On this day, September 16th, 2020, most educators, new and old, would wake up to a new level of uncertainty. After a spring semester of rushed remote assignment plans, they would have to prepare all summer for this new normal. They would wake up without the old normal’s beacon of hope, without the warmth of a physical classroom and human connection. No more teachers squatting next to a student’s desk and helping them one on one. No more bathroom passes, hugs or shiny apples. No more pulling one student to the side when they don’t want to share with the whole class. As if it wasn’t hard enough to teach kids when they are all in the same room together, teachers and students alike have to adapt to the third wall, separating them from their preferred way of learning and teaching. Although the commute is short, the rest has become quite frankly a nightmare. From varying levels of home environments and internet access, school will not be all that it can possibly be this year in the name of physical health.
I woke up to Facebook and Snapchat flooded with pictures of bedroom-turned-classroom with the caption “First day of school!” My heart goes out to my fellow Westfield graduates in their new role as teachers as well as seasoned educators like my dad during a year that can be summed up as the unexpected. White boards, notebooks, folders, and bulletin boards fill what used to be a private space, but is now their work area, blurring the lines of personal and professional. All of the supplies that would have excited students to learn are now in their own rooms.
And of course, their laptop sits on their desk, as their new connection to their students instead of just a tool to use for emails and to post assignments on Google Classroom. Who would’ve thought that 2020 would be the year of a failed response to a pandemic, resulting in Google Meets, Zoom, and Skype playing the role of classroom, instead of its previous occupation of connecting distant family members or friends? Although technology was always more or less part of our lives in the last few decades, it would soon become a place of employment for many, whether we were ready or not, which forced many educators to become masters at computer science.
None of us knew the shipwreck that would await us three months into a fresh year. All the usual goal-setting and hope that comes with a new calendar was thrown out the window, as the word quarantine, reminiscent of victims of the past Ebola outbreak, became commonplace. As if the country couldn’t be more divided, parents became rightfully concerned about how they would juggle work and their kids, which turned into more divisiveness as there seemed to be no right answer of how to deal with this crisis. It was either take the health risk of keeping kids in school for the sake of social-emotional development, or take the developmental risk to ensure physical safety.
This is more of an issue for young students, as some college students prefer certain classes to be online. Nevertheless, college students are still missing out on meaningful classroom discussions that took on more legitimacy than a single screen. As a recent college graduate, I have a sense of survivor’s guilt, conveniently finishing my bachelor’s degree in the last “normal” full school year. I had the privilege to have all my classes in-person with no need for masks or distance, the real-life intimacy that comes with a familiar room, a familiar desk and being able to see peoples’ full bodies and speak ear to ear rather than through another device and past scratchy fumbling noises.
All I guess I’m saying here is that like many privileges in this world, I don’t know what you are all going through with remote learning, but I am here if you need to vent to someone. I hope both students and teachers had as good of a first day as they can expect, and that they can work through this struggle together. And let’s all please be extra kind to teachers during this time. They are doing their absolute best, and encouragement can make all the difference sometimes. Until school can be facilitated where everyone is in the same room, I hope everyone can lean on each other more than ever – even if it’s through a damn screen.
(I do not own the cover photo.)