Thursday, March 12, 2020
The last day of school before shifting into “COVID-19 Time.
I had received this “Keep Calm and Carry On” sign as a gift a few months ago and hadn’t known what to do with it. I updated it and leaned it against the whiteboard, over the “How often” card.
Wasted effort.
Hardly any of my high school students came to school that day. Most of those who did come, left early.
By noon, the only students who could be seen in the empty hallways were those in the photos on the dozens of posters for the 12th graders’ final theatre productions.
Performances scheduled for dates that disappeared off the school calendar all at once.
Friday, March 13, 2020
No school today. The immediate future is so unclear that I manage to ignore it for most of the day. It’s SPRING – flowers everywhere! A short walk around the neighborhood does me a world of good. I’ve dreamed about not working Fridays for years!
Sunday, March 15, 2020, and THE ENTIRE WEEK
PANIC!
So we’re supposed to begin teaching via the Internet immediately, right? I’m all for it, but if I may ask:
How? Which platforms? When? How much? How often? Graded or ungraded? What about our final exams?
And what am I supposed to do about the fact that ALL of the students’ books, notebooks, practice material, readers (and much more!) is in the classroom?!
No “do the exercises on page 58 and send me your answers” for this teacher.
** I am so grateful to all the support I got from the school, my colleagues, publishers who are sharing material online and all the teachers around the world posting helpful information and advice!
Time and scheduling take on new meanings
Naomi’s Photos (text in the photo from “Count That Day Lost” by George Eliot)
The upside of spending hours on the challenges of suddenly shifting to distance learning completely
Naomi’s Photos
Rising to the new challenges that the sudden shift to distance learning requires is so time-consuming that it has left me with a lot less free time to follow the news and worry.
But best of all is a new kind of connection with the students – they realize that we are partners who need to navigate our way together toward the goal of keeping up their schooling.
They admit to missing school!
And I miss them too!
*** Memories of the empty schoolyard in the past.
