To the Teachers in the Trenches of Pandemic Teaching

 We didn’t sign up for this.

Our teaching programs didn’t have lessons on how to teach remotely during a pandemic. Also, they definitely didn’t include lessons on how to make it fun, memorable and educational for all.

Teaching isn’t a glamorous job, and it has a hefty load of parts that aren’t so great. But we, out here in the trenches, chose it anyways.

We put our time and energy into this career, knowing about the late nights grading, the e-mails from parents and the stress that comes with feeling responsible for every student’s learning and achievement.

We do it anyways.

Many teachers fled because of the pay, the parents, the pandemic or some other combination of downsides, but if you are still teaching this year, you aren’t one of those retreating from the battle.

I think every teacher has their own flavor, style and way to conduct classes. Most likely, whatever your regular routine was, it has been forced to change.

Perhaps you are at home this year, or on campus, but with new restrictions. Gone are the cozy reading groups and the close group activities.

Not only that, but you aren’t teaching a regular group of kids either. You are teaching kids that had the end of last year suddenly and unexpectedly yanked out from under them. Some continued to learn, others didn’t.

These kids have the stress of the pandemic, and some have the stress of financial changes at home too. The news hasn’t been quiet about the Black Lives Matter moments either, and many kids are coming to their computer or your classroom as little stress balls, just wanting something to be as normal as possible.

Fortunately, teachers are the masters of flexibility.

How often have plans been changed due to an unexpected assembly, or a lesson that goes long? In the years I’ve spent as a classroom teacher, I always knew that the daily plan was a rough outline.

I knew that by the end of the week, there were certain portions of the curriculum I needed to finish, but I left room to extend a math lesson here, shorten a history lesson there, or rework an activity to fit in the time we had.

Whether you are at home or at school, we need to treat this whole year as an exercise in trial and error.

I don’t expect my kids’ teachers to have everything down to a perfect science yet, but there have been a few things I’ve observed that might be helpful to others trying to navigate this year too.

Continue reading at:

https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/to-the-teachers-in-the-trenches-of-pandemic-teaching-5ceedf89ccd6