Teaching in a Pandemic

It's hard to believe it's been a year since the world seemed to shut down. A year to the day since the journey that I like to refer to as "COVID teaching" began. 

A year ago I began setting up my home office/classroom. I struggled with the news that school buildings would remain closed. That I wouldn't see my students face to face. That the end of the year would look much different that any of us could have imagined. 

Things were changing daily, sometimes hourly. The normal as we knew it was no longer there.

I've thought over and over about how to summarize the last year of education, I am sure I could find things to complain about, to ponder over, or wish I would I would have done differently, but what good would it do? So instead, I chose to share a few lessons that I've learned over the last year where our lives were turned totally upside down, inside out, and twisted all which ways.

1. Kids are so stinkin' resilient 

Kids have been asked to do so many things over this past year, learn from home on a few week's notice, balance a schedule of half at home - half at school, return to school full time after almost a year, wear a mask for 8 hours a day, stay way from friends (this one gets trickyyy), learn new learning platforms, sanitize all the time, sit through double the class time after having almost 6 months at home, adapt to new teachers part way through the year, overcome frustrations when something is canceled, and learn how to handle responsibilities different than they ever had before. In short, their world turned upside down as much as ours did. 

And they rocked it. Sure there were hiccups along the way, mental health worries, behavior issues while adapting back to school, grade scares, and whatever else, but for being a middle schooler, or any age of student, they have been asked to handle so much with so little notice. This quote in my classroom took on an entirely new meaning this year for me and my kiddos. These kids deserve so many kuddos!

2. The most important "best practice" is building relationships

So many "normal" educational practices have been put on hold this past year. Group work, stations, discussions, and numerous other "normals" have looked extremely different. What hasn't changed is the importance of relationships. Not only teacher/student relationships but also student/student relationships. Middle schoolers are so dang social! Finding ways to create those relationships became a part of my lesson planning. How could I get students to safely discuss? How could I incorporate classroom building between remote and in person? What about between group A and group B? How can a space be created in order to foster the social skills that are so important in a world that looks so different? 

The uniqueness of hybrid schedule mixed with block schedule allowed for a special time to build relationships between students and between myself and students. While it took awhile to overcome the silent students that started the year (like scary silent, if you've ever been around middle schoolers you know how weird silence would be), once the relationships were built, the uniqueness of the year shined through and I've been able to have many more sweet conversations with students than in a normal year. 

3. PowerPoint can do so much more than presentations

While I've learned MANY things about MANY digital tools, one of my favorite is the good ole PowerPoint. This year I have used PowerPoint for so many more things than the presentation tool I learned it as. In light of COVID, manipulative opportunities are few and far between and collaboration looks a whole heck of a lot different. Turns out that PowerPoint offers so many opportunities to create similar experiences with the restrictions of social distancing. 

Drag and drop? Check. 

Collaborative documents students can work on from 6 ft away? Check. 

A class powerpoint for classroom building activities? Check. 

Digital interactive notebook for a novel study? Check. 

Collaboration between myself and another teacher? Check. 

I kid you not, if you haven't used this resource for more than a presentation visual aid, you are missing out. I would LOVE to share just how many things this could do for you. 

4. Middle school is better without lockers

This year to help lessen the congestion in the hallway, students were allowed to take their backpacks with them to class. I can't tell you the amount of drama that has been avoided is unreal, there's no "I forgot it in my locker" excuses or missing resources lost at the bottom of the locker abyss. Plus locker clean out at the end of the year is going to be so easy! :) 

5. Educators are getting really good at going with the flow, but it sure as heck isn't easy. 

While numerous jobs have had do reevaluate how they do business, to say educators have been through the wringer is an understatement. Educators been asked to teach remotely, teach half in person, half remotely, teach all in person, make sure students are wearing their masks correctly, navigate new platforms, learn as we go, troubleshoot with students, and still make it through a pandemic personally. I am proud of what we've accomplished, the frustrations we've made it through, the support so many have offered to each other in those moments of frustration, and maybe even more so, I'm excited to see where these changes we were forced to make for safety take us in the next chapter of education. We've learned so much. We've lost out on a few things. We've persevered through and have made it through a full year of COVID teaching and have lessons and stories we will share for years to come. We did it together and we rocked it as well. 

"Remember that time we taught on zoom?"

"Remember that time we had to teach in a mask?"

"Man, remember when we only saw kids once a week? How did we do it?"

COVID teaching has been a weird experience to go through. More conversations than normal seemed to revolve around how school was going. More than a few also revolved around how much kids were missing out on. But I like to look at it instead of how much have they gained. Just like me, there's lessons this year they've learned that they might have never had the chance to do during a normal school year. Responsibility, self-advocacy, long-term planning, collaboration outside of face-to-face grouping. So many students made their own study groups without being prompted, learned how to effectively email a teacher to get a question answered, planned ahead, and probably even more awesome things than we even know. It hasn't been easy, it hasn't been pretty, there's been frustration after frustration and lesson after lesson learned, but it'll be a story to tell for years to come. Give yourselves grace, no matter where you were this past year, we were building the plane as it flew and I think we did a pretty dang good job. 

Here's to finishing the year strong, learning from our lessons, and making the years to come even more awesome with the things we've learned.