Teaching/Learning during a PANDEMIC
A Twitter Tale
At times I have felt like I am drowning in all of this. The world is scrambling to find its footing, some sense of normality, and yet the work keeps piling up, the bills are due, and life keeps going on whether we're prepared to handle it or not. I think it's very unfair. I think the way that many educators have approached this, or have had to approach this, was in some...maybe even a lot of ways, detrimental to student growth and development. Some however, seemed to pull from a source of empathy, and the sheer joy of sharing knowledge with their students.
The world is experiencing right now a sort of collective trauma that many of us have never felt before...
Students who once flourished are struggling, and students who once struggled may be flourishing. I have seen more success and positive responses when educators approach this with a sense of understanding, while not trying to overload students with busy work, or assignments. I feel during this time, students should be focused on doing what is needed to get on track and learn, and we as their teachers need to let everything else go, be more flexible, and allow our students extended due dates as ways that encourage positive student growth.
(still from a twitter thread I shared)
Grades are undoubtedly starting to pour in and some students are understandably behind and in danger of failing the course. One teacher posted about how she sent out an email to her some 135 students that they were all getting 0's, and the ones who were struggling panicked, got a hold of her, and are now doing what they can to catch up. While the teacher did give them options of completing what they can out of everything in order to get a passing mark, they touted about how it got the kids to comply with expectations, and that really upset me. In the new normal, it is our job as educators to comply with the needs of our students, not the other way around. The world is experiencing a collective trauma right now that many of us have never felt before, it is unfair to scare or force any of our students into rigid expectations while they watch friends, family, and others get sick and die. So I would like to share some of the ways one teacher approached this subject of teaching, passing, and failing students during a pandemic a little bit differently...
1.
The first thing is encouraging students to stay calm, and do what they can in a realistic time frame. Have your students go through the work that was required, and have them pick something that interests them, or that they know they can or feel motivated to finish. Have them communicate with you about if they can or cannot complete expected assignments based on personal reasons or conditions of living. Once your students have identified the areas they feel they can address, have them set aside a comfortable amount of time to begin working on that assignment.
2.
Encourage students to stick to the task at hand for the time they allotted themselves. Encourage them to take care of themselves and their emotions during this time also. Perhaps the task proved to be stressful, that's OK, encourage your students to get up, move around, become active, or do something that will help them relax and focus again. Once they have calmed down, have students reapporach the task for the same amount of time, or move onto another task for that time. Either way your student is progressing, and you as a teacher can assess that! This also creates an environment that doesn't manifest further anxiety in a world already filled with so much.
This time should be about setting realistic goals for our students to master, not expecting them to complete work just because they're home and "have time"...
An environment rich with empathy will help students to thrive. This time should be about setting realistic goals for our students to master, not expecting them to complete work just because they're home and "have time." Allowing students to work in a way that fits their needs right now, still gets us, their educators, results to assess and grade. Perhaps a student can't finish all the work, but progress is still progress, and we can assess student learning on that. This fosters an environment where students feel taken care of, which will help in developing study habits for a "new type of normal" *I knowww* that we're all still trying to adjust to. Furthermore, as a student myself I have been buried over my head just trying to keep up with what's expected, while teachers I know are spending more quality time with family, just waiting for us to get work in for them to grade. There seems to some sort of discourse that quite frankly doesn't sit well with me. That is of course not to disregard the teachers that have gone above and beyond for their students, of which exemplars are plenty, but for every good teacher there seems to be another also struggling with how to implement classroom policy in a way that is also empathetic and enriching to students abilities right now. So that brings me to...
3.
Losing control will help you gain control. Fully engaging in the fact that these are abnormal circumstances and that we do not know what our students are going through will help us to build a rapport of active and collective learning with them. As soon as we stress them out, place more responsibility on them than they are able to handle, and wait for them to approach us and tell us that they're struggling, rather than just at this point expecting that they are, we risk alienating them and us having to fail them. No teacher wants to have to fail their student during an pandemic, so collectively we can decide on an approach that allows for us not having to do so.
4.
Remember that the way that we approach students Social/Emotional needs builds strengths in all areas of their lives, and helps with the ultimate goal of sending out young people into the world fully equipped to handle that world. This matters more than ever.
Losing control will help you gain control...
None of us really know how all of this will truly end, and recognizing that the same fears, depressions, anxieties that we as adults are facing in light of this inevitability, students are also facing, is how we can ensure that we are building realistic expectations for our students right now, and giving them opportunity to learn, grow, and succeed.
5.
Right now it is hard in different ways for if not all, most of us to function with daily tasks. As we know, the brain struggles or cannot learn during a traumatic experience. The United States has one of the highest mortality rates from Covid-19 in the world. People I know have had it, people my parents know, people whom my best friend works with. My best friend also works at one of the main testing hospitals and I haven't seen him in almost two months. I miss him dearly, and usually I get to see him at least once a week. Today was a nicer day outside, and he wanted to get together to sit 6 feet apart outside with our masks on. I had to tell him no because I have homework to do. As someone going into education and a student I wonder how anyone could feel right about forcing people to be distracted from what should matter right now....
6.
"To err is human, to forgive divine." As educators we have it in our power to forgive due dates, and the amount of work that needs to be completed in a way that still sets up proper assessment of learning standards for goals met. DO THIS! Do everything you can to approach all of this as a lifeguard, rather than the wave that's about to hit them. Many of us were not prepared to transition into this style of teaching and learning, but the sooner we start implementing policies like the ones discussed here, the sooner we can actually get back to learning.
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