th<\/sup>\u00a0season in 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\nSo when Jenn and I decided to stay home for the winter of 2020, I thought it would be good to do some substitute teaching.\u00a0\u00a0It wasn’t just to make a little extra money, it was also to do something more than workout and write essays through the long winter season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The classroom changed in the fifteen years since I left. When I cleared out my room in 2006, the main visual presentation mode was called a chalkboard. Today, that board is still there, but usually covered with posters and materials. Instead, you have a \u201cSmartboard\u201d, a video projection device attached to the computer. It\u2019s remarkable, you can project anything from the computer to the board, and you can write on the board as well, and save the \u201cnotes\u201d back to the computer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It took some getting used to, especially for an old \u201cI forgot the chalk in my pocket and washed my pants\u201d guy.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
New Tricks<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
But the real change in classrooms today is that every kid has a computer. The long lecture I used to give, covering the battle of Gettysburg from the railroad cut to the charge on Cemetery Ridge, won\u2019t fly today. The kids want to hear the story, but they also want to see it, to hear the bugles and the cannons, to see the movement of the troops. And they can, on the computer, through YouTube videos and snippets of any of a dozen Civil War movies. Good teachers today still teach, but they also are adept at directing their classes to resources on their individual computers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So subbing classes was a big change for me, pushing me to adapt to \u201cmodern\u201d education. But that was \u201call good\u201d, and I decided to signup for a long-term sub job. A wonderful teacher, great with students and highly knowledgeable about modern technology, was having her first child. So in I went, starting the second week of March, ready to teach Middle School social studies for the rest of the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And then corona-virus hit. The schools closed. And everyone, from the veteran to the rookie, became a first year teacher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No one planned on learning \u201conline\u201d for the last quarter of the school year. And for those who say, \u201cWell, there\u2019s been online education for a while,\u201d I\u2019d counter that the kids on online education in the past were willing participants. No one gave the students of Watkins Middle School or all of the other public schools a choice, they went from the classroom on Friday, to spring break, to life on a computer monitor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Brand New World<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The teachers didn\u2019t plan on being online for the last quarter of the school year.\u00a0\u00a0 Those veteran teachers with years of experience in the bag, were thrown right back into the first year again. Nothing was planned, and every interaction was a brand new experience.\u00a0\u00a0And for that poor first year teacher; all of the confidence gained through March was gone.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Great teachers find ways to reach kids.\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s personal, a one-on-one outreach to each of the one hundred and fifty in their classrooms.\u00a0\u00a0Great teachers watch their kids come through the door, and know, just from the face, the walk, and the look, what\u2019s going on.\u00a0\u00a0They know it\u2019s time to reach out and ask, \u201cWhat\u2019s up\u201d?\u00a0\u00a0They even know when it\u2019s time to leave that kid alone for the day, let him or her \u201cslide\u201d for this class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the classroom door and the visual check are gone. If a kid comes in without a pencil, a good teacher makes sure she has one. If a kid fails to sign onto their computer, \u201cskips digital school,\u201d it\u2019s much harder to make that intervention. The linkage over the Internet is tenuous, ethereal, and all the visual and emotional cues a teacher depends on are gone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
First Year<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Everyone is a first year teacher right now.\u00a0\u00a0All of the planning and experience they depended on are gone.\u00a0\u00a0And even more importantly, many of the things that made them great teachers are gone as well, cut off with the loss of direct personal contact.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So the great teachers are going back to the beginning, erasing the chalkboard of their experience and writing in new lesson plans. They are searching for ways to reach their students, even the ones who fail to \u201clog-in\u201d. Yes, they\u2019re teaching in their pajamas, and even attending staff meetings without pants on. But they are still doing everything they can to find that connection, to motivate \u201ctheir kids\u201d to learn. And they\u2019re doing even more, using their digital \u201cclassrooms\u201d and assignments to learn how those kids are doing, worrying as much about their students\u2019 isolation as the are the completed assignments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s that\u00a0\u00a0\u201cfirst year\u201d all over again.\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s all new:\u00a0\u00a0all on the job training.\u00a0\u00a0But as I listen into the meetings, and as a \u201csub\u201d watch what these \u201cpros\u201d are getting done \u2013 I know one thing for sure.\u00a0\u00a0They\u2019re doing the job.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Old Dog I retired from public school in 2017, but that was a long time after I left the classroom.\u00a0\u00a0From 1978 to 2006 I was a high school and middle school social studies teacher.\u00a0\u00a0I then became the Dean of Students at Watkins Memorial High School for the last eight years of my career.\u00a0\u00a0And I was … Continue reading “First Year”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nFirst Year : Our America - Essays on Politics and American Life<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In a week, public school education got thrown out the window. 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