Well, week two of distance learning is in the (virtual) books, and I've got some time to dispassionately reflect on how it's gone, especially now that I've purged myself of the angst and negativity I felt during the first week.
To be honest, so far, the results have been—on the surface at least—encouraging. Participation and work completion isn't dire, although it's certainly worse than normal, and the general feedback is positive. I'm in a bit of a routine now and I can see some patterns emerging that require a little more objectivity —not ranting —to analyse. Let's say I have a more well-rounded perspective. Here's what I have come to understand:
To be honest, so far, the results have been—on the surface at least—encouraging. Participation and work completion isn't dire, although it's certainly worse than normal, and the general feedback is positive. I'm in a bit of a routine now and I can see some patterns emerging that require a little more objectivity —not ranting —to analyse. Let's say I have a more well-rounded perspective. Here's what I have come to understand:
It still sucks. Perhaps even more than it did a week ago.
A month or so ago, when it became clear that distance learning was going to be the way forward, I smugly went over a litany of reasons why this episode would make us appreciate the value of public schools. I envisioned articles, Facebook posts, memes, and maybe even a politician or two lauding the amazing work public school teachers do because it's well nigh impossible for the average family to educate their children at home. I imagined emails, public recognition, free Starbucks for teachers, maybe even a parade or two.
What I've come to realize is that we're not even ready to think about this, although perhaps I secretly wish people would. Part of it is that most of us are either in survival mode or hibernation mode and can think of nothing else. But the other part of it is that what we are doing is not actually distance learning as education experts and pedagogical gurus understand it. What we are doing will not be used as a future blueprint for how teachers can effectively develop our students, academically, physically, socially, and emotionally without being in the classroom. Not even close.
What we are doing is emergency distance learning, and that's completely different.
On one hand we are trying to triage—and this is not a hyperbole—a potential educational catastrophe. We are desperately trying to do whatever it takes to keep students engaged in some form of the educational process at a time of year when many teachers feel it all starts to come together. Most of these kids cannot afford to switch their brains off between March and late August. Every year, there are students who—despite the best efforts of teachers—fall through the cracks. It's the nature of the system. Since emergency distance learning began, those cracks have become crevasses—picture the kind Bear Grylls likes to explore— and I am already seeing the consequences, and I can't overstate how heavily this responsibility is weighing on me.
At the same time, we are being asked to do pedagogically sound distance learning. My administration has, on the whole, been supportive, understanding, and utterly reasonable in what they're asking us to do. But now we are being asked to address essential skills, make our instructions as succinct as possible, gather data, and ensure that we are on the same page as our colleagues. I am working at least 10 hours per day just trying to ensure students have meaningful engagement with me and my subject. Anything more complex or coordinated might just make my brain explode.
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| A Wordle I made a couple of years ago based on a conversation I had with some new teachers on assessment. It struck me that I've used hardly any of these words in the last two weeks. |
The best analogy I can give is this: in this situation I'm an ER doctor and a nutritionist. At the same time. They're both connected to keeping people healthy, but they have completely different roles and sets of skills. An ER doctor isn't going to give you advice about developing good eating habits when he's trying to give you stitches for a gash in your head.
There are the things in my job that I am contractually obliged to do. There are the things that I know I must do if I am to succeed at my primary job, which is to ensure my students learn the skills and habits of mind necessary to meet whatever standard is required of them. To go back to the analogy, that's where I'm the nutritionist. I'm trained for this. I'm an expert in this field. As I have become a better teacher, the time required to do this has gradually decreased, but not by much because I don't use the same material or teach the same classes year after year.
At the same time, time spent on things that I am not contractually obliged to do -- let's call it things that I feel morally obliged to do -- has increased dramatically. Additionally, these are things that I am not actually an expert in: counseling, trauma, suicide prevention, coaching, motivation, conflict resolution. This my ER doctor role. I've had a little bit of training in these things, but not much. Nonetheless, my emotional bandwidth has been increasingly devoted to this aspect of the job.
Emergency distance learning has increased the stakes in and the time spent working on both realms of my job -- contractual and moral -- and I am really struggling to do either. I know I cannot do both.
To be honest -- and let's persist with the imperfect analogy here -- I have been increasingly more of an ER doctor ever since I realized the mental health calamity that our youth are facing. This awakening has been accelerated and clarified by my opening up about my own mental health struggles and by my teaching of a much more vulnerable population of students. That was long before March 13th.
I am not an expert on trauma, but I do know that it impacts the same area of the brain that learning uses. I also know from experience that a student whose social and emotional needs are not being met is not going to be able to learn. So issues like depression, divorce, sexuality, and abuse force their way into my consciousness because they prevent me from fulfilling my contractual obligations to the best of my ability.
But helping kids navigate their school day and creating an environment where they can learn or at least feel secure when everything around them feels as if it's collapsing requires physical presence. Dozens of my students are struggling, and now I can't see them. So now the focus is on reaching out and trying to engage those students in some meaningful way so that I can check in with them. It's not even learning at this point.
There are the things in my job that I am contractually obliged to do. There are the things that I know I must do if I am to succeed at my primary job, which is to ensure my students learn the skills and habits of mind necessary to meet whatever standard is required of them. To go back to the analogy, that's where I'm the nutritionist. I'm trained for this. I'm an expert in this field. As I have become a better teacher, the time required to do this has gradually decreased, but not by much because I don't use the same material or teach the same classes year after year.
At the same time, time spent on things that I am not contractually obliged to do -- let's call it things that I feel morally obliged to do -- has increased dramatically. Additionally, these are things that I am not actually an expert in: counseling, trauma, suicide prevention, coaching, motivation, conflict resolution. This my ER doctor role. I've had a little bit of training in these things, but not much. Nonetheless, my emotional bandwidth has been increasingly devoted to this aspect of the job.
Emergency distance learning has increased the stakes in and the time spent working on both realms of my job -- contractual and moral -- and I am really struggling to do either. I know I cannot do both.
To be honest -- and let's persist with the imperfect analogy here -- I have been increasingly more of an ER doctor ever since I realized the mental health calamity that our youth are facing. This awakening has been accelerated and clarified by my opening up about my own mental health struggles and by my teaching of a much more vulnerable population of students. That was long before March 13th.
I am not an expert on trauma, but I do know that it impacts the same area of the brain that learning uses. I also know from experience that a student whose social and emotional needs are not being met is not going to be able to learn. So issues like depression, divorce, sexuality, and abuse force their way into my consciousness because they prevent me from fulfilling my contractual obligations to the best of my ability.
But helping kids navigate their school day and creating an environment where they can learn or at least feel secure when everything around them feels as if it's collapsing requires physical presence. Dozens of my students are struggling, and now I can't see them. So now the focus is on reaching out and trying to engage those students in some meaningful way so that I can check in with them. It's not even learning at this point.
I am working so hard just to keep them engaged because if they're engaged, I keep telling myself, then maybe they'll learn or maybe they'll at least "show up" on the days they'd otherwise skip. And if they do that, then maybe they'll not be so far behind when they come back to school.
I am banking on the capital that I've built up in my students during the year by showing myself to be someone who cares and who knows what he's talking about -- and let's face it, there are times when I have to fake both -- to keep the students motivated and willing to engage. That somehow their lives will be better if they log into Google Classroom every morning. That they would do it out of respect for my wishes and efforts. I know some are doing precisely this, and it means the world to me.
My co-teacher and I (we teach 9th grade college prep English classes in which over 40% of the students have some form of learning disability or legally required accommodation) have talked about this. The little interaction students have with us during our Google Meets is great for them. It's healthy, educational, meaningful participation in something useful. It's not great for us. We end the meet feeling down, discouraged, and missing our students. Most of the time, we spend time sharing our grave concerns about individual students whose educational needs are not being met.
I will end this with just a small example. During Friday's Google Meet, one of the students -- let's call him Lorenzo -- was confused on the directions. He needed several explanations, re-directs, and reminders before he was able to do something that we have been doing every other week for the entire school year. Lorenzo does not have a diagnosed learning disorder. He is just a regular kid who has problems reading and following directions.
Reading directions and asking questions: it seems like such a small thing, but we have dozens of Lorenzos who need this kind of intervention multiple times every single day and who, unlike Lorenzo, lack the motivation or conviction to ask for help, either because they don't know that they don't understand or because they don't care enough to understand since they have other, more important things to worry about.
And those tasked with solving this are people like me, sitting in my bedroom at a makeshift desk and armed with nothing more than a laptop and a moral imperative.
Yeah, it sucks.
I am banking on the capital that I've built up in my students during the year by showing myself to be someone who cares and who knows what he's talking about -- and let's face it, there are times when I have to fake both -- to keep the students motivated and willing to engage. That somehow their lives will be better if they log into Google Classroom every morning. That they would do it out of respect for my wishes and efforts. I know some are doing precisely this, and it means the world to me.
My co-teacher and I (we teach 9th grade college prep English classes in which over 40% of the students have some form of learning disability or legally required accommodation) have talked about this. The little interaction students have with us during our Google Meets is great for them. It's healthy, educational, meaningful participation in something useful. It's not great for us. We end the meet feeling down, discouraged, and missing our students. Most of the time, we spend time sharing our grave concerns about individual students whose educational needs are not being met.
I will end this with just a small example. During Friday's Google Meet, one of the students -- let's call him Lorenzo -- was confused on the directions. He needed several explanations, re-directs, and reminders before he was able to do something that we have been doing every other week for the entire school year. Lorenzo does not have a diagnosed learning disorder. He is just a regular kid who has problems reading and following directions.
Reading directions and asking questions: it seems like such a small thing, but we have dozens of Lorenzos who need this kind of intervention multiple times every single day and who, unlike Lorenzo, lack the motivation or conviction to ask for help, either because they don't know that they don't understand or because they don't care enough to understand since they have other, more important things to worry about.
And those tasked with solving this are people like me, sitting in my bedroom at a makeshift desk and armed with nothing more than a laptop and a moral imperative.
Yeah, it sucks.
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