Teaching during the apocalypse: I am NOT a home school parent.

Oh my Lord in heaven, today has been a challenge, and it's only noon.

Today is the first day that my kids have really struggled to get assignments completed, and they have really pushed back against me when I've tried to encourage them. There have been multiple complaints about how much work they're having to do. They are grumpy, and I'm really frustrated with their lack of motivation.

And I realized why they are hitting the wall today, finally: their teachers have sorted out how to do at least some of their instruction online, so they are starting to post all of their regular daily work instead of just a handful of review assignments. The kids couldn't understand why they had so much to do, and I had to explain that this is different than just having homework to do, or having assignments that they missed because we went on vacation. This is school. At home.

I never wanted to be a home school parent. Kids do not by nature take instruction well from their parents. And for most of us parents, it's been a while since we've had to do the types of assignments our kids are doing. I'm lucky, since my kids are in lower grades, because I still know how to do the work they need. But I'm sure there are parents out there who feel a little like Mr. Incredible in The Incredibles 2, trying to help Dash with his math.

I chuckled a bit last week at parents who were posting elaborate schedules for their kids to follow each day, and at other parents who were making jokes about their kids going feral. But now, this week, I'm starting to look at both ends of that spectrum and trying to find a happy medium between them. I don't know that I have the endurance and intestinal fortitude to force my kids to follow a rigid schedule, because I don't have the time to ride herd on them all day long and still get my own school work done. But I also refuse to just let them spend the day on their tablets or video games. So I need to figure out how to strike a balance between the two, both for the benefit of my kids' education and the maintenance of my own sanity.

Teaching During the Apocalypse: Week 2 Day 1

First day of our second week of school cancellation for COVID-19. Trying to find some kind of rhythm or routine to fall back on. Had to go pick up a packet of assignments for my second grader first thing this morning, and since then I've been doing double duty, trying to get my kids to do their school work and trying to get assignments and materials posted and checked for my high school students.

On one hand, I feel like I'm somewhat prepared for the week. I only have a few assignments I need to construct for my students, and I pretty much know what those are and what they will look like. On the other hand, I feel like I'm behind the eight ball because I have assignments to grade from the week before school got cancelled, and I have to get them all graded ASAP. This wouldn't be quite as hard to do if this felt like a "normal" school cancellation, like a snow day. But it doesn't feel like that at all. The novelty of being home has worn off for everyone, even the dog. The boys are chafing to go outside and do something, and are resisting doing their school work. I too am bored and tired of being inside; ennui is a powerful demotivator.

I know I need to get some stuff done, but I'm not really feeling it. Le sigh. Hopefully I can remotivate myself this afternoon.

Teaching During the Apocalypse: Week 1

Wow. So, it's been over three years since the last time I posted anything on my blog. Life completely got in the way: the kids' school and sports, work, laziness, you name it.

But I suddenly find that I have all kinds of time on my hands (while simultaneously feeling like I don't have enough time at all). One week ago today, the governor of Montana cancelled school for two weeks due to the appearance of the newest strain of coronavirus, COVID-19, in the state. We were one of the last states to have cases of the virus confirmed; but in just a week's time, we're up to 31 confirmed cases. Since the incubation period seems to be about two weeks, and during those two weeks the person is asymptomatic but contagious, I'm sure we will continue to see our number of cases growing exponentially as those who were in contact with the folks who were originally infected start to show their symptoms too, and then those who have been in contact with those folk, etc., etc., and on and on we'll go. There have been no deaths in Montana attributed to the virus, but sadly I suspect that will change soon too.

Back to my own situation: on the Friday before school was cancelled, we had a faculty meeting where we were told to start working on two weeks' worth of lesson plans and assignments that we could put online in the event of a school shutdown. Some of us were more ready than others; when we found out that school was indeed cancelled for two weeks, I already had my two weeks planned out (in fact, I had to scale back my plans when our administration told us to just post three meaningful assignments for the two weeks). I even arranged to have daily "office hours" in a video conferencing program so that I could talk face to face with any student who needed it.

In short, I thought I had things handled. As the week progressed, it became apparent that some things needed to change. Our district, and our school, wanted to unify all our approaches. They wanted to put all the information for the students in one location so it was easy to find. They wanted to find out which students were able to access online information and which students could not. All of a sudden, the flaws in our system started becoming apparent. Some of my colleagues, being less familiar with how to use technology to support their lessons, really struggled to get information together and lessons posted. Programs they had never gotten around to learning to use (or flat-out resisted learning) suddenly became mandatory, and they didn't have the support structure to learn to use them in the most effective ways. Some students weren't checking in online for a variety of reasons--they didn't have devices available with enough bandwidth or data, they didn't have internet at home, or they didn't have a responsible adult at home to "encourage" them to do assignments. A social disparity has become obvious: while most of our kids have the resources to do their schoolwork at home, not all of them do. The whole point of public education is access for all, and we are realizing that access looks very different than we thought it did. We think of our students as being "digital natives", but their expertise only extends to the technology they have regular access to. My former school is a 1:1 Mac laptop school with a distance learning facility on campus; as a school with a $12K/year tuition, it's a foregone conclusion that nearly all of their students are just fine with online learning. Ours here, not so much.

After one week, I still have a handful of students I haven't had contact with. I am planning to mail them some assignments, but there's no guarantee they will receive them, complete them, or return them. I am at a loss as to what I can do to support those students. And with one week down on our two week outage, I'm now having to prepare for the likelihood that we will be out beyond our two weeks. Our superintendent did a Q&A session online on Friday and admitted that he fully expects us to be out until at least mid April. That means we will have to move from finishing up work we were already doing and reviewing to presenting new material. What that will look like, I don't yet know.

But that's where we are. And none of that takes into account my attempts to get my elementary school kids to do the activities their teachers have posted on their apps. There's a reason I don't teach elementary. Several reasons, in fact.

So, I will be posting more often. I would like to get my students to do some journaling as well. After all, some day someone will do some research on the COVID-19 pandemic, and their journals will be primary documents. What was it like to be a student? What was it like to be a senior in high school? Hopefully I can get some of them to record their thoughts, even if it's just for their own benefit.