Finding a Way Forward
A few thoughts on the experience of teaching remotely, today, after officially meeting with almost all of my 5th Grade Math Students (73 kids).
First, one of the most overlooked downsides, for a teacher, is losing direct eye contact with students. Specifically, the students who benefit from a brick and mortar world, kids below the cusp, the ones you were always working on, losing sleep on, never giving up on, but always struggling with during the year, face to face. A digital learning experience is liberating for those already inclined, intrinsically, to learn on their own. But for those who aren’t there yet, it’s simply a digital experience. Within my great big, idealistic picture of education, teaching isn’t about passing a difficult child off to the next grade level or the next teacher, but about trying to achieve everything humanly possible to ensure that child has the tools and the belief in themselves to succeed wherever they go, to the capacity that they can be improved in the time you are given to work with them. And while we still have two months, the loss of that direct eye contact weighs heavily on my connections with those struggling kids.
Second, and much less serious, is that looking at yourself talk on a screen is, well, a reminder of all those extra chins, the face acne, the annoyingly out-of-line hair you cover with a hat, and every other form of narcissistic vanity that makes one self-conscious. All that stuff you typically ignore when you don’t have to see your own lips move to speak. I’ve heard there are quite a few actors/actresses who hate to see themselves on film. I sure do love teaching, but I could do without watching myself teach. Sigh.
And lastly, but far more positive, is that Remote Learning takes those kids on the cusp, the ones who genuinely want to do well but struggle, and forces them to do more for themselves, to be independent, to become a bit more vulnerable in their weaknesses and then work through them with fewer crutches. I had a few emails today from those cusp kids asking if I could answer certain questions that were already available in places they had seen, so I redirected them, gave them ownership of their own search for answers, and watched them (or heard them) feeling excited to have found something that was already right in front of them. That’s part of the journey for them, at this age. And it’s quite alright. I dig it when kids light up on their own, under a bulb you helped to turn on.
Best compliment of the day came from a late afternoon email by one of my “above” the cusp kids who simply said, “Thanks. Today was fun.”
To all the other teachers out there, the ones currently out of work or finding a way forward today, remote learning ain’t perfect. But dang it, this is where we’re at and this is what we do. Keep doing it.
