Online learning, however, has offered relief from a range of school stressors for her sons.

The twins are rattled by the sensory shocks of hallway jostling, alarm bells, the stress of catching the bus, she says. Before middle school began, the family had been planning how to navigate the boys through the school building – until their opt-in virtual attendance was confirmed to start in August.

On Zoom, one twin, who is diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, “can really super-focus,” Maggie says.

“He doesn’t have a kid poking on him, or the light fixture blinking in the classroom, or the fear that an alarm is going to go off when an announcement’s made,” she says. On the other hand, he’s no longer distracting his classmates with his sound and movement needs, she adds.

Before the pandemic, Maggie, who asked to be identified by first name only for her children’s privacy, says the preteen’s peers bullied him due to his differences. He started disengaging from class, she says, or would say, “I don’t want to go to school.” 

He and his brother’s renewed love for school has been another bright spot as their academics shine. They used to arrive home in the afternoons “exhausted just making it through the school day,” their mom says. Now, over meals and neighborhood walks, they discuss class highlights and teach Maggie about ancient Mesopotamia. 

“There’s joy in their learning,” she says.

Nkomo Morris, a learning specialist and guidance counselor at a New York City public high school serving mainly low-income students, has also noticed an unexpected improvement in some students with ADHD. In the comfort of home, they can move around freely and not worry about sitting quietly while getting their work done.

“No one minds or gets frustrated if they switch from task to task with rapidity and lots of noise,” she says. “They can just mute themselves.”

She hopes schools retain some positive changes that have emerged from the pandemic, such as flexible teaching approaches and smaller class sizes. “This is stuff that we teachers have been advocating for,” Ms. Morris says. 

Bonding with family – and Jane Austen

Online learning has been a welcome change for high school junior Kate Heffernan in Glendale, California. A self-described “huge introvert,” Kate says she first found relief from the social pressures of school when her studies shifted online last April. 

One study by the Institute for Family Studies and the Wheatley Institution, which surveyed more than 1,500 American teenagers between May and July last year, found that 53% reported becoming stronger and more resilient. More sleep and family time are contributing factors, the research suggests.

“I’ve been able to appreciate myself and learn more and discover who I am, without the context of my friends and high school,” says Kate, who has relished sleeping late, connecting with family, and reading all of Jane Austen’s books.

Ameerah Dozier, an eighth grader in Capitol Heights, Maryland, says she especially missed socializing at school. But as weeks wore on, she began to settle into a new routine, one that included being able to spend more time with family. “It just felt like I was getting my bond back with my mom,” she says.

Increased communication helps 

Other students find momentum in hybrid models. In Edgard, Louisiana, Cassandra Silas has watched her eighth grader’s grades improve after what she calls a “rocky” start to the virtual fall. Without much computer use in previous school years, he began online lessons with a tech learning curve.

“The beginning of the year was kind of hard. ... It was all new to us,” says her son Alton Sarrazin III.

Alton’s grades rose as he became more accustomed to the technology, says Ms. Silas. A switch to a two-day-in-school hybrid model in December also seemed to accelerate his drive. Now Alton says he finds himself procrastinating less.

“I think being in a classroom gives you motivation,” instead of studying only online, says the teen.

Ms. Silas also credits Alton’s progress to more efficient communication with school staff, as emails have replaced harder-to-schedule meetings.

“The line of communication is a straight shot now,” she says. “I can do a parent-teacher conference from my work desk.”

Parents like Maggie in Missouri hope the upsides of remote learning will inspire schools to create more flexible environments when all students are welcomed back.

After all, she says, “We’ve learned that we can do it differently.” 

AP

A woman writes with her foot on a frosty barrier in Russian "We demand freedom for Navalny" in St.Petersburg, Jan. 18. Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was detained at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport after flying in Sunday from Berlin, where he was treated following the poisoning in August that he blames on the Kremlin.

One of the great mysteries of 2021 is why Alexei Navalny, Russia’s most prominent dissident, returned to his homeland last Sunday. He could have led a comfortable life in Germany where he had recovered from being poisoned last year in Siberia, allegedly by Russian intelligence officers. Instead this famed anti-corruption fighter bravely went home, knowing he could face years of isolation in jail on dubious charges in one of the world’s most corrupt countries.

Indeed, he is now in jail, awaiting punishment, yet convinced more than ever that more Russians are eager for honest governance and an end to their declining incomes.

He is so confident of his cause flourishing without him that his staff released a video calling on people to join demonstrations at 2 p.m. on Saturday in “the central streets of your cities.”

The size of the protests could determine whether Russia descends further into dictatorship under President Vladimir Putin. The Kremlin is deeply worried about the fate of the ruling party, United Russia, in parliamentary elections this September.

Mr. Navalny’s popularity is driven by his frequent videos on YouTube exposing official corruption through journalistic reporting. The latest one shows a $1.35 billion palace built for Mr. Putin on the Black Sea coast. At least a quarter of the Russian population has watched his videos.

“Alexei Navalny is a politician who has earned public trust through his efforts to expose and counter corruption,” states the Berlin-based watchdog Transparency International. “The reaction of the Russian society to what is happening with Navalny can serve as another confirmation of how acute and painful the problem of corruption is for our country.”

Another reason for his return may be that his civic activism has planted the seeds for further reform. “While he is the face of the anticorruption movement in Russia, the ideas he represents have transcended his efforts,” writes Vincent Wu in the Global Anticorruption Blog associated with Harvard University.

In dozens of cities, Mr. Navalny has created a decentralized, grassroots operation run mostly on small, anonymous donations. This campaign to expose corruption can live on without him. And it relies on his insight that Russians are ready for honesty and transparency in government.

“His story shows that average citizens despise corruption, and that as long as there are advocates who are willing to fight the good fight, there will be people in the public to support them,” writes Mr. Wu.

Top officials in both Europe and the United States have called for Mr. Putin to release Mr. Navalny. President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, described the detention as “an affront to the Russian people.” Yet the famous dissident may have another plan, one wrapped in a mystery over why he returned but one that suggests Russia is poised to change without him.