TEACHING DURING THE PANDEMIC

I am a semi retired teacher with 16 plus years of experience. I have taught elementary grades kindergarten through eighth grade in public and private schools. I have taught in a regular classroom, special education classroom and mixed. I have substituted long and short term. I have also taught online, long distance learning. I have taught in the midwest and i have taught in the West. I tutor all over the country. I can conclude that none of it is easy, but ALL of it is rewarding.

As I look back on my teaching experiences, I can see how one thing after another has been added to the teachers' role in the classroom. Here is a list that I had to perform at one time or another: teacher, counselor, psychologist, entertainer, cook, party planner, parent advisor, parent, nurse, doctor, all things science guru, detective, pest control, gardener, recess supervisor and activity provider, social services, copy machine technician, all machines technician, emergency coordinator, trainer of the principal, police, security guard, fund raiser, school supply coordinator and distribution, grant writer, form designer, emergency food advisor, parent locator, communicator, crowd control, gun, pencil and weapon control, summer activity coordinator, fun day coordinator as well as face painter, balloon twister, ice shaver,, clown; student transfer, animal keeper, school botanist, author, slide show/video producer, culture day coordinator, play write, director, costume design and maker, union rep, refrigerator cleaner, and it goes on and on and on.

Now with the COVID 19, coronavirus pandemic, I see teachers having to put on more hats than the guy in "Caps for Sale" by Esphyr Slobodkina. TEACHERS DO NOT LET THIS HAPPEN. I understand it, I do. You are new or want to cooperate, make it better for your students, work within the budget to provide more, finance your students' education so that they will learn more, etc. There are so many reasons to do things to make it a better learning experience for the student. The best thing that YOU can do, is free up your time for what you were trained to do: TEACH.

I hear from teachers who are expressing their experiences and frustrations with the new school year. Many feel they don't know what they are doing with the long distance online learning. Demand or suggest the next in service be dedicated to training on just that with your system. You should not have to haphazardly research and cram to learn this because your college or university did not provide this experience and did not see the pandemic coming to this. No one did. Be proud you are out there doing/learning. Do not allow in services that merely take up your time and have very little to do with bringing your students to learning.

I see that teachers are having to clean, clean and clean. WAIT A MINUTE!! Isn't that the maintenance and engineering department's job? Let's not accept this as another one of our jobs. Yes, we clean every day to bring our classrooms up to our standards. We spend hours in addition to the cleaning staffs' efforts to provide a clean environment for us and our students. We always have. I can remember cleaning lab tables between classes when a horrible mucus producing cold hit the school or when ringworm season hit. The next class anxiously waiting outside my door. However, cleaning is a maintenance responsibility. Suggest to the powers that be in your school, that more maintenance people be brought in, during the day, while you are there, in the classroom, with your students to do the hour to hour cleaning necessary to keep the pandemic under control. You should not have to do the sanitizing.

Teachers, unless there is a full time nurse present, have always been the ones to determine if and when a child is sick and to what degree. Do they stay? Do they go home? Are you taking temperatures and having to be the pandemic preventing bouncer? This should be the job of a health professional. I am not saying every school has to have a full time nurse or doctor, but someone trained to make those determinations. It should not take teachers way from teaching. Be aware of jobs that you are being given or have been given that are not teaching. Should another department be doing this job? Teachers are notorious for filling in the gaps, doing things that are not really teaching, but are connected to teaching. Make it a habit to ask yourself: Is this task TEACHING? or should someone else being doing it? If so who and find out how that job can be delegated to the right people.

I know this is a new time and place, this time of pandemic. Everyone is trying to find new, safe ways of doing, "IT", whatever IT is that they do. Now is the time to be inventive, creative and suggest things that come to mind. For example, there are digital white boards and online white boards and just white boards. There has got to be a way to bring this technology up to date and connect the in classroom white boards with the online white boards so teachers can teach but in classroom students and those online. I have the idea, but I don't have the tech to make that happen. Someone does. Contact the school's district's technology department to look into this.

And while I'm at it....let's not take this to be a time to double class loads as in 30 online students and 30 in classroom students. Teachers need to be able to focus on each and every student and their individual needs. I see each student like each person's nutritional/exercise plan. WE ARE ALL DIFFERENT! So different, that each person has a different diet and need for exercise, that will keep them healthy or make them ill or suffer malnutrition. If one person is too thin, we have to look at that individual, their bodily make up and what they eat to try to determine what they need to grow healthy. If someone is overweight, which is my area of expertise, I have to find out what it is that I am doing that is causing me to gain weight. Do I eat more of this, more of that, exercise more, balance this or that. There is no exact science for this that one fits all. Each student is different in their learning, their background, their family, their experiences. Each student has to be considered and the teacher determine what that student needs to learn for whatever subject that they are teaching. Thirty students is way too many for a teacher to consider on a daily basis. With some at home and some in the classroom, THIS makes it even harder, especially for those that are not in the classroom at any time.

PARENTS!! For goodness sake, have patience with your child's teacher. We are all learning here how to put this all back together. None of us were prepared for this pandemic, how to act, what to do. If you are healthy, volunteer to help out. If you cant help out, be patient, give the benefit of the doubt that your student's teacher is perhaps pedaling like mad on a bike with stripped gears and REALLY is trying to catch up and teach. TEACHERS: keep pedaling, but do take time for yourself and let creative solutions surface to suggest the ideas to those who can make them happen. Cooperate with the pandemic rules until they change. If you suspect your child is sick, don't send them to school. Get them checked by your doctor. Some kids hate wearing masks. Try to explain to them why it is more empathetic to wear one than not. It helps keep the Covid from spreading to others in case you have it. Besides, this is a good time to see how we all would look like if we were surgeons or in the medical field! Some of those children may find they like it and pursue a career!

PARENTS!! This is your time to step up. Check that your child really IS doing their work, getting online, paying attention. It is so easy for the online child to get distracted by things around them, or sneak in a phone text, watch something else online or the tv in the line of sight of the computer. It's like reading a comic book behind a school book. Come on!, we all tried to get away with that in one form or another. Students need to be monitored and their attention secured. Some children can be trusted, others not. Monitor where they have been on their computers especially during the day when they should be connected to their teacher. Don't take their word that everything in school is "good". Using that word, right there, "good" can be a sign that things are not "good". Ask them detailed questions about what they are learning, to give you examples. The student should be showing enthusiasm for what they are learning. If they are not, then they are not learning, not understanding it or loosing interest in learning. These things should have been going on before the pandemic. I know many parents, let their students progress up to the teacher and report card. Parents, YOU are responsible before that first report card, that first progress report comes in to see that your child is giving the attention that learning needs before it can happen. If you care about your child and your child's future, YOU must monitor your student. If you don't like what you see, call your child's teacher, ask them what is going on, how you can help. Teachers do their best. They do not go into teaching for the huge salaries. There are none. They do not go into teaching for the days and summers off. The majority of teachers have to find a job to make it through the summer, support themselves or their families. Even if they have the support of a spouse or family, they spend their summers, days off, preparing for the next teaching day or year. Most teachers go into teaching because they love children and love seeing them learn, grow and become successful citizens. TEACHERS: if you are teaching for any other reason, you shouldn't be teaching.

PARENTS: at least and I mean at least, provide your student what they need to learn: pencils, paper, a breakfast and lunch and plenty of rest. Learning cannot occur if the physical body is suffering. Do not make your child's teacher become nutritionist, food provider and sleep coach. That is your job.

TEACHERS AND PARENTS: work together. You both have the same interest at heart, helping your student to grow, learn and succeed!