Teaching in a Pandemic
Teaching in a pandemic was, first, “not teaching.” I work as a substitute teacher, and on March 13, 2020, in the middle of my teaching day, the school district announced that it would shut down the coming Monday. They predicted that staff would return in a few weeks, but the few weeks grew to the end of the year and through the summer.
In September, I entered the world of online and hybrid teaching. Since the Covid-19 numbers increased during the summer, school districts across the nation announced that many would be online or hybrid in the fall. I took a series of webinars during the summer to learn how to teach online.
I work for two districts, and one is online, and the other is hybrid. I believe that the students doing hybrid learning will emerge from the pandemic less scarred than those in a solely online environment, unless students were already attending school online, were accustomed to it, and had teachers who were highly skilled in it.
Most teachers and students, though, scrambled to adapt. Three months later, what have I learned?
Online education has been fraught with endless problems. Wi-Fi goes down at schools or in students’ homes. Sometimes teachers don’t put the pieces in place that substitutes need to access the video conferencing site or teach the class. I’ve had multiple teachers not publish the students’ assignments; then they cannot access the work. When I let the teachers know that the assignments weren’t available for the students, they say, “I forgot.”
Technical problems occur almost daily. Last week, for example, the school’s Internet connection was poor, and I got knocked off the Zoom class twice. The host position defaulted to another student, and when I returned to the class, the student’s mother had to turn the “host” role back to me. This happened twice within ten minutes!
The next day, the school’s Internet connection was intermittent, and I got kicked off the Zoom class again. There were also difficulties with sound, where students couldn’t hear me or the videos. The issues got resolved, but it took learning time away from students, which is part of the negative fall-out from distance learning.
This week, I substituted for kindergarteners twice, and many wiggle and swirl around in their chairs—oblivious to any teaching input. They’re easily distracted at home by music, others’ speaking, and having difficulty trying to mute or unmute. It’s challenging to teach reading and basic skills to young children online. Many don’t know how to hold pencils, and someone is rarely there to help them.
Due to the limitations of online learning, class includes some teaching time, some at-home work for students, and many videos. It’s stories, math, science, PE, and everything online through videos and lots of YouTube. What’s missing? The depth, interaction, and enthusiasm that can occur in an in-class setting.
I sit in the classroom by myself with a computer, and the students are in a room at their home, other location, or sometimes in a car. They’re either on a phone or computer, sometimes alone, or with a parent, grandparent or sibling. Family members walk back-and-forth, others blast music, and the student is powerless to stop the noise. Many students are online in their bedroom. Some sit or lie on a couch or floor. The casual setting and nonchalant approach to education are not very conducive to learning.
Some teachers require students to keep their cameras on, and most don’t. Thus, I often look at a class in the gallery view on Zoom and see only black tiles with students’ names on them. Plus, they are muted. I have no idea if they are working. If an assignment is due, the teacher will learn if the student did anything or not, but the power and excitement of in-person learning is missing.
Zoom bombing also occurs. I’ve had hackers and students entering class with the same name, where I’ve needed to identify the true person. I’ve then had students turn on their camera or write their ID number in the chat so I can learn who belongs in the class. Some students post inappropriate pictures or play obscene music, and I need to remove students who won’t stop posting or playing offensive material. At the click of the mouse, they are gone. I feel uncomfortable doing that, but I need to protect the well-being of the class and work to preserve a safe learning environment.
Students are given a lot of leeway for attendance and tardies. At a school, if a student is not present when the bell rings, he or she is tardy. In the online class, they’re given about thirty minutes, so students come and go throughout the class, and if they’re present for just one minute, they get credit for attending. Students who come for a brief time don’t realize that they’re cheating themselves out of whatever education they can get.
In higher education, universities are online, and the excitement of walking on a college campus, having in-person Socratic discussions, and the inspiration that can hit students to change the world, are lost behind the anonymity of the camera.
Teachers in K to 12 and higher education who have kids have the extra burden of supporting their children’s studies and dealing with the lack of childcare, since many facilities have closed.
When I was in school, academics was only part of my experience. I was involved in music, clubs, sports, band, orchestra, drill team, and pepsters. Those were my favorite times in school, as opposed to learning geometry proofs in ninth grade.
I loved the creative time, such as when a friend of mine and I did a Mexican hat dance for our sixth-grade class. I still remember making the Egyptian monument covered in hieroglyphs with a milk carton and plaster of Paris. A student can dance in front of a Zoom class, but not with a friend, due to social distancing and stay-at-home orders. Students can do art projects at home, but many don’t have the needed materials, and schools can’t always provide them.
When I go to schools, everyone is in a mask. A staff member checks my temperature and asks me if I’ve had any Covid symptoms. Fortunately, I am healthy, and my temperature is always fine, and I answer, “No” to the questions.
Academic, social, and emotional losses occur, though. Students learn to have relationships, share, and work in groups in schools. Sitting by oneself in a room at home is not the same as talking to a friend at lunch about the cute boy or girl in class. All that juicy fun is gone, and no one knows when it will return.
The great divide between the haves and have-nots grows. When I substitute in a school in a high socio-economic area, most students attend, and their equipment rarely fails. If I teach in an area of less financial means, more students come late to class or don’t come. Their equipment and Wifi don’t always work, and some never return to class that day, due to technical breakdowns.
The situation is different when I work in the district with hybrid learning. Half the kids are there in the morning and half in the afternoon. Teachers temperature check students at the start of the day and the beginning of the afternoon group. If anyone’s temperature is too high, the student is sent to the nurse. The student may or may not have Covid, but it reduces the risk for others.
The hybrid setting resembles a hospital. Everyone is masked. Students enter the class, take a wipe from a box at their desk or at the class entrance, and wipe their desk, chair, and three-sided plastic partition around their desk. The classroom is filled with bottles of hand sanitizer gel or spray. The room also smells like disinfectant since it’s frequently sanitized. Before students leave, they wipe their desk area again.
Covid prevention is a focus of each day. The kindergarten class I substituted in yesterday watched a video on handwashing for their Fun Friday activity. That didn’t seem “fun” to me, but it teaches good habits so that kids can be healthy and have fun later.
In the hybrid school setting, the students’ social life has not been destroyed. They talk in passing periods and before and after school. They still don’t have sports, although some teams practice, but there are no competitions. There’s no football, cheerleading, marching bands, amusing video updates from the student council, or other fun activities which lighten the academic load.
Kindergartners to 12th graders speak intelligently about Covid. It’s not talked about much, but everyone knows why we’re sanitizing or at home on a computer engaging in education in a pandemic.
Some schools also have arrows across the campus so that students and teachers walk in their direction and are at least six feet apart from those walking in the opposite direction. It’s like being on a chain gang. I navigate my walks to and from classrooms by the GPS of the arrows.
Three months into this, I am used to it, and so are the students. When I go to work, I pray that the technology will work and that everything will be in place for me to do my job. When I teach in a hybrid setting, I take attendance for either the A or B group, depending on if students come in the morning or afternoon.
At first, this was temporary, but since numbers spiked in California, where I live, it’s temporary no more. Everyone wonders, “When will it end? When can students return to class? When will sports and extracurricular activities resume? How can the great divide be mended, and how can students make up for the losses in learning and social and emotional development?” Educators from preschool to medical school face the same dilemma.
It’s tragic for so many students to miss out on the highest quality education possible. Over time, I hope the losses can be restored, but I doubt it. I’m usually optimistic, but people go through developmental stages at certain ages, and if they experience something at age twenty which would’ve been best learned at six, the depth of growth and learning may not be the same.
I have faith, though, in humanity and in people’s resilience to recover. Some students will emerge unharmed, as long as they are committed to themselves and learning as much as they can. Others will be forever marred.
The district where I work which is all online had planned to return to in-person school in spring 2021. Since case numbers rose, though, I expect to stay online through this academic year and hope to return to in-person school in fall 2021.
For students who thrive in an all online learning environment, I support them to continue that way. However, I believe that the majority of students in their formative years gain most from being with their peers and learning to negotiate the world of school. They learn how to operate in an organization and as members of the “school society,” which trains them to function in society. Not all students learn these skills, but they have the opportunity to do so when they frequently interact with others at school.
I look forward to when students return to in-person school, and enjoy the benefits of being with other students, having extracurricular activities, and feeling that special “I got it“ energy as they grow academically. There’s no greater thrill for a teacher than seeing students’ eyes light up with gaining new insights and skills that can help them in life.
I weep as I think of students just sitting behind screens. Some still have activities which are outside of school, such as soccer, but not all students have those advantages. It doesn’t make up, though, for in-person school. Students don’t dress up, and girls don’t put on all the make-up which they would when they’re trying to impress a boy at school. Granted, these aren’t academic issues, but they can be a fun part of the school and growing-up experience.
All these months of isolation have taught everyone that we are social creatures. I did not get my credential to teach through a screen; I got it to share knowledge and my joy of learning to inspire students to love learning. I hope that they will be life-long learners and look back on their school years as a fruitful time instead of a time of isolation and technical challenges.
I sit now by myself in my condo looking out a window at passing cars. The students are also in their homes, often entertaining themselves with a video. It’s online for free time and online for school. Sometimes they go to a park or visit other family or friends, but everyone’s lives are toned down. When students share on Mondays about their weekends, it’s rare to hear anything exciting from a student or teacher. Everyone is mostly home.
Even though this isolation has miserable times, it’s worth it since it can help people avoid the virus. In order for students to rebound, they need to be alive, and teachers need to be alive. I pray that their families stay alive, too.
I am grateful to be alive, and I willingly do the protocols to keep myself and others safe and well. I hope that successful transitions occur to in-person school, whether it starts with a hybrid structure or whole-class setting. That day will come. Students, teachers, and families are learning to navigate these unique times. Everyone is writing pandemic history, and it’s uncertain what future generations may encounter. It may be a pandemic or other issue which causes people to isolate and take drastic educational measures.
Everyone can emerge from this stronger—more eager to learn, be with friends and families, and participate in school and life. As my grandma used to say at age 97, “I’m hanging in there.” I, too, am hanging in there, whether teaching online or to half a class. I hope that my students and fellow teachers hang in there and emerge from this with as few scars as possible and can thrive again academically and in life.
The future will be different, but I hope it never brings to fruition the ominous warning in Isaac Asimov’s story, first published in 1951, “The Fun They Had,” which describes a world where there is only online education, and the teachers are robotic, not real people. The students recall hearing that, “back in the day,” there were in-person classes with live teachers, and they had a lot of fun. I hope the story remains a fiction and that educators always advocate to have in-person education thrive.
For now, students don’t talk about who’s going to be Homecoming Queen and crowned at the next football game. If remote learning continues through the end of the school year, there will be no talks about proms or the excitement of an in-person graduation.
I recall substituting in a science class where students were doing group work. Did they talk about science? No! They talked about who was taking who to the prom and what they were going to wear. Girls talked about what nail polish they’d wear and how they’d do their hair. The students completed their class work, but the social part of school was foremost on their mind. I hope students can return soon to campus and enjoy those parts of school.
The pandemic is a huge mountain, but the future can be good. Electronics can supplement one’s life, not “be” one’s life. Vaccines are coming, which can help schools and society flourish again. In the meanwhile, we just need to follow my grandma’s advice—“Hang in there!”
Post-note: Pandemic Humor
When I ran this article through spell-check, the computer didn’t recognize the word “Covid” and suggested other words like “coved, corvid, cove, and caved.” Neither bodies, nor computers like Covid. I can delete it from my writing, and I hope that someday, the vaccine and herd immunity delete it from people. That day will come—as we “hang in here.”
Jennifer K. Jordan
For more inspiration, please visit the Inspiring Wisdom Today Blog
at www.InspiringWisdomToday.com/blog/.
Image Attribution - Image by 377053 from Pixabay -
<a >377053</a> from <a >Pixabay</a>