Week 5

 What a time

We are in week 5 of back to school. It’s October 21^st, 2020. Somehow it’s Halloween next week and the election in two weeks!

 

It’s a whole new world of zoom and more zoom.

 

I have the opposite schedule as my kids. I am live 8:15am-12pm. They start live at 12:15. So I try to race upstairs when I am done being live, I make sure they eat a healthy lunch and then wish them luck.

 

This week while teaching I saw a kid zooming from a restaurant. He said “I ‘m at one of our restaurants.” He didn’t have any of his school books so I improvised and made him my teacher assistant and let him annotate on the screen while everyone else worked in notebooks. His mom was prepping the restaurant to open. Her two boys were sitting in a booth. She had a big bright smile as I talked to her and gave her the code to Epic. She was feeding them , prepping the restaurant to open, trying to help with online school, all while patient and smiling. Moms are amazing!!!

Another kid came on and started to play soccer while zoomed then he started to kick the soccer ball at the screen. Then he and his mom started arguing. I don’t know how to help.

 

I am having to try to figure out how to teach kids to read over zoom. It’s hard to get them engaged in direct instruction over the computer.

 

The bathroom break I give to students reminds me of recess:) I came back from using restroom to kids talking to each other, telling stories. It was very sweet, can be chaotic of course if they don’t listen to each other. So i jumped in if necessary to make sure they didn’t talk over each other. I let it go for about 5 minutes. Maybe I will start trying to give a recess over zoom? How can we more student to student talk in zoom? Each week / day give kids a topic to discuss or let them start? This week they were talking about storms since that is what we were reading in English reading time.  

 

When my zoom ended yesterday, I checked on my middle schoolers upstairs. I peeked in their rooms to see black screens. No one has their cameras on, the teacher is teaching to a bunch of black squares.

 

I am worried about us all being on screens all day. What is going to be the after math of all this? I was in a union meeting this week. Teachers were voicing concerns about screen addiction, damage to neural pathways, damage to retinas, damaging their development.

So many things to balance- We do zoom so we can stay healthy and not do in person school. But all the computer time is hard on our bodies, eyes, brains.

 

Risk vs reward.  What risks will we take to stay healthy mentally? I think about this a lot. Before we do something with friends, sometimes I get insomnia thinking about the possible dangers of the activity. Is it safe? Will we get exposed?

 

I am 7 weeks into work and I have realized for my own sanity, I have to de- zoom after work or during work day. I have to have some real life to counter all the screen time. I have to go on a walk/ have a drink and talk to a real human (outside with masks of course) to recover from all the screen time.

 

I am trying to create these opportunities for my kids as well- outdoor art lessons, outdoor tennis lesson and music lessons.

 

I am also realizing this week I am lonely. I spend my whole day talking to kids- 6 year olds (my students) or my own  kids- middle schoolers. I miss talking to adults and having adult conversation. I listen to a lot of podcasts. It helps to listen to other people talking. I especially love podcasts with two hosts. But sometimes my brain is so full that I can't listen to podcasts and I just do music and space out, think.

 

I started the school year angry. The anger came about day 3 back to work- anger at having to teach over zoom, anger and fatigue from being talked at nonstop during training after training, anger that this was my new life. Gosh darn it I didn't want to be a zoom teacher! I worried about forming student teacher relationships over zoom. Last year when I was on zoom I knew those kids for 7 months of in person before we started zoom.

 

But a girlfriend gave me a pep talk - it wasn’t going to help if I was angry, that wasn’t going to get me anywhere. It wasn't good for me or my students. So I moved onto acceptance.

 

This is my new normal. I try to stay positive and grateful. I am excited that my students are showing up for zoom. I am excited that I am somehow building relationships with my students. I was so nervous about doing that over zoom.

I am trying to jump on what is going well with zoom teaching and what works. Snack and storytime seems to be a favorite time for students. So I try to find fun stories for the kids.

 

Exercise , sleep, and fresh air are also so important.  A walk at lunch or after work is  SO important. If I don’t do my noon walk, the afternoon is so LONG and sluggish. The walk is the best part of my day. And fall is just gorgeous here as always.

The evenings feel LONG. The kids and I had dinner, had done an evening walk and had watched a movie and baked muffins. And it was only 8pm . We still had another hour! Right now we have the gift of time. In normal times our evenings would be full of activities and driving. And they would go by in a blink of an eye.