By Virginia Scholtz
Northside News
On March 17 my friend and I were having a bar lunch (corned beef, what else?) when the background noise of the wall-mounted TV announced that all bars and restaurants had to close their doors at 5 pm. It was strange to realize that the simple ease of lunching on the road would be blocked before sundown. I didn’t realize the greater impact was that schools would close for the duration of the public health emergency.
I have volunteered in elementary and middle schools for the past few years, and I eagerly watched the news of community adaptation to this change. Meal programs, computer and internet access, child care, stresses to mental health and physical fitness were all addressed.
I wondered about the teachers working from kitchen tables, bedroom closets, spare rooms or wherever they could set up a makeshift classroom at home. Here are some highlights of our correspondence.
While some computerized learning has been in the Madison schools for several years, the learning curve has been steep for teachers as well as students. New apps, especially those allowing face-to-face (actually screen-to-screen) conversations have been game-changers.
It might seem that working from home would be a time saver, but that hasn’t been the case for many. Days are filled by adapting lessons to individual learner needs, providing evaluation and meaningful feedback, sharing face time with students, messaging with students and parents, attending virtual meetings with other teachers, and even making phone time.
One teacher spoke of the challenge involved with online science lessons. Do you demonstrate by home video? Do you ask middle schoolers to gather tools and try an experiment in the family kitchen? There doesn’t seem to be a good answer for this dilemma.
The biggest concern expressed by home-bound teachers is uncertainty about each student’s well-being. Cues like body language and student interactions are lost in a distance learning model. Spontaneous conversations about ways we all can respond to social challenges are gone. Interaction between students with different skin colors doesn’t happen. Teachers realize that students need relationships and interactions with peers. Collaborative or team learning, an effective teaching tool, isn’t happening.
A few quotes:
“Most of our students miss being in school.” “The open access to so many online learning platforms has been very helpful.” “This may be a great opportunity for us to realize a new format could work, and that ‘seat time’ is a useless measure of success.” “Kids need to be left to do things in a way that makes sense for them and not because we want them to do it.”
“There is no substitute for human contact and face-to-face conversation. I think this experience is showing us that humans need humans; screens cannot replace laughing with a person in the same room, or hugs, or high fives.”
“One thing that has been made clear is the priceless value of our special education teachers. They are taking everything I do (and every other content teacher) and making it accessible to each of their students. They reach out to every student they have every day, talk to parents, reassure families, and do great things for kids.”