We were holding a regular Zoom chat among grade level team members for our sixth grade as a way to check in with each other, do some planning and catch our breath. All of us are veteran teachers who have worked together for more than a decade (and some of us, nearly two decades.)
“I feel like I’m a new teacher again, trying to figure every little thing out,” one colleague muttered, and we all agreed.
The Pandemic, and our temporary shift to Distance Learning before going back in a Hybrid Model, has forced all of us to look at our teaching practices in a new light, and from new angles. Not that we on our team were ever just coasting — we’re not like that — but we realize now that we can’t rely on what worked in the past in the physical space of the classroom to work in the virtual element of the classroom.
Each night, after the school day ends, and each morning, before the first Zoom session of the day, I’m thinking and re-thinking the flow of every single lesson, of the meaning and value of every single activity, of what could transfer from how I used to teach something to how I will need to teach it now, given our current situation. I’m walking around with lesson plans unfolding in my head.
This re-evaluation of practice and pedagogy is never a bad thing, of course. It’s something we educators should always be doing, but admittedly, we don’t always do such intensive examination of practice. That reason is is that it is rather stressful, and demanding, to reconsider and re-evaluate everything, and it takes up a lot of head space. It’s easier to re-use what worked in the past, with some minor tweaks.
No tweaks are minor right now. Everything is always on the table.
And it does, indeed, feel like starting a teaching career from scratch, with all the exciting possibilities and the nervous unknowns — the technology, the range of learners, the social interactions, all of it forever in flux.
What makes it more difficult, in our situation, is the loneliness of it, too.
Working from home, as we are forced to be doing right now while our Internet gets an upgrade, has its benefits (the dogs like it) but there’s no unanticipated bumping into colleagues in the hallway to share ideas or vent frustrations. You can’t open the door between rooms to say hello. There’s no quick dart to ask a technical question or collectively gather to share insights or ask questions or express concerns about a student. Like a new teacher who may have a mentor but often feels like they are on a new journey, nearly alone, with a classroom of young people depending on them to know (or at least pretend they know) the way forward, we are all now navigating new waters.
But here we are … and here we go.
Peace (day by day),
Kevin
DSC01722 (2) -01 flickr photo by suzyhazelwood shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC) license
