It sounds cliche to say that this was a year unlike any other, but it really was. Teachers, administrators and families were stretched to their limits. I'm extremely thankful that my experience wasn't terrible. In fact, in a lot of ways this was one of my most rewarding years of teaching, although also one of the hardest. There are a few factors that affected my year, some positively, some negatively, and some both: I was teaching a new grade, several grades removed from what I had taught the previous year. It was my second year at a new school, and due to the grade change, I was working with a completely new group of people. I have an extraordinarily supportive principal who trusts her teachers. I shared the year with a patient, helpful paraprofessional. I had a remarkably kind group of second graders, whose parents were mainly supportive and encouraging. I also had a family and doctor pressuring me to stay home due to being in a higher risk category for Covid 19, a husband and two teenagers also working at home, and, like everyone else, was living in a world where information and rules seemed to be changing almost daily.
Looking back, the beginning of the year reminds me of the kind of reality show where a person is only given the most basic supplies to survive. Starting the year fully remote, in a new grade forced and allowed me to consider what was most important to me. There would be no cute bulletin boards, and I wouldn't be pulling from last year's planbook. I needed to make decisions about where to spend my energy, so I quickly decided three things. First, if the kids didn't want to be there, nothing else was going to matter. Second, the day needed to feel as much like "real school" as possible. And third, I needed to introduce books, and fast. I started planning, watching You Tube videos on every kind of technology that might be helpful, and searching things like, "Responsive Classroom and Remote Teaching" and "How to create a classroom community virtually". It was scary and exciting to learn so much in a short time. It was also oddly freeing.
My first real taste of how different the year would be came with a parent phone call. It was memorable because I barely got through introducing myself before this poor parent, who I had never met, burst into tears. She was feeling terrified and hopeless, and doubted that she would ever be able to get through this year with her child. As a single, working parent, she didn't see how she would ever be able to keep her child online and help them while also working from home. We talked for an hour and came up with a plan that she was at least okay with. It wouldn't be my last such conversation, but it was an important one. It was another sign that this year could not just be business as usual, and also that the parents and I would have to be be a team like we had never been before. I have a saying that I always use with my students: "Flexibility is the key to life." I realized then just how true that would be. The night before the first day of school I sent my families an email. The gist of which was that none of us has done this before. We don't know how it will go, but we are all doing our best. I promised that I would make mistakes, but I also promised to always do my best for their children, and to work with them, as a team. That email set the tone for my relationships with those families that lasted until the very last day of school.
When planning the first days, I focused on Morning Meeting and Read Aloud. Morning meeting lived up to its name in that for the first few weeks it took all morning. It was full of getting-to-know-you activities, calendar activities, games, movement, sharing, and review woven together. Importantly, it was FUN! We ended each day with "Cozy Read Aloud" - a time when we could take advantage of being at home, choose a comfy spot, grab a pillow or stuffed animal, and cuddle up to listen to a chapter book. It quickly became the students' favorite time of day. We even had whole families joining in to listen. One day, as I was reading, I realized that my well-loved copy of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe was missing a page. As I started to scramble to find the book online, a parent jumped in to say that she had been reading along, and offered to read the missing page from her book. Honestly, it was pretty magical. Cozy read aloud was my absolute favorite part of remote learning.
So, I had the bookends of the day, and just needed to figure out everything else. You Tube saved my life. I learned everything I could about different forms of technology from watching videos made by other teachers. I wasted plenty of time going down rabbit holes of information that I would never use. I also watched entire math and writing lessons, then used jamboard to make slides so that I could re-create the lessons the following day. Seesaw and Google slides quickly became the center of everything. They were the board, the classroom, the finished basket, and the schedule. Eventually each student had a daily Seesaw folder with a page for each subject and places to post pictures or videos of their work. I developed a routine where each evening I would start by checking though each student's folder. Then I would set up a new one for the following day. It took time, and my family got used to seeing me with my laptop during family movie nights, but it kept the days running smoothly.
A key moment in the year was when we learned how to use breakout rooms, and more importantly when I trusted the students to be in breakout rooms on their own. This felt like a big jump, but one day I just tried it. I broke the class into small groups, sent them to their breakout rooms, then I cycled through the groups like a crazy person. I was in and out of each room so many times that day that it's a wonder they got anything done! Like anything else, that got easier with time, and the kids loved it! They got to read with partners on Epic, work on math, confer over writing, play games, and sometimes even just work independently together. They asked for it constantly and didn't care what they were doing. They were just SO HAPPY to be with their friends. We all agreed that it made remote school feel like real school. I continued popping in and out of rooms whenever we used them, but at a much less frantic pace. I also quickly learned which students were completely self-sufficient, which ones would fool around if they were together, who would sit there silently if they didn't have an outgoing partner, and which students worked best with my assistant in the group with them. They learned to work together, and also to look busy as soon as they heard the sound that alerted them to my arrival in the group. I didn't mind some off-task time, since many of them had been without much natural peer interaction for months. They needed it! I just had to learn the nuances of how to pair them up and keep things moving along. In short, it was just like setting up any group work in the classroom. It felt natural and real. No wonder we all loved it.
Things moved along, more or less smoothly through the fall and into winter. We got into a rhythm. We all got comfortable. And then we learned that everything was going to change because hybrid was coming. This was scary for me personally. Covid was still running rampant, we still didn't have a vaccine, and my doctor and my husband still didn't want me returning to the classroom. I thought it would be the end for me. I was terrified that I would have to quit mid-year, probably ruining my chances of another job in this district, or maybe anywhere, and worse...that I would have to abandon my kids. It was one of the scariest points in the year for me. Thankfully, my principal came to the rescue. She thought outside the box and advocated for me to be able to teach from home, even while some of my students were at school. Still fortunate to have been paired with an amazing paraprofessional, I was able to embark on what would be the most challenging and frustrating part of the year. Hybrid teaching.
The way hybrid teaching worked for me was this: I stayed home. My aide was in the classroom, and I was projected up onto the screen like the Max Hedron of second grade. Approximately 1/3 of my class stayed fully remote, so with the other students divided into two cohorts, I had about 2/3 of the class "with me" at home with 1/3 in school at any given time. I tried to keep our days as consistent as I could. It was challenging though, because it was hard to see or hear the kids in the classroom well. I went from being able to see every facial expression on screen as I taught, to seeing the kids at a distance, and barely being able to hear some of them at all. Not to mention that it really affected my control issues. I wasn't there. My kids were at school, and I - wasn't - there - with - them. It was someone else who answered their questions and got them band aids and dealt with recess issues. I felt incredibly fortunate that the person who was there with them was amazing. She took wonderful care of them and worked so hard. She was also a rock for me when I was struck by self-doubt or frustration. Still, I looked forward to the days when I would see each group at home and reconnect with them. And Wednesdays, when we were all at home, were my favorites. We were together, and it was such a relief every week.
This time period was also the loneliest part of the year for me. I was doubting myself constantly, feeling guilty for not being able to be there physically for my students, feeling like I wasn't doing anything well, and unsure if anyone was learning anything. I worried about what was going to come next, and always feared that there would come a point when I would have to make a choice between my health and family's wishes and my job. The stress level was pretty high.
Then two important things happened. The first was that I reached out to my friends in the building and admitted that I was feeling lonely. I found out that I wasn't alone, that everyone was stressed out too, and that I wasn't exactly missing out on a lot of together time by not being at school, since everyone was still pretty separated due to Covid restrictions. Also, nobody felt like they were doing their best teaching this year. Just connecting made a big difference. The second important thing was that the vaccine started to seem like a real possibility - and one that might come sooner than expected. It seemed like there might be a light at the end of the tunnel. Enter March and April. The date for my first shot was March 17th. The date for full return for nearly all students was April 5th. I decided that I was going back with my kids. I knew I wouldn't be "fully" vaccinated yet, but I decided not to care. I didn't ask my doctor and I didn't ask my family. I just told everyone, "I'm going back."
It was scary and strange at first. It was The First Day of School in April, but with kids I already knew, some of whom had been in that classroom for months. It was weird, but after about a week it started to feel normal to be there. And so refreshing! I didn't realize how isolated I had felt until I had the chance to pass people in the hallway and say hi, even ask about their weekend! I also finally got to really know my new teaching team. Turns out they're nice and funny and fun to work with! Just the joy of walking into someone's room, sharing ideas, asking questions, and connecting was a gift. I had forgotten how nice it was to work with other people in person. Things that I had always taken for granted felt like privileges.
And, of course there were the kids. We were all just so happy to be together, and they stuck with me as we navigated yet another new way of learning. April became a strange mixture of back-to-school and getting ready for spring. At first we had a couple who stayed remote, and I did feel a little guilty that I may not have been as focused on them as I was on the people in front of me, but they were patient and forgiving, and by the end of the month they had joined us.
In-person school during Covid had its own challenges. Seven year-olds aren't great at personal space during normal times. Teaching in a classroom where all of the desks were spaced out and facing forward felt odd at first, but we adjusted. There were also some remnants of remote teaching. One interesting difference was that, after a year of computer time, my students loved worksheet packets. Now, I am not a teacher who likes to give worksheet packets. I usually go to great lengths to avoid worksheet packets. But, especially in the beginning, these kids treated them like gifts. They were SO EXCITED to do worksheet packets! That was actually really helpful as we were learning about keeping distance, and it gave me opportunities to work with individuals or small groups, but it was just another example of how this year was changing everything. The next big change came when the state said that kids could share materials. Suddenly games and group activities were back on the table. Another move towards normal. School started to feel more like normal school in a normal year. We relaxed again.
Then, before we knew it, it was the end of the year. It felt strange, like we were ending the year in October or November. It seemed like we had just gotten there and already we were thinking about summer. This was tough for some kids. Some started acting out or getting anxious. Some worried that they were going back to the year without their friends. It changed the end-of-year focus from celebrating summer, to one where we were processing a huge range of feelings. Meanwhile, I was having my usual May/June freak-out, where I worried that they hadn't learned enough, that we hadn't done enough, and that the third grade teachers would be shocked by how little we had covered. Meeting with other teaching teams helped with that. Again, there was the realization that nobody felt like they were sending kids forward who were as ready for the next grade as they usually were. We discussed the fact that every grade would have to adjust and meet their new students wherever they are.
And then, it was done. Just like that, the 20-21 school year was over. What did I learn from it all? A lot. I'm still putting that together in my mind, but when I do it will be part 2.
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