Context: My county started hybrid learning Monday. Students with last name A-L attend in-person school on Monday and Tuesday. Students with the last name M-Z attend in-person school on Thursday and Friday. Everyone is virtual on Wednesday. Some families have opted to stay virtual the entire time. I have completed my first week as a hybrid teacher. I teach 4th grade.
😓 This is really hard. It takes an incredibly organized person to keep track of 6 different groups of kids. Cohort A in-person, Cohort A virtual, Cohort B in-person, Cohort B virtual, all virtual students, and the no internet students. With students at different levels, working at different paces, and different outputs, keeping track of everyone and every assignment is a full time job in itself. Not to mention student accommodations, attendance, drills, SLOs, data tracking, parent communication, parent conferences, planning lessons and grading. It is incredibly hard.
🥰 It is an amazing feeling to be back in front of students in my classroom. My classroom, like many teachers, is an extension of who I am. It is my home away from home. It feels great to be back doing my job. Having students in-person again feels right even if it is different. I love teaching and this is one step closer to doing what I love with some normalcy.
⏱️ Spend a lot of time working out the schedule for your own classroom. It matters for students virtually. They need to know when to sign-in and when they are on a break. If you take an unexpected bathroom break with the class after “Art” without virtual students knowing, you will have kiddos at home wondering if their technology has gone goofy or they misunderstood the time to sign-in. Buffer transitions 5-10 minutes for virtual students. If we start STEM at 1:00, my virtual students sign-in at 1:10 because I am changing classrooms, getting ready for the next class, and I am welcoming my in-person students. It was extremely beneficial to allow the buffers so everyone is on the same page for when we start our learning together virtually and in-person.
😷 Wearing a mask all day is hard, at first. For me, it was the heat that got to me the most. Students did extremely well throughout the week. It is becoming part of my daily routine. It is important to build in mask breaks. Go outside when the weather is beautiful. It is a great way to get moving and provide relief for yourself and students. Invest in mask lanyards. Kiddos will lay those things anywhere.
💖 It is okay to talk to students about how this sucks. Listen to them as they share what they miss and why they “hate corona”. Agree with them. Then provide the bright sides, i.e. Wednesdays we can stay in pajamas, mask=mask breaks, at least we have some time in our classroom every week together, and we can still keep track of each others pets.
🖋️ Admins, if there is anything you can take off the plates of your teachers, do it! We know you can not take away observations, SLOs, or mandatory testing (thanks USDE) but if there is anything you can do to give them more time or do one thing less please do it! We are working so many hours and any little thing helps!!
💃💃 Rely on your team. You are not alone. Share lessons, assessments, tips, tricks, wine, and tissues. They are the only other people who really understand what you are going through. Share with them, hug them, and love them. One day when we are old, this generation of teachers will have the “Tales of teaching in COVID” and these will be the people you remember.
💘 Make time for family. This will be hard. Your family needs you to.
📅 Remember, this will not be forever. There is no going back, we can only move forward. One day we'll look back at this era of teaching and remember how hard it was but we did it.
🍬 Finally, remember to “Treat Yo’ Self”. You deserve it. You are amazing.
