Appreciation letter to my teacher colleagues, my students, and their families:
Today marks the day when I finished off my first synchronous semester as a high school Physics and Chemistry teacher in the nation’s capital. Besides feeling mixed emotions for having completed this first semester, I find myself reflecting upon these past twenty weeks and everything my colleagues, my students, their families, and I have had to face.
Our nation and the rest of the world have experienced the disruption of a pandemic that has killed millions of people and has affected millions of lives. As you know, the majority of teachers had to adapt to a virtual environment. Students had to meet their classmates over a conferencing digital platform. Parents had to personify an at home learning instructor without the tools and resources to do so.
Ever since schools in New York, where I taught my first year, closed in March a lot of us thought it would be temporary. I left my classroom clean and organized but definitely habitable for when I would return to continue teaching conservation of linear momentum. Little did I know, I would be staying in a 150 square foot with a high ceiling room, located in the middle of one of the biggest cities in the world, looking at a screen ten hours a day for the remaining school year without seeing my students. There was almost no momentum.
I switched schools for my second year of teaching, which meant relocating to the nation’s capital. Back in July, we had been told by Mayor Bowser that schools would reopen in person on August, 31st. I signed a lease and moved to the capital hoping to meet new faces and be back in the classroom. About two weeks before school started, the Mayor announced that we would be back on November 9th. However, since then the dates kept on changing. The second semester starts on Monday, February 1st, with a hybrid learning environment. I am supposed to go once a week to teach in person to two students while the rest of my students will still remain virtual.
Two weeks before the school year started, the three physics teachers including myself started video conferencing twice a week to plan for the year. We cringed at the expectations and standards from the district on the physics’ curriculum. These were created thinking we would be in the classroom soon. We decided not to worry about it until we had to, and realized that those decisions were out of our control. It was the best decision the three of us could have made.
The first week came faster than a blink of an eye, and I couldn’t wait any longer to virtually meet the new cohort of students. My colleagues and I did so much research on using digital tools to engage students from day one. We found different strategies to motivate them and to virtually create collaborative spaces for them to participate and share their ideas from their home desk, couch, or bed. One of our goals was to create a safe and comfortable space for them despite the challenges posed by the pandemic. We also read hundreds of articles on how to promote a culturally responsive classroom and on implementing social-emotional learning strategies. We thought we were ready.
The first week of classes I hosted a Careers in Physics panel for my two honors classes. I invited some of my college professors, college classmates, and other physics colleagues to talk about the field and share their valuable experiences, and to talk about the field’s promising opportunities across job industries. I wanted to show my students the privilege and the impact of taking a physics class during their high school experience. I wanted to expand their views and their perspectives of what their future could look like. I was inspired and motivated to show them opportunities are endless when you work hard and learn from others along the way. Unfortunately, some of my students decided to alter the intended outcome of the panel by disrespectfully changing their virtual background to a pornographic scene. That was a strike. Not a good one.
Although this incident was troublesome, we had productive conversations that made my students reflect on their actions. Every day I worked hard to earn the respect of my students by asking simple questions such as how’s your week going? What’s one thing you’re most thankful for today? What’s one thing you’ve been putting aside and want to accomplish this week? I also earned their respect by showing myself as another human being going through the pandemic. I wanted them to know that every person is struggling in some way, and that we needed to be there for each other. We were all learning on the fly. I even talked about wearing pjs for my bottoms and a nice blouse. I showed them my cat storing lots of potential energy as it was gracefully napping while I was working hard to provide for its food. I also had my students go around their living space to show me an example of a series and a parallel circuit. Two students kept sending me videos making observations of their quarantined surroundings and explaining the physics behind these. That must have been how Newton felt when the great plague occurred, I kept thinking to myself.
I acknowledged those times we were in the classroom to sympathize with them on how much I missed having in person classes. I wanted to let them know they were not alone in feeling that way. I shared stories about my encounters with physics, including the time I was biking to school and slipped with black ice. I told them that when I got to school I decided to have a pop quiz about finding the coefficient of kinetic friction between the ground and the rear wheel of my bike. My current students couldn’t help but to smile and ask whether I had been ok or if I had had any injuries.
As soon as I dived into our class content, the students began turning their cameras off and being unresponsive. Not to mention when I assigned them an asynchronous task. I couldn’t blame them for losing their attention after I had tried so hard to keep them looped in. This was a reality that none of us had experienced before. It was normal that most of my students were having a hard time adjusting to a virtual environment which creates many challenges to the learning process. Back in our biweekly discussions, my colleagues and I arrived at the conclusion that this would be our chance to trial and error. We couldn’t expect perfection but we could try our best to keep our students engaged while providing them with resources to learn and give them a positive experience. Maybe the students would see that we were all trying to figure it out, and perhaps, we could see better results and higher engagement levels later on.
The following weeks, we reinvented the wheel by adding GIFS that depicted physics concepts. We started running mini scientific methods as we advanced on each unit. At the beginning everything was going well. Students who made great observations would participate more often and those who didn’t participate as much, still benefited from their classmates’ contributions. It was also an opportunity for us teachers to catch any misconceptions they had of the scientific phenomena we were learning about. Overall, we were getting positive feedback from the students. However, once we introduced the physical principle and the mathematical relationships, they would disappear one by one once again. We kept blaming ourselves.
In less than two weeks of trial and error, we noticed students were doing their best during the synchronous sessions that went approximately an hour long each day, our days a week based on our district’s guidelines for the fall. However, the submission rates were about 40%. Most students were not doing any work outside of our class. We surveyed them and got, what seems to be honest, responses on how they were getting assigned multiple homework per class a week. A third of them even admitted that they were not worried about submission deadlines as a result of the district’s no late penalty. We reached out to parents, students, and even the science department. Everyone was having the same issue. Nobody knew what to do about it.
We talked to our students and heard their needs. The district added a grade code which got rid of zeroes while the students turned in any missing assignments. As for my colleagues and I, we decided on giving the students one performance task a week to alleviate some of the asynchronous work while still getting the most out of our live lessons. These changes didn’t do much. We still had 40% submission rates.
Winter in the northeast brought its cold breeze and the students’ motivation was nowhere to be seen. We got texts from students saying they were abroad, sick, in the car, babysitting, or working. A few other students were definitely not mentally present during our live sessions when called on.
Students had zero energy. We, grownups, had no energy, yet we had to pull all the tricks to maintain them engaged. I gave extra points for turning on their camera. I played games, played music, and ran three minute meditations. I even had them pity me; I was going through something so I told them I was having a bad week and that it would make me feel a bit less depressed if they completed the tasks and actively participated during the synchronous sessions. I didn’t know what else to do.
Nobody knew it would be December and we would still be teaching/learning from home. My colleagues and I had to learn to read a virtual audience based on the amount of digital cues the students gave us. The students had to overcome fears to speak in front of an audience they hadn’t been with before. They had to adapt to let us into their homes we saw through a small screen. The parents had to hold their children accountable for their performance, dedicate more time out of their day to check in and help, and develop a trusting relationship with their children.
The first semester is over. A new one begins in less than a blink of an eye. I will continue to support this new cohort in any way I can, so I can maximize their engagement and submissions rates. I will also continue trying to either succeed or err and learn from it. That’s the beauty and the pain of teaching. My goals are to have my students walk away with critical thinking skills, with an inspiration for asking questions that take them places, and with a curiosity to ask why things happen the way they do in their surroundings. Only time will tell and I am hopeful it will happen.
It is unclear what's going to happen with this hybrid school system. There will be many concerns and challenges as well. Many people disagree on going back, especially some teachers that I’ve talked to so far. The only thing I am sure of is that my colleagues and I will continue doing our best. We want students to feel safe, loved, and cared for. We want to instill valuable skills through physics so they can become better citizens of our society.
To the two physics colleagues who had my back through a screen for the past seventeen weeks, I am the luckiest teacher to have you and I truly cannot wait to meet you in person and be able to laugh it all out. To all my students, thank you for challenging me and for letting me learn and grow by your side. Being a teacher is not easy, but this pandemic has shown me that there is always a way to make a difference and still build relationships with others while being physically distant. We don’t know what tomorrow will bring, but I am excited and motivated for the adventures and challenges ahead.
P.S:
These are some anecdotes highlighting a few of the circumstances a teacher encounters on the daily. A lot of these give us little control of what we can do. Many show the reality of many and the disparities in our societies. These could also be hilarious if you wish to look at it that way.
Student A joins class 3 months later. They share they’ve been working this whole time and that they would start joining class for the remaining of the semester. I haven’t seen that student since that day. (Joke's on me, I guess.)
Student B claims to be a powerful investor being followed by the (Should I believe him?)
Student C joins class after 3 months and ever since they speak on the phone for the whole class period.
Parent A of a student D demands I send them a list of what assignments their student is missing. I send them both the parent and the student an email with explicit instructions and links to find the tools needed. Student D only submitted 2 out of 5 assignments and they were the wrong assignments. (Somebody please explain why this happens)
Student E was giving me an attitude and disrespectfully interrupting me. I kept asking them to listen until their parent started yelling at them and putting them in their place . I FINALLY felt like one parent was on my side. (THANK YOU PARENT!)
Parent B sets up random calls with me to discuss their student’s progress and conversation always turns into a tele-therapy where I am the therapist. (I wish they knew how old I am and that I truly have no idea on how to help them. I do listen, and sometimes is all one needs, someone who listens)
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