When the governor of your state tells all the schools to close, well, you close. Yet James River feels an obligation to continue to provide the kind of education our parents and students have come to expect. After spending last week putting together a coherent, student- and family-centered plan, we began distance learning on Monday. While we are only four days into our new learning adventure, the results have exceeded even my high expectations.
Our kindergarten and first grade teachers are making great use of Seesaw to communicate daily lessons to their students and engage with parents. They are working together to keep a consistent schedule and prevent anyone, parents or students, from feeling overwhelmed. First grade teacher Betsy Layne says, “I am completely embracing technology. It's like riding a bike for the first time; each day I get a little more stable!”
Grades 2-8 are all using the Google Classroom platform to make assignments. Teachers are making extensive use of Zoom video conferencing to connect directly with their students. In Nancy Hardison’s advisory today, the group sang happy birthday to one of their own! One teacher wrote, “An unexpected benefit [of distance learning] is more intentional time with my advisory. When I pose a question to them, each person is called to speak while the others ‘mute’ themselves. We listen better and are all participating in the same conversation, instead of several different ones.”
For students, adjusting to this new way of doing things is naturally producing some mixed feelings. Teachers and parents have observed that students didn’t realize how much they liked school until it was taken away from them. One student, when asked how she was feeling, said, “[I’m] happy and excited because I can be with Mom and on my iPad, [but] lonely because I can’t see my friends.”
It will take time and adjustment for each of us, particularly the students. We need to listen to them, take our cues from them, and pace what we’re doing according to their needs. They in turn can help us and lead us. As middle school art teacher Kasey Forehand said of her first day teaching this way, “Today was great. Had a wonderful Zoom meeting with my eighth graders. I had some technical difficulties, but they talked me through it.”
I am amazed at our ability to adapt, to make the best of a situation. I encourage everyone to reach out when you need help or simply need to combat the isolation imposed by the governor’s stay-at-home order. We will forge ahead, making new paths and deepening the care and friendship we feel for one another. Students will continue learning, teachers will continue teaching, parents will continue nurturing; we will all keep doing what we need to in order to move forward. We will help one another as we work our way through to the best way of engaging in this new sort of education.