It’s Tuesday, September 22, 2020. School started on September 2. We are three weeks in.
Due to health concerns, I moved from my fifth-grade classroom at a brick-and-mortar school to teaching at our district’s online academy. I get up and dressed for work each day. Then I walk down the hall to the study or the dining room table or the card table in the family room.
Continue readingFor years I taught a 5/6 split. The students I had as fifth graders “graduated” into being sixth graders in my next year’s class. Half my class each year was made up of returning students; I called them my “vets.” Half my class was made up of incoming students; they were my “newbies.”
Now I teach a straight fifth grade.
Boy, I miss having a consistent roll up.
There are so many advantages to having a roll up or “looping” classroom.
ONE
When I taught in a roll up, I had every student for two years, increasing student-teacher connections. I saw more improvements. Kids who might be quiet the first year came out of their shell more the second year. They blossomed! They went from not wanting to answer a question in class to clamoring for us to take our class poetry readings on the road.
I remember one third grader announcing to me on the last day of school, “I hate doing work!” I watched him run to the bus and thought, We’ll see how long that lasts. It actually lasted all of fourth grade, but by fifth grade he turned the corner. He became a diligent student, happy to put in the effort because he loved seeing all the great things he could accomplish.
I can make a big difference in a single year. In two years I can do magic.
TWO
Students hit the ground running.
You know how you spend a long time in the fall teaching your class the routines and protocols of your classroom?
With a roll up I could do that so much faster.
Covid-19. Quarantine. Social Distancing.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
At the beginning of May, I went into my building for the first time since the initial announcement of the 6-week school closures. I walked through the eerily quiet hallways looking at all of the artwork and school announcement posters still hanging. Everyday items clinging to life, waiting for the halls to once again flood with children to justify their purpose.
I meandered up the stairs and finally arrived at my classroom. Our painted hearts from Valentine’s Day sitting frozen in time on our display wall. I opened my door and was hit with hot, stuffy air and silence.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
Water bottles sitting on desks waiting for their owners. My daily schedule still set on March 12th, patiently waiting for the 13th to take its place.
Crayon boxes open on desks, books messily shoved into book boxes, and pencils everywhere. Centimeter cubes sitting in the random spots where kids had left them after a busy day of math workshop. Pillows askew in the classroom library and papers shoved into desks. The stuff of everyday learning filling every inch of my classroom but no longer having any purpose because time has stopped in Room 205.
What began as weeks has now turned into just over two months of distance learning. As I attempt to continue teaching and give my students feedback, I can’t help but think: Do I even really know this child anymore? It’s been over a summer break’s worth of time since I have seen them in person. Are they still obsessed with Pokemon? Do they still like to eat jelly sandwiches for lunch? Is this feedback going to resonate with this version of them? The faces I now see in front of me feel like a virtual simulation of the students I used to have. I feel incredibly guilty for thinking this way but what we had together in our classroom feels like a lifetime ago.
The feelings of personal inadequacy are strong too. I find myself constantly thinking about all of the things I could do better. As an educator, that feeling is a constant companion, but in this world of online learning, it feels especially overbearing. It’s no longer a companion, but rather an uncontrollable force. Even with each passing team meeting, staff meeting, or online collaboration I somehow feel more alone.
We have to keep moving forward, but with the 20-21 school year still hanging in the balance, it’s hard to know what to hold on to. It’s hard to know how to manage expectations or what to plan for the next school year. The thought of possibly having to continue fully online for a new school year breaks my heart. We’ve all been cheated. We’ve all lost precious time in our classrooms to grow and learn and give.
Teachers work their tails off to get to March. The spring is everyone’s big payoff for the school year. We spend Fall and Winter building community, routines, and foundations so that when Spring rolls around our students can soar. More than ever, the classroom feels like a true family as we come to the realization that this school year is coming to an end and we will no longer be together every day. Teachers and students alike begin to savor and soak up every moment they can.
Not all hope is lost though.
As I comb through my student’s current work, I am often reminded of Rita Pierson’s wonderfully inspiring TED Talk. Within the first minute, Rita quotes James Comer and it is the heart of her message: “No significant learning can occur without a significant relationship.” I think of this quote often because, despite everything, my students are still growing. With each passing week, I see more legible handwriting, longer fiction stories, deeper comprehension in reading. Math concepts I must have taught about 50 different ways in-person without success are starting to click at home.
Whether it’s a teacher or a parent, kids learn from the people they love.
While I don’t get my big spring payoff there can still be a happy ending. We can take this experience and use it to better leverage family involvement in the future. Maybe we can finally redefine what a learning community looks like. Maybe when they say “it takes a village to raise a child”, we can start creating a better village and lean into the communities that are often ignored beyond our classrooms. I’ve learned that distance can’t stop love or strong relationships or the ways in which we have positively impacted another human being. Kids will always need champions in their corner, even if that corner is miles away.
THEN
Almost everything I need to teach math or ELA or science or social studies or health is in my classroom. Student books. Math tests. ELA papers.
NOW
I sent some of the books home with the kids on that ill-fated Friday the 13th: math, science, and Roald Dahl’s autobiography Boy. Per instructions, I sent home papers for six weeks’ worth of work.
The work I sent home immediately became “optional” once we learned that we could not require or grade any work sent home. Then, a couple of weeks later, we learned we could start instruction again.
The additional books and papers I want to use with my students for the rest of the year are in my classroom. There is no way to get them to my students now.
I have to check for coronavirus-era copyright access for materials for my students. For some of the materials, I have to scan (once I get permission) stacks of pages and email them to families. (At least I have the stuff at home!) I have to search the web for open-source materials.
THEN
I think of teaching as a performance art. I make eye contact with my kids as I teach. I respond to their body language, their facial expressions.
I walk around the room, monitoring multiple small groups. I manage behaviors quietly, usually with humor.
Continue readingThursday, March 12, we had a staff meeting after school where we learned that eventually schools might be closed for a period of time.
Friday, March 13, at 12:30, I learned school would close the following Monday. We were told to gather work to send home that would support student learning for the next six weeks.
I flew around, getting math, ELA, and science organized so students could take them home by the end of the day. Before they left, I hugged them all (one last time before social distancing made us stop that!) and said I planned to start teaching them for “at least one hour a day” starting the next Monday.
I spoke too soon.
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By Guest Contributor Shannon Cotton, NBCT
Senate Bill 5395, known as the comprehensive sexual health bill, was a hot topic in Olympia this Legislative session. A few weeks ago I spent 90 minutes watching TVW listening to the state senators make comments about the amendments before a roll call vote which passed the bill 27 to 21.
Legislators talked about constituents who felt as if “government isn’t listening to what they want.” For every parent who wants to exercise their rights to control the sexual health education of their child another family desperately wants their children to have access to health-enhancing information. Shouldn’t our public school system make information accessible to all as long as provisions are made to allow a family to opt out if they wish?
As a National Board Certified health teacher with 16 years experience teaching sexual health to middle school students in Washington state, I have been fielding questions and attempting to help others understand what this bill means to student learning and overall student health. I have spent more hours than I care to admit trying to clear up misconceptions and disprove outrageous propaganda created to spark fear into parents on social media with information that are outright lies.
Here are some facts about ESSB 5395:
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Like many of the rest of you, I went from being a classroom teacher to also being continuous-education facilitator (perhaps a new state term?) of my own children in the blink of an eye. While I am still juggling the steep learning curve of being a virtual teacher for my brick-and-mortar students, I have had my own steep learning curve at home.
This morning, we sat at the kitchen table and went through our “classroom norms” to start the day:
Breakfast eaten-check. Hair brushed-check. Teeth brushed-check. Pajamas changed into real clothes for the day-check. I double-checked…no pajama bottoms? Wow! We already had some of my “real” middle-school classroom norms beat!
Continue readingAt the beginning of this year I interpreted at a parent-teacher conference for a Ukrainian third grade student. He was a second year English Language (EL) learner. The teacher praised both his academic and social progress. His mother listened politely and nodded at the appropriate times. At the end of the conference, the teacher asked if she had questions. The mother asked, “Why is my son getting so little homework?”
More than a decade ago, Alfie Kohn wrote, “The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing.” Stanford published a study in 2014 showing the pitfalls of homework. Other studies cropped up. All detailing the ineffectiveness and negative impacts of homework. With homework steadily gaining a bad reputation, my district and school decided to encourage teachers to decrease the amount of homework given to our K-5 students.
Parents noticed.
Don’t get me wrong, I love to teach Black history. I just think it needs to happen throughout the year.
Last year I taught early American history. I introduced the topic of slavery by first explaining that slavery was an accepted way of life throughout the world for much of human history. Prisoners of war became slaves as well as kidnapped members of rival tribes.
In the 1400s in the New World, so many enslaved Indians died that the Spanish priest Bartolomé de Las Casas—who felt bad for the Indians—suggested replacing them with Africans. He later regretted his recommendation when he saw how badly the African slaves were treated.
Throughout the 1700s, ships from northern US colonies sailed to the coast of Africa to purchase slaves from African slave traders.
So much of that brief summary surprised my students. Blacks were first brought as slaves to the New World to replace the Indians? Northerners were involved in the slave trade? Africans captured other Africans to sell them as slaves?
That last especially horrified them. “How could they do that to each other?”
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We sat in the thick of a heated discussion. Faced off in our groups of four, we discussed what approaches our schools would take in response to a student repeatedly refusing to comply with a teacher’s request to do their work. “We can’t expect the same level of behavior for all students. We need to be culturally responsive. Why push the issue? The kid isn’t really hurting anyone by not working.”
I sat back, mouth a gape. Did I just hear what I think I heard? And if I did, what does this mean for education? What does it mean for classroom culture? What does it mean for the future of our country? And no, that final question is not an exaggeration!
Not. Hurting. Anyone…?
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