Someone asked the question, “What do you miss the most about being in the classroom?” and conversely, “What are some of the perks of distance learning?” I marinated over this one for a time today, because there are both things about being in the classroom that I miss, and now that I’m back in school, I’m seeing there are things about being in the classroom that I did not at all miss, and frankly don’t really look forward to dealing with again. Distance Learning is a really difficult approach to the job in some ways, but a blessedly easy one in others.
Here’s a mix of those thoughts from today -- the things I miss and don’t miss.
MISS: THE INCIDENTAL MOMENTS
When you spend so much time with the same group of people day after day after day, and have a relationship where both sides become important parts of each others’ lives, small moments build up into the things that become memories.
MISS: THE ACCOUNTABILITY
It’s too easy for distance learning kids to not do their work and think they’ve found the perfect lie for when they get called on it. Not all of them, but some. The live version of my teacher stare is much more forceful than the Google version.
DON’T MISS: THE FRUSTRATION OF CONSTANT CORRECTIONS
This isn’t absent from distance learning, but it’s lessened. I don’t have to tell the same kid to take a hat off 47 days in a row. I don’t have to ask them why they don’t have the time to put their name on their papers.
DON’T MISS: THE POTTY PARADE
This is such a real thing. One person asks to use the bathroom, and within five minutes seven others need to go as well. Especially prevalent during state tests.
DON’T MISS: SWEARING, LYING, FIGHTING, VANDALIZING, STEALING
I don’t think I need to say much more.
WOULDN’T MISS, BUT I CAME BACK IN TIME FOR: STATE TESTS
Especially the moments when you look at the clock and realize that if you were at home you could start playing a movie right at that moment and it would be over before you were done with your testing session.
MISS/DON’T MISS: KIDS WHO WORK HARD/KIDS WHO DON’T TRY
Also present in distance learning, but more acutely noticeable live.
MISS: ADRENALIZED SONGS IN MY HEAD WHEN THINGS GO WELL
I have songs in my head nearly the entire time I’m awake. When I’m teaching and get caught in a moment when a lesson is going exactly as I planned or the kids are proving their success, it pumps me up and some powerful, workout-type song appears in my thoughts.
DON’T MISS IN THE LEAST: THE YARDS-LONG BLACK STREAKS LEFT ON TILE FLOORS WHEN SOMEONE STEPS ON A TINY BROKEN SHARD OF A MECHANICAL PENCIL LEAD
I know they (probably) don’t try to do it on purpose, but when a kid gets one of those hellish graphite chunks stuck in the sole of their shoe, a piece of my will to live falls off and withers away.
MISS: CREATIVITY
Distance learning is online assignments, web sites, and occasional nods in other directions. Of course there are opportunities to be creative anytime you create something, even a lesson, but it’s not the same as the live version. The bulletin boards, the paper, the colors, the signs, the organizational schemes, the proactive thinking…when you find a lesson you connect with and really want to make your own, it can be invigorating.
DON'T MISS: GLITTER
No further explanation necessary, I'd say.
MISS: FLY ON THE WALL OBSERVATIONS
Some of the funniest moments of the day come from the absence of self-awareness that so many kids carry with them. It’s fun to witness the moments when they are all by themselves in their heads and let their true selves be displayed.
DON’T MISS: MEAN GIRLS
They’re the worst. I really believe that the ways girls go after each other when they’re going into battle is so much worse than it is with boys.
MISS SO MUCH: GLITCHES IN THE MATRIX
I miss having the unusual moments surrounding me that really define the atmosphere of a school. The way some clocks don’t necessarily line up with others in the building, and everyone has to get used to the idea of how one is two minutes faster. That phantom noise that randomly occurs during the day that sounds like machinery collapsing in the ceiling that you learn to ignore, because nothing ever falls through. The way some kid will leave a banana sitting on the hallway floor right outside of the bathroom and then forget about it when they leave. All of this is to say nothing of how you don’t just learn to accommodate the dozens of quirks the students bring into your days, but often enjoy them.
MISS TERRIBLY: THE APPROACHING CLOSURE
The last month of the year is one of my favorites because the school year has a definitive expiration date, and you know that after that the relationships and group dynamic you’ve worked so hard and so long to establish with the class will abruptly end. That can lead to some powerful goodbyes. Or, there could be (are) years when you welcome the ringing of that final bell on the last day with open arms; not gonna lie, I’ve been on that side of the equation more than once.
This year though, I have a great class. Even if I’ve spent precious little time with them in the real world, they are still a cohesive group full of distinct personalities that I know I’m going to miss. For so, so, so, so long, they were the only people I would talk to in the past year, in some cases for what felt like weeks at a time. I hope things don't end like this, but I’m afraid our year is going to close with all of us waving to each other as we shut down our last Google Meet of the day, like we do every day.
I might have to pull out some creativity to make sure we get something closer to the ending we deserve.
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