Corona Time in Teachingland

Life in 2020...or is this 2008? Hard to differentiate.

One of my biggest regrets of the past few years has been my complete negligence of maintaining this EduBlog; to be honest, it would have been nice to have more detailed documentation of my teaching life, pre-coronavirus (P.C.?), at my fingertips, for a reminder of my "normal" routine, but I digress. To be honest, I have thought of several ideas for Edublog entries over the years and left those ideas in the drafts, to be written later. Yet here I am, remembering a particular item on the list of study tips that my eighth grade science teacher relayed to us at the beginning of that year: Don't refuse to start a task until the inspiration strikes; it probably never will. You were right, Mrs. M: later never came, and there are seven or eight half-completed (I'm an optimist!) drafts sitting in the queue. But again, I digress.

For right now, I just want to take some time to discuss the changes in the last few weeks: of my routine, of my experience as a teacher, of my state of mind as a human being.

As a side note, please excuse what is likely to be a composition that flows as a stream of consciousness as opposed to a polished piece of writing. Does anybody really want to proof read at 3:00 AM?




1. My Routine

Where to start here? Basically, my college self has reemerged. While Current Me is not particularly ashamed of College Me, she had a few quirks that worked for a 20 year old that really don't translate well to the life of a 31 year old: particularly, the 20 year old's nocturnal habits.

Don't get me wrong: night time is peaceful, for the world is asleep and it's easier to concentrate on completing the tasks at hand (to this day, I attest that my nocturnal schedule enabled me to write my best essays); however, after I finished my master's degree at the age of 22, I started to equate staying up too late with childhood, a time of my life that had passed. I was ready to be an adult, darn it! Adults get up and have responsibilities! Plus, who doesn't like the day light? Day light is so inviting. When I wake up early, I wake up inspired and tend to accomplish more. Under normal circumstances, having "normal" waking hours enables me to socialize more. Despite being a natural introvert, I do rather enjoy my face-to-face interactions with other people at times, particularly if those people are 11-14 year olds who rely on me to help them further their education.

Okay, now back to that responsibilities part. I have been working full time as a teacher now for almost a decade. Yes. Wow. Already. I have been functioning as an adult in society with my adult responsibilities for nearly a decade of my life. I like my routine. I'm used to my routine.

Somehow, though, in the abrupt change to eLearning, my routine has changed. Trust me, I did not invite this change, but it was inevitable. Why? Because this new eLearning model is pushing teachers back to square one. Yes, no matter how long we have been in the profession, we all must digitize our lessons daily. That takes time. Put on top of that the fact that our days are filled with answering student questions, conducting Zoom calls with administration and students, trying to keep up with grading and emails, and putting together lessons to post for the next day, and you have one lady whose bedtime gets later and later!

We have now reached the end of Week 4 of eLearning, and this is my first official day of Easter/spring break; I'm still awake at 3:20 AM. That's all I need to say. Hello, College Me! Nice to be working on my laptop while sitting on my bed again.


2. My Teaching Experience

Hey, remember your first year at your current teaching job when you had to learn an entirely new curriculum for every unique class you taught and had to scramble to make new materials for several different classes every day, while also being expected to keep up with your grading and promptly respond to parent and student emails/electronic communications?

I'm at year five at my current place of employment, and I've been spoiled. I had forgotten how stressful it was to be a new teacher, and I spoiled my students with the lightning-fast pace at which I graded assignments. Ever since the abrupt switch to eLearning, all of that went out the window. Back to Square One!

Look, I am definitely a proponent of technology in the classroom, and actually, my school's transition to eLearning was smooth in some regard, as we already have a 1:1 iPad program instituted among the students, so we are using platforms with which the students have years of experience. However, even with Zoom chats (the only new platform I have had to learn so far in this time), there are still elements of the face-to-face classroom that are missing. I miss my students. I miss daily human interaction! Students can write, but we don't have much discussion time or time to share our work. This is what I miss the most. Plus, my daily conversations with different students are definitely lacking. Yes, there are some students who will always stop by my office hours, and I still feel connected to those students, but I feel like I am losing touch with others, even if I am sending them messages via the Showbie app; it's just not the same. The interactions with the students are the best part of this job, and I just don't feel as connected to the students as before.

Equity is always going to be a problem when it comes to distance learning. However, in the school environment in which I teach, especially with our 1:1 set up, I am not experiencing many equity challenges. However, we still have to follow policies set up by our Diocese (yes, I teach at a Catholic school) about grading/late work that apply to schools that do have equity issues, so it's hard to instill and enforce the good work habits that I expect of my students in the traditional classroom. I won't go into more detail about the grading policies at this point in time, but I am frustrated, and it's obvious that some kids are taking advantage of the situation, but there is really nothing that can be done.

And then there are assessments! Actually, that part isn't as disastrous as I originally anticipated. I took Edmodo, which was already a familiar platform for my students and me, and started utilizing its quiz feature. I send an email to the parents the night before letting them know that the student will be responsible for taking a quiz the next day in a certain window of time (I typically give them a five-hour window) and recommend that, if possible in their household, the student be monitored while taking the assessment. So far, so good: the scores that have come back to me are pretty consistent with what I have seen in class.

Overall, my school's eLearning arrangement is the best we can do under these circumstances, but the students and definitely I miss our typical learning environment, and we are all grieving for the end-of-the-year celebrations we have lost, especially for my eighth graders (although I am still holding weekly Zoom meetings with one of my after-school clubs, hoping that maybe over the summer we can perform the play on which we have been working since September.)


3. My Human Side

While I have been used to maintaining long-distance relationships with my closest loved ones, the virus (doesn't it sound like the name of some dystopian novel? The Virus: Put on your mask and gloves or you might DISAPPEAR!), I had never before anticipated that I would one day have long-distance relationships with EVERY. SINGLE. PERSON I know.

This whole experience has definitely taken me through some interesting states of mind. For instance, I am very in tune with the most subtle changes in my body, particularly with my nose and throat. Is my throat slightly itchy right now? Can I not quite breathe as clearly as earlier today? Panic!!! Coronavirus!!! But, wait, it's allergy season! But many people say their symptoms started off as minor allergy symptoms. Just so much paranoia all around. Not to mention, there was a terrifying car crash directly in front of my house (not the street - the house!) earlier in the week (I think it was this week? The weeks are running together now...), so that night was eventful, and I am definitely still experiencing some PTSD. Did I mention that my Internet was dead for two days, so I could do nothing for work at my house and had to drive to the school and use their Wifi as a last resort?

The worst part so far was actually just today: Today would have been the start of my spring break. I would have been on a train, going north to see a key loved one whom I haven't seen since February. That's what life has been lately: The Land of Would Have. Events pop up on my calendar: events that would have happened if this pandemic did not exist. I have to erase these events as they pop up so that I stop thinking about the Land of Would Have: this "other" reality in which I would be getting dressed up to go to that gala, having that after-school activity with my students, spending time with that loved one.

The simple solution would probably be spending time on Zoom or on the phone using Facetime with people to stay in touch. One setback to those ideas: MY EYES ARE IN IMMENSE PAIN FROM ALL THE DIGITAL WORK I HAVE HAD TO DO. My eyes just can't handle more screen time (...she said at 4 AM, writing a long blog entry completely on her own accord.)

All of that said, I am thankful to be alive and healthy and am thankful for the health of my family and friends and that we, as a country, are taking action by staying home in this time of national crisis; I would much rather see everybody alive and healthy later on than never see them again.

And, as a silver lining to all this, I am starting an Ed.D. in educational technology in the fall, and now that the entire nation went to digital learning, I will have plenty of potential data for a dissertation!

I have been grappling with the perfect analogy to describe life right now. In my fantasies, I have created the quintessential analogy to encapsulate this experience, and the analogy is immortalized in textbooks for years to come, maybe engraved somewhere. In reality, said analogy is a garbled mess, and I doubt whatever I write next will find its way into an Internet meme, let alone a history textbook.

Let's try this:

Life with social distancing is like...is like...is like...being trapped in the body of my college self with my adult responsibilities in a dystopian society, all while living in a massive bubble: little sleep, few social interactions (and people walk away when you get close), "creative" meals, burning eyes, immense fear of "the virus", and hours of working on a laptop while sitting in my bedroom.

And, with that, I depart for the night/morning!