It’s Been a Year

We are teaching in a pandemic.  I am teaching first graders who are learning from home. I have decided to use the SOLC as a place to reflect on this experience.  I hope this reflection will help me become a better teacher, a better learner, a better literacy coach, and a better person.  Maybe it will help others too.

31 Things I’ve Learned from Being a Remote Grade 1 Teacher

It was just about this time last year. I remember getting an email that said something like, “Please join us in the LMC at 3:00 for a brief, but important meeting.”

And that was it.  We were told that there was a positive case of COVID 19 in our community and we were shutting down.  

It’s been a year.

“Gather up what you will need for the next two weeks, and go home.” As you all know, those two weeks turned into three long months of students learning from home and teachers trying our very best to teach through a computer. Something that had never been done before on this scale. We taught from bedrooms, porches, in the middle of living rooms, and even in small closets and bathrooms (Sometimes this was the only solution for parents of young children, or those of us desperate to find a WiFi connection.).  We created videos and slides, recorded read alouds, scheduled small group meetings, and tried to teach live. We (coaches) tried to support teachers by writing units and creating materials that could be delivered in engaging ways to our students. We leaned on our amazing TCRWP Staff Developers for help (They had been at this for a while longer with schools in Asia and Europe, so they had some amazing insight.). It was hard.  So hard.  Hard for families.  Hard for kids.  Hard for teachers.  We made mistakes. We fumbled.  We failed. We learned. We persevered.  I think we all assumed we had made it through the hard part.  Summer would come, and the virus would go.  But no.  That’s not what happened.

It’s been a year.

In the fall we returned to work.  Our district decided to bring kids back on a hybrid schedule.  Half the kids came in the morning, half in the afternoon.  Plexiglass on desks, masks on faces, hand sanitizer everywhere.  Families were offered the option of learning from home.  Many decided to do just that, so coaches, librarians, and technology teachers  were assigned to teach these students through Zoom. 

It’s been a year.

A whole new vocabulary developed; mitigating measures, social distancing (I’ve always preferred the term physical distancing.), cohort, quarantine, contact of a contact, and so on. Meetings are mostly virtual.  Another vocabulary; Breakout Rooms, screen sharing, optimize sound, Mute, Chat, Waiting Room, Admit, second monitor, Doc Cam, and more.

It’s been a year.

Vaccinations have started.  Teachers are on the list (finally).  Students are leaving distance learning and streaming back to the classroom where they have friends and recess and lunch and live specials and teachers who can see their work, scoot up beside them (not too close, but still beside them), look over their shoulders and give them a tip here or there, collect their work and give immediate, actionable feedback.  We still have plexiglass on desks and masks on faces, but spring is coming and hope is building.  Hopefully we will see the end of this horror soon. Hopefully we will be looking at something close to normal next year.  Hopefully my post doesn’t sound like this during the next March SOLC.

It’s been a year.