Finding Inspiration in my Virtual Classroom
Two weeks ago, the life of the teacher and student, along with the rest of the world, changed dramatically . . . initially similar to your favorite sci-fi book that scares you just enough to be thrilling and terrifying all at the same time, but real. While you can always put the book down when it gets too intense, this is not a book. We are all reading the same lines, though. Commonalities aside, the impact on our littlest, seemingly most vulnerable Earth inhabitants, have turned out, perhaps, to be our most resilient. While my students and yours would much rather be together and with us at brick and mortar school buildings, they have taken up residence in our virtual classrooms like champions.
Here the tables are turned in that my students are inspiring me to be my best, to be creative, to find a way, to not give up. In this role reversal, I have seen through their sparkly, excited eyes and developed the best approach to this new reality that I can imagine. I will keep teaching as if we are still in room 418, with its colorful tables and chairs, inspiring contents, student made work and two whole walls of sun-streaming windows.
I will maintain my philosophical aversion to more tech time for kids and develop lessons which stay the course aligning with the hands-on, tactile, messy approach traditional art and making relies on and begs for. So how to do that? Fortunately, my district has been ahead of the curve as far as technology, seemingly ahead of many other states and even out of town colleagues.
Despite my past feeling that our littles use too much technology at school and definitely at home, today, it is a boon for facilitating an almost seamless transition from learning together at school to learning in relative isolation at home. Scrambling to assemble take home bags (perhaps overwhelming amounts-especially to parents) of supplies, resources, materials and work, teachers were able to bring in the parents to pick up, not only these care packages, but Chromebooks as well. Now with Google Classroom access and many extra supports without licensing and cost associated hassles, students are connected to each aspect of their everyday, even school meals for those who need them.
The biggest change in all of this does not rest as much with teachers, but with parents, who now shift into the in-person facilitator of uncharted waters. They are taking their children’s lead and emerging as champs too! So, with a tech-based structure in place, up and running virtual classrooms are filling the cloud and our kids are learning, “going” to school, connecting with teachers and friends, and enthusiastically too! Resilience and grit take on a whole new identity here. I love my students and was so proud and enamored of them before the word Corona was an everyday utterance, but now, wow! Video chatting on a twice daily basis elicits another level of knowing and understanding my students.
The whole relationship building trust aspect so vital to teaching and learning (and life!) has been propelled to another level where the very basic need for connecting surpasses the content of education. It has become secondary to connecting. Once that connection has been retrieved, the learning resumes. The connection sustains the learning and motivation to learn beyond the initial (virtual) face to face smiles and conversation, sharing and listening (sibling and pet introductions, toy room tours . . .).
And the work is happening. The balance is as equal as in person learning. The kids are committed, present, focused and excited. How? It is beyond my comprehension and increases my own admiration, love and commitment to them. So, here, I say, carry on! Do not succumb to the easy, the default, the doing tech art instead of real art. To my way of thinking, they don’t need us for that-like doing crafts and step by step projects. We need to teach them to do their own thinking, not copying someone else’s. Let me teach you something you don’t know and something I know well. Let me teach you in capacities that provoke your own thinking, completely your own, influenced only by historical methods, genres, ideas and perspective and your own, perhaps unrealized, genius. Use this motivation and inquiry to develop your own response, and in that, individual voice; gain confidence, ability, your own perspective and maybe something beautiful.
I began by finding a way to translate and extend the last classroom lesson to home through the in between of the digital platform lifeline I must embrace. My premise has transcended the digital delivery, landing in the warm and ready hands of my students, providing them with the directive and motivation to grasp and hold and create based on what I share with them through video and online instruction, limited screen time and tactile provocations. Beginning with the original lesson, I develop a letter style message-just like in the classroom, circle time message sharing, even video, to emulate our normal “shared reading” and then on with instruction, step by step, supported by visual resources, a materials demo, supporting picture book or digital resource.
Encouraging students to approach the lesson from their own ideas and choices, holding off parent input and reaction until the end. Avoiding others' influence is the basis for the confidence and resilience-building my class is really all about-the making and creating is the vehicle-and a worthy one at that, ensuring knowledge and, hopefully, lifelong advocacy. Video chats as close to regular class time, or class day on a consistent basis, allow vital check-ins, excitement, a great visual sharing and immediate feedback platform which can imitate real class time routines and community. Today, even, one student shared her screen (present mode!) in our video chat and read the story to me that I had sent her a link to! Additionally, I am clarifying permissions to add this digitally delivered work-through video chat stills or emailed uploaded photos of student work to continue my own routine of posting to our class Instagram page, (https://www.instagram.com/mrs.olsonsclass/), and hopefully an end of the year digital art show.
Simply thinking of ways to maintain routine and curricular content opens up the ideas and possibilities to do just that-which is exactly what our students are depending on from us right now. The response has amazed, but not surprised, as when you know your students as the living breathing three-dimensional human people that they are, nothing surprises you and everything does. They are working, creating, questioning, making, getting messy, observing, giggling and (somehow!) focusing. They are artists throughout. Let us be inspired by the resilience and adaptability our students have shown us without even missing a beat. And let us revel in the fact, sitting outside in the sunshine after work hours and hearing the birds, that we will be together again, back in the schools and classrooms we love and rely on so much, back to learning traditionally, better for continuing to learn no matter the obstacles.
