It’s Monday, just past 6am, and I’ve been awake, off and on, since 3.
I finally threw off the illusion of sleeping and gave up at 5.
Foremost on my mind has been school.
Today marks the beginning of Week 2 of distance teaching.
Unlike last Monday, when nerves were on edge because of the unknown, this morning feels a little different.
Although I don’t exactly have a daily routine in place, I do have a better feel for what my weekdays will encompass.
There will be phone calls to check up on students I haven’t “seen” online.
There will be the usual flurry of emails – mostly from administrators reminding us of all of the behind-the-scenes minutia that must be done. There’s a lot more of that these days since everything we are doing is “behind the scenes” now.
In fact, even as I sit here composing this post, I can hear the sound of my email notification going off on my phone.
I dare not check . . . just yet.
There will be the inputting of grades – lots of them in my case because the online program my English 4 students are using has a lot of activities.
There will be exactly 5,794 Remind101 messages exchanged back and forth – my primary means of communicating with my students and answering their panicked requests for assistance.
I’ve always wanted to teach from home, but last week taught me a few things.
Lesson #1: It’s a little harder to unplug when your office happens to be the place where you live.
The overachiever in me has a hard time looking at my makeshift desk next to the TV and not thinking about the to-do list written in the notebook that sits beside my laptop.
That list is a siren beckoning me to do more.
And I did . . . do more . . on Sunday . . . because my face had makeup on it (I “dressed up” for online church), and I wanted to go ahead and make my weekly videos for my students while I was looking my best.
Lesson #2: Last week taught me that parents also have a hard time unplugging. They, like us, seem to be struggling with separating out school hours from home hours, as evidenced by the emails I received Friday night after 9pm and Sunday evening.
I chat frequently with my friend, Megan (I’ve mentioned her a time or two or a hundred on this here blog). We teach together, and she literally saves my brain from the stresses of the job because of the way we talk things out.
I love something she told me last week. She said that the sheer magnitude of dealing with craptons of messages didn’t allow her to instantly respond to her kids’ requests for help and, guess what?
The kids started figuring things out on their own.
Y’all, that’s not to say that we aren’t supposed to help, but why jump immediately?
I’m the kind of gal who likes to deal with things instantly. I do not have 500 unread texts and emails.
I just cannot live that way.
BUT, and that’s a huge BUT, I learned, like Megan, that because I cannot jump immediately due to being on long phone calls with parents, the kids DO figure things out.
Heck, four of my classes are reading classes. The kids are learning to read directions – to take advantage of the resources I’ve included with their assignments (lots of instructions and homemade videos) – to navigate real websites.
My kids are finally starting to take ownership of their learning. It’s hard for them – figuring out how to pace themselves in seven classes – but they are beginning to do it (not very well, in some cases, but the attempt is applauded).
Last week taught me some other things.
I have always been known as a teacher who calls home. A lot. These phone calls have usually been about behavior issues because when you teach the preps I do, less-than-stellar behaviors accompany the children.
But you guys, I’ve been making at least twenty phone calls a day just to connect with parents – to check that phone numbers work (most do not) and to grab good email addresses.
I’ve added more parents to my Remind101 rosters than I’ve ever had in the ten years I’ve been teaching, and the parents are loving it!
Last week taught me to go the extra mile for my ELL parents – those precious people whose first language isn’t English.
I remember getting a hold of one mom who, I quickly discerned, spoke NO English.
Talk about an awkward conversation!
Because I finally had her on the phone, my mind raced with what to do.
I tried using Google Translate’s audio feature to play my translation over my computer where the mom could hear.
That didn’t work.
She hung up on me.
Ha!
Then, I noticed a handy feature in Google Voice, which I’ve been using so I don’t give out my cell phone number. There was a text option.
So, I plugged in what I wanted to say in Google Translate, copied and pasted the text from Translate to Google Voice’s texting option, and voila!
The mom TEXTED ME BACK!!
Google Voice translated her words to English for me.
It was absolutely the most incredible thing ever!
That moment right there humbled me.
These sweet ELL parents love their children as much as everyone else, but they are stymied by many things – primarily language barriers.
In that moment of connecting with this mom, I had to ask myself how hard had I really tried, for all of these years, to reach ALL of my parents?
I was able to reach out to several of my ELL parents in this manner, and let me tell you that the feeling of amazement was incredible each and every time.
I know this post is long, and if you’ve read all the way through it, you have my thanks.
This pandemic, as awful as it is, truly does have some blessings.
One of them is the opportunity to grow as a person as I continue to hone my craft.
Please continue to pray for teachers as we start to settle in. Please pray for wisdom as we address ongoing technical issues. One of my students emailed me last night because she has been going to a friend’s house to try to get online since the at-home wifi connection the school provided hasn’t been working very well (how many of our students are having the same issues?).
Most of all, pray for our world and that this virus will be eradicated sooner rather than later.
Learning new things is fine; however, the context in which we are being forced to do so isn’t okay.
Have a great week, y’all!
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