Day 49 - Stories

Friday, April May 1, 2020

Nope. I'm not the teacher you've seen on social media trying to teach a student a math lesson through the student's window.

Nope. I'm not the elementary teacher who has a zoom meeting every day with her 25-30 students who can't hear each other over everyone's voices.

Nope. I'm not the art teacher sharing all the beautiful home art students are sharing on Seesaw.

I don't live near my students.

I don't have only 30 students.

I don't use Seesaw and can't ask students to try a new tool now.

This is what I CAN do...

I can let students and parents know we'll be meeting via Zoom days prior.

I can set up a safe Zoom meeting and find emails and invite students who responded to my invite 10 minutes prior.

And wait. With a smile on.

And afterwards, I can cry.

When only one shows up for one meeting and four for another, I make some connections I've been longing for. I put on my happy face and share in their feelings as they answer (what are supposed to be "engaging") questions. I act as if "we've got this!" I was able to hear a few stories shared.

Then I go for a long walk in the sun (thank goodness for the sunshine today).

I'm assigning about 30 minutes (maybe!) of work they don't need help with - two days a week. Of course they can read or write more if they'd like. They don't have questions about the lessons, because we're sharing them in videos and slides with examples. They just seem to want to see each other. And I want to see them.

My mantra today was, "I'm doing what I can. I'm following the advice and suggestions of other educators." Actually saying this aloud while in the sun helped me quite a bit. Soon a coworker teacher friend of mine will call, and we'll share our stories from today. I'm so grateful for our friendship and for someone who knows exactly what I'm going through.