Just two weeks before the 2020 school year began, the ever-familiar Texas heat could be felt beating down around anything that dared to enter its presence. In the small town of College Station, Texas, animals once again chose to seek shelter under bushes, in the shade of trees or lounging in the drying puddles once considered ponds. The tan brick which litters almost every inch of the town’s prestigious university pushed the heat into the paws of each squirrel choosing to leave the safety of the shade. Streets were silent but for the occasional sound of a truck passing.
This year it was not the sweltering weather that kept many of the state’s people shuttered behind closed doors. This uncomfortable temperature was expected by residents and rarely prevented any local from carrying about their day. No, this year conscientious people across the state were staying inside in avoidance of our generation’s greatest struggle: the COVID-19 pandemic.
But not everyone was permitted the opportunity to hide from the heat and the virus. So, as August progressed, teachers and administrators were forced to join the hundreds of other essential workers already outside and reenter the world, despite the rising cases of illness.
As a result of this shift back into reality, the long quiet hallways of Greens Prairie Elementary once again bustled with life. Amongst a scatter of masked teachers anxiously wiping Clorox across every surface, a woman could be found decorating her small office with an array of flowers and lamps. The tops of her file cabinets would gradually become littered with pictures of friends and family. Inspirational signs were diligently placed in spots where they can remind visitors to “be happy.” Amongst the cozy decorations, she would take care to place the less comforting items. Masks and hand-sanitizing stations, a necessity to this new normal, became cold reminders of the dangers associated with reentering society. Signs detailing COVID precautions presented harsh breaks to the otherwise welcoming room.
The woman so attentively decorating her new office was Alison Stone. Fall 2020 was meant to be the beginning of her new role as an instructional coach. After 23 years of working in education, she had been promoted to lead other educators in creating strategies for their own classrooms. At least, that was what Stone believed her year would be filled with.
In fact, it was this day, just two weeks before students reenter the school, that Stone would be informed of the true plans for her school year. With little notice, the College Station Independent School District would reach out to several former teachers now working in specialized positions and task them with the duty of leading virtual classrooms. Stone would be just one of many educators unprepared to take on the dual roles of teacher and technician.
***
Midnight. One a.m. Two a.m. Three.
She has seen these hours on the clock for over a week now and is starting to resent them almost as much as her 6 a.m. alarm. The only solace found in these early hours is the quiet brought by her two teenagers being tucked away in bed, unable to cause further distraction from the task at hand.
She clicks around on the laptop’s screen for a few more moments, unable to decide the most intuitive way to organize tomorrow’s virtual assignment. This is just one of the many hurdles Stone has faced as she’s scrambled to create an innovative way to teach third-grade language arts. With a long, frustrated sigh, she pushes her computer away. Rising from her seat in the silent living room, Stone gives up for the night and heads off to bed. As her head hits the pillow, the educator tries to push away the knowledge that tomorrow, as she enters her small office within the elementary school, she will be met with struggles just as difficult as today’s. Between constant Zooming with students and individual meetings assisting the teachers, she must coach, the woman has become overwhelmed with the day’s tasks before it has even begun.
***
One would expect the teacher to be confident and assured in how to do her job after so many years dedicated to education. In many ways, Stone is. She understands the importance of social learning and the dedication it takes to ensure each student succeeds. She is adamant that each student is different and deserves to be taught in the ways that best suit them. She knows all the most successful ways to engage students and has time-tested methods that allow children to meet their full potential. Over the years, the educator has nearly perfected the classroom routine.
However, virtual learning has brought to a halt the well-oiled machine of Stone’s teaching methods. No longer able to provide dedicated one-on-one time or collaborative assignments, she was sent back to the drawing board. It became clear very quickly to the teacher that a virtual classroom is not much of a classroom at all. Rather, Stone feels as if she is presenting a digital to-do list, putting responsibility on her students for which neither she nor the children were prepared.
In just a handful of days, Stone was expected to create new and flexible lesson plans, familiarize herself with the online classroom of Schoology and maintain her duties as an instructional coach. Despite her many years of practice, the mountain of hurdles presented by the district’s response to COVID-19 has managed to make Stone feel like a novice once again. Thankfully, she considers herself a lifelong learner.
“Left click?”
“Double click.”
“Can I mute them?”
“It’s the button to the left.
No, the other left.”
The issue with being a lifelong learner, Stone found, is that you must still have someone to be your teacher.
***
Now, three weeks into the school year, Stone often finds herself curled into her living room couch with eyes glued to the computer screen long past the three o’clock bell that sends her home from Greens Prairie Elementary. After many years of assisting her own children with their after-school work, Stone is watching the roles reverse as they walk her through the many nuances of the technology that has so recently become the center of her days and nights.
“How would you want to see that?”
“Mom, your videos are boring.”
“What can I change?”
The teacher spends all of her time these days trying to create content that will actually engage students left at home. With so many of her third-graders left unsupervised, Stone puts it upon herself to teach in ways that will keep children on track and engaged.
The struggle to keep everyone focused is not something Stone exaggerates. When asked directly, students testify that trying to focus is the hardest part of virtual learning. Like everyone now working from home, they too are tempted by the ability to open a new tab and play a game or put on a television show to keep them occupied during long, uninteresting lectures. Without an adult directly over the shoulder, children are more inclined to act as all of us would in a world without consequences -- and so they do.
Undeniably, focus is a challenge, but Stone is reminded in each of her Zoom sessions that it is in fact the difficulty of forming meaningful relationships and teaching interpersonal skills that is really the trouble with online classrooms.
Stone believes that school is meant to instill social skills just as much as it teaches the four core subjects society intended it for. While the teacher herself still has the ability to get to know and form a bond with each of her students, she puts special effort into ensuring a similar relationship can continue to be formed online between the classmates.
“How was your weekend?” the teacher asks into her large desktop screen, taking a moment to close the laptop on the table to her right. The dim light of her school office illuminates the array of flowers placed diligently on the wall behind her desk.
Students’ hands shoot up and Stone calls on them one by one, excited to hear their updates. When the number of hands begins to dwindle, the educator calls upon those students who chose not to speak and attempts to get them engaged. Stone uses moments like this, in between the ever-necessary explanations of lessons, to have students talk not just to her, but to each other.
Like in any classroom, the Zoom room has students who are overly enthusiastic about answering questions and sharing their thoughts. In contrast, it also has students who are shy and refuse to unmute themself to answer even the simplest of questions. There are, of course, those that don’t show up at all. Not because of their timid personality, but simply because they do not want to. These levels of attendance, while similar to that of the traditional school day, become more heightened in Zoom, and leave an impact on the student’s experiences which would not be as lasting in a face-to-face experience.
Unable to step off to the side to ask further questions away from wandering eyes, shy students are left confused. Without enforcement of class attendance, rebellious students are left uninformed. Uninterrupted from troublemakers and the previously frequent quiet questions, engaged students begin to shine in the attention that is cast upon them.
These consequences are reflected in the grade book, which once offered an array of numbers both high and low. Now, when Stone catalogs the progress of students the numbers appear in clusters, unsurprisingly correlated to the level of involvement she sees in her Zoom sessions. It is difficult for her to watch so many of her students falter. She is, however, granted a smile when she places the grades of the students who have found comfort in this self-paced virtual experience. It is good to know someone is learning from the work she spends so many hours preparing. It is good to know someone is flourishing.
As the school year progresses, Stone is becoming more and more aware that she cannot be the hands-on teacher of her previous classrooms. She is unable to reach out to each child individually; to offer the guidance and assistance that every caring teacher attempts to provide. As a result, she worries about those quiet children who are hesitant to speak up in a Zoom full of vibrant, joyful peers. She thinks often about the students without parents ensuring they are attending class at all. She wonders about the impact of these issues on their future.
***
Each night as her artfully painted fingernails click across the keyboard, working tirelessly to fulfill all her duties, the educator hopes to find a solution for all her worries. Each night, she faces the same reality that there is not currently a better solution. Each night she reminds herself that she cannot fix it all.
“Dinner?”
“Pizza is on the way.”
“Again?”
“Again.”
What’s more, Stone concludes, she cannot be the attentive teacher she wants through a computer screen. She cannot be that teacher and maintain her role as an instructional coach. It has become all too clear that she cannot be that teacher and maintain her role as a mother, wife, and friend. After many weeks of late nights and early mornings, of worrying and fixing and trying to do it all, Stone discovers as she sits on her living room couch, staring at the disappointed face of her teenager, that despite her willingness to learn, despite her willingness to dedicate every spare second, she cannot continue to perform two full-time jobs.
And so, Stone decides to set boundaries.
***
Within just weeks of setting limits, things begin to click into place for the educator. She creates a routine, which admittedly sacrifices parts of each job that she would rather not neglect.
Her family, so used to getting Stone’s time shortly after the school day ends, now watches her work until 5 p.m.
Her students, who in previous years received personalized assistance and one-on-one torturing, are now forced to sink or swim.
Her fellow teachers, previously invited to ask for her help at any moment, must confine their classroom questions to a few scattered hours each week.
Admittedly, Stone worries about how her boundaries are affecting those around her. She sees students who need help beyond the videos and readings. She sees students who need an adult to consistently remind them of their work, to keep them sitting at their computer, engaged, and on track. She sees teachers who, as they just begin their role as an educator, seek more guidance than what is provided in her instructional slots. She sees holes in the work she is providing.
However, Stone finds assurance in the knowledge that this is not a forever solution for everyone. Students who fall behind now will receive help when they return to school. Young teachers struggling today will find innovative solutions tomorrow. Her family, too, will soon once again find her presence overbearing instead of fleeting. This school year has made it extraordinarily clear to Stone that in a nation full of people making sacrifices, children are no exception. Like the rest of us, so many students are simply surviving in areas where they used to be thriving.
Moreover, as a lifelong learner, Stone sees this year of sacrifices and struggles as an extraordinary experience to develop. She herself learned of new ways to teach, new ways to communicate, and new ways to lead children through difficult situations. This is something she plans to use in years to come as she educates incoming teachers. Stone claims that the end of corona will by no means be the end of the virtual classroom. In fact, despite the too many students who have been left behind in this format, she asserts that there is a handful of children she has seen flourish in this self-paced environment. They, Stone suggests, will be able to carry out their entire education from the comfort of their own home. And they will be able to do it well.
In a positive spin that could only be mustered by the woman who takes special care to place inspirational quotes around an office filled with flowers and mood lighting, Stone finds the COVID-19 pandemic, our nation’s greatest struggle, to be a year of self-reflection and growth. She understands the importance of its impact and is grateful for many of the changes it has forced the world to make.
Comments