Insane, Sane?

 This is so hard, you guys. 

I know. I see and hear and watch you all. You are working, so, so hard. 

I am not sure if we acknowledge this enough. This is insanely hard on, like, 50 different levels.  Here is a non-exhaustive list of things that are insane. 

• It is insane to teach online and in person, whether you are doing it at the same time or alternating class periods. 

• It is insane to try to gauge kids’ reactions and expressions behind masks. 

• It is even more insand to try to gauge it with cameras and mics turned off. 

• It is insane to have kids ghost your class. 

• It is insane to try to keep naturally-social yourg human beings 6-feet apart. 

• It is insane to think we have 6 feet space in our classrooms, and to keep them 3 feet apart. 

• It is insane to try to do this with some kids on computers, some on phones and some on no devices. 

• It is insane to ban student devices from classrooms like it’s 2019.

• It is insand to plan for in-person and online lessons like they’re the same. 

• It is insane to grade for in-person and online lessons like they’re the same.

• It is insane to assess for in-person and online lessons like they’re the same.  

• It is insane to think you will sleep or see your friends and family again. 

• It is insane to think that the stress of health and safety doesn’t take a huge toll on you.

• It is insane to think that they

This is all so crazy. And I wish it wasn’t. If I could snap my fingers and become a virologist and magically solve Covid, I would. 

In a heartbeat. Because this sucks for a lot of people, but you all are the ones I worry about. 

So, I have two things for you today. First, huge props and thanks. I know that you’re working your butts off and if you haven’t been thanked profusely lately, please hear my thanks. 

THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

YOU ARE WONDERFUL AND AMAZING AND MAKING A GIANT, HUGE DIFFERENCE!!!!!!!!!!! 

YOU MAY NOT BE PERFECT BUT YOU ARE WHAT YOUR KIDS NEED TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!!  

CHEERS TO YOOOUUUUU!!!!!!!!

Second, I don’t have any magic wand, but I do hear a few small tips of what’s working from some colleagues. Maybe some of the ideas might help? 

If not, take the thanks and run. 

Otherwise, here are the smaller tips and ideas I have been hearing from some of you that seem to be making life slightly easier. 

1. Bond with your kids: Nothing else matters. Most years, you already have that bond “glued” and you have moved on to solid content. This year, between masks, computers, lack of computers, and switching back and forth between computers & face-to-face -- our bonding isn’t quite as strong as it normally is. Keep working on it, and keep being intentional about it and it will make things easier as you go (I promise).  

2. Plan for Online First: I keep hearing this from you guys: it is easier to take an online resource and turn it into an offline resource -- than the other way around. Take the reading offline and make a copy or project it. Don’t take a textbook reading or a paper copy and figure out how to put it on Canvas. 

3. Use The Resources: Your district staff (in secondary SS: Me, Josh, Michelle, Matt, Jess) are working so hard to get every possible resource up on Canvas for you that we possibly can. You are welcome to spend your evenings and weekends searching for and creating your own resources. But if you want some downtime, use our stuff. And if you don’t love our stuff, it’s okay to tell us. We can see what we can find. But we do this, not to mandate stuff, but purely to take some burden off of you.

4. Use Speedgrader in Canvas: If you haven’t used Speedgrader yet, please do. It is, indeed, speedy.  It’s easy to quickly see kids’ work (whether in the text-boxes of an assignment or in an upload) and quick to grade. And then, sync to Focus and you don’t have to do double the work. 

And PS - don’t grade too much (but don’t grade too little). Take it easy-but-fair on yourselves and on the kids!

5. Ask for Help:  Back when we used to use Mac computers, someone sent me something NSFW and I spent an entire planning period trying to figure out how to delete it. If I had asked for help, it would have been gone in under a minute, I would have had a new skill and I would have had my time back. ASK FOR HELP. We are all learning here. This is crazy for all of us and someone has figured out something you need to know that they can solve for you quickly. OR -- they didn’t know it was a problem and they can try to solve it, stat. 

A  reminder. You are amazing. Your kids are learning to love you and you are making a difference. You can handle this by putting one foot in front of the other. You have support when you ask for it. You can do one task at a time. Everyone is struggling (it’s not just you). 

This is a pandemic and teachers all over the country are losing their minds. You are not alone. You can make it through tech problems, mask renegades, virtual meetings, schedule changes, Canvas issues, and the Pumpkin Spice Faculty Meeting.  (Mmm!). Just hang in there and don’t let it get too bad. 

Please know how thankful your kids and parents are (even if they don’t say it. They’re going through some stuff too) and please ask for help when (not if, when) you need it. 

Have  a great rest of the week. This weather, amirite?

-Tracy

Together, Apart?

 A hundred years ago, schools were redesigned from one-room schoolhouses (which functioned a lot like farm houses and small businesses where everyone did what they needed to at wherever level they were) to industrial revolution schools. 

Industrial revolution schools were where children were trained like factory workers -- mainly  because they were being trained to BE factory workers. They sat in rows and the info went into the children as simple input and came out of them on tests as simple output.  Low-level learning, teacher (boss) directed. Not creative or collaborative learning, because that’s not how their workplaces would be when the kids moved up and into the work world. 

And then, in the last decade or two (or more?) we have worked on preparing our kids for a different kind of workforce. For jobs that don’t exist yet. For collaboration and creativity. For solving problems. For flexibility. We have asked kids to use higher order thinking and small groups and project-based thinking.

Suddenly, our classrooms look like plague-versions of those industrial revolutions. Rows, spaced as far as we can get ‘em. Not a lot of collaboration, if any.

And our at home kids are often silent. And invisible. 

What the heck, you guys? Did we go back in time? Are we just training ALL kids to be Amazon drivers? How do we get back to collaboration and problem-solving and creativity?

Here are a couple of ideas to help kids collaborate. Because they are social beings who need to be social (for their mental well-being!)

(PS -- for YOUR mental well being, JUST TRY ONE OF THESE! DON”T OVERDO IT! 

1. In-person Partners: Let’s not get in too deep here. Start slowly. There is no reason to start with anything complicated. We can start with our in-person students in pairs. They do not have to move close to each other. They can either talk (maybe loudly) to one partner in a smaller class or they can use (and clean) white boards and markers to “talk” in a larger class. Turn and talks are not dead. They just require a little finessing. 

2. Online Discussion Boards: They aren’t bad tools, if used well. Ask kids to post “x amount” of times to a prompt -- and have REAL discussions, not just checking a box to get a teacher off their backs. Post something thought provoking, knowing that a quote, a political cartoon, an artwork, a chart/graph or something that has real substance gives kids something to discuss. Feel free to MODEL what a real online discussion should look like (their social media examples are probably poor examples).

 

3. In-person Teacher-led Small Groups:If you’re teaching simultaneously, it’s OKAY to give your online kids a task and a time limit and say “go read this NewsELA reading and meet us back here at 11:15”. Then, sit down in a socially distanced small group of in-person kids and work with them on a specific task like teaching a text-marking strategy or thesis-writing or explaining the corroboration between two documents. You can split your room in half and work with half your room while the other half reads the article, too. (it’s better for the other half if they can use headphones so they aren’t bothered by your group talking). It’s like rotations! 

4. Online small-groups: These are slightly more tricky, but even more necessary for our lonely, at-home kids who are at risk for more mental health issues. You can create a sub-channel on Teams. Next to a Team, click the three dots (the breadcrumbs) and choose “Add a channel”. Then, give your sub-channel a name, like Group 1, Blue Team, or whatever you like. Assign students to a sub-channel (Group 1 will be Deshawn, Emma, Diamond, and Aiden). Show the kids how to click on the sub-channel.

NOW THE HARD PART: SUPERVISING THE CHANNELS! Make sure to pop between your channels at randomized times quickly to make sure conversations are appropriate and that kids are not up to mischief. If kids are up to no-good, remove them immediately and use your school’s discipline procedure. 

5. Rotations: Treat your online students as one or two groups (depending on the number of students). Treat your face-to-face students as one or two groups (depending on the number of students). Then, have them rotate. Give the kids you are not working with a video, reading, computer work, or other independent work while you make your way through the 2, 3, or 4 groups. This helps the kids bond with you and with each other. It helps them see and be seen, hear and be heard. It helps them better understand the content. And it helps you-the-teacher see what content they are or are not getting.  

I know you’re tired of “delivering” all the content in a teacher-centered way. It’s okay to take a break from that and rearrange some learning in a collaborative way. Actually, it’s really good for the kids. 

And if all you can do is a discussion board or a turn and talk, that’s ok too. Do what you can do. I know that this is incredibly hard and that simultaneous teaching is double the preps and double the work. I see you and talk to you all. Maybe this can be a way to stop doing all the teacher-led work and let the kids do more of the thinking and leading? It’s worth a try. 

You don’t work in a factory and you don’t teach in a 20th century version of a factory-prep school. It’s ok to let some collaboration back in as best you can. 

Let me/us know how I/we can help. 

-Tracy

Be Excellent To Each Other, Sleepless

 I see you and I hear you, my colleagues. This is a wild year and things are ... unusual to say the least. As Bill and Ted used to say, “Strange things are afoot at the Circle K. And ... everywhere.”

Which of these Pandemic Professional-educator Profiles are you? 

(PS: I put Pinellas geography in these teachers' pseudonyms merely  for the alliteration of it. I am not referring to any actual person by their location because you are multitude. I could not possibly refer to a single teacher if I wanted to. There are too many of you and anyway, that would be insensitive and rude of me. And for every profile below, there are a dozen or two people who probably fit the description)

Sleepless in St Pete (or anywhere): Trying desperately to keep up with the Most Amazing Lessons Ever (!!), even though they are teaching simultaneously all day and still figuring out Canvas, these teachers are still bringing their A+ game. Since Simultaneous Teaching has been described by many teachers as having “two very different preps at the exact same time” (especially when the Online kids don’t have your in-class materials and your in-class kids don’t have or aren’t allowed to bring devices), Sleepless in St Pete (and her brother, Sleepless in Safety Harbor) are literally working around the clock, working harder and longer hours than they did in the BC times (Before Covid) and are therefore not sleeping. Or eating. Or going for runs. Or hanging out with their friends or families. Or watching TV. They are neglecting everything including their own physical and mental health chasing down the perfect simultaneous lesson for next week. These folks are in danger of burning out by Halloween. 

Lonely at Lake Seminole (or anywhere): Some of our colleagues are working from home. OR some of our colleagues come to school each day only to lock themselves in their classrooms (or their closets?) and not see another live human all day. This is hard to do. And lonely. And weird. To know that some of us are feeling like the students are too close and too many and others really miss those loud, smelly germ factories. And are feeling lonely and forgotten and lost and like an afterthought. It’s hard to collaborate from your living room. And it’s hard to be a part of things when you’re literally apart. 

Digitally Drowning Downtown (or anywhere): Some of us can barely keep up with the tech. Just when we got Teams down in the Spring, they sprung Canvas on us. It’s all we can do to get the calendar set up. To heck with the rest, amirite? Except ... It’s the fourth week of school and everybody is expecting all this cool stuff from my Online classes and I am LOST. I don’t know half of what they’re talking about, let alone how to DO what they’re talking about! Canvas is not easy and I think I still have all that Latin stuff that came on there. And I know it makes my life more complicated. If I just knew how to make things easier on myself, well, things would be easier. Uggghhh. Can’t we just go back to a projector?

North County Newbies (or anywhere) These folks might be new to teaching or new to your school. Everytime they turn around, there’s a new THING they didn’t know about -- a new procedure, a new acronym, a new tradition, a new meeting, a new part of things they didn’t know about -- ON TOP OF learning Canvas and teaching in a pandemic and all the things we are ALL learning together. A lot of veteran teachers say they feel like they’re first year teachers again this year -- but these folks are ACTUALLY NEW. And exhausted. And overwhelmed. 

Loner in Largo (or anywhere): Some of us don’t have time for anyone else. Some of us just need to close our door, take our Teams “off the hook” and get stuff done. There’s a lot to do. Online live teaching is new, simultaneous teaching is a hot mess, and it all takes focused time. We just don’t have time to deal with all these extra people if we are going to get stuff done. If I ask for help, it will take too long. And I’m sure they would do it differently than I want to anyway. Plus, I might look dumb. I’m sure they’re all fine. I’m fine too. I just. Need. To. Get. This. Thing. Done. Can we get a raincheck on this conversation? Cute mask! Bye!

Panicking in Pinellas Park and Palm Harbor (or anywhere): It’s so hard to know where to start. Do I plan for my virtual class first or my face-to-face one? Or do I clean my classroom, again? Do I focus on my standards or the social-emotional learning first? Should I give a traditional assessment or something more project-based ... or just, nah? Can I open a window in here or is it going to rain again? Should I figure out how to have kids collaborate even though the face to face kids can’t get near each other and a bunch of the online kids don’t have cameras or mics? How do I do that? Especially at the same time? Arrgh!!! What materials can I use that my face to face can use Analog and my Online kids can use digitally that doesn’t have me reinventing the wheel every period of every day? And what do I do when schedule changes make me restart all my classruum culture stuff? AAAAAARRRGGGHHHH!!!!! Can I take a day off yet? What if I get Covid and need the days off? 

This is a friendly reminder that 1) the best “dumb” movie in the world is Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure (and no, I haven’t seen the new one, but I will) and 2) Bill and Ted have exactly one piece of wisdom. 

“Be excellent to each other.” 

There is absolutely NO reason to do everything yourself. There is no reason to be lonely. There is no reason to panic alone. There is no reason to go through the Newbie Learning Curve alone. There is no reason to be digitally drowning. 

You have colleagues and they are awesome. (I actually know almost all of the middle school social studies teachers and a whole lot of the high school social studies teachers and I can say that with confidence and authority). Let me say that again. 

You have colleagues. Your colleagues are awesome. (truth)

Please go find your colleagues (either masked and socially distant OR via Teams meeting) and be excellent to each other. Help each other out. 

Don’t have a meeting that is useless. Each of you can bring a problem you need help with. And then... help each other. Many hands make light burdens.  

• If one of you is Sleepless in St Pete (or Safety Harbor), one of you knows a great resource or shortcut to help sleepless work a little less.

• If one of you is Lonely in Lake Seminole, talk to that person while you plan. Bounce your ideas off them. It will make your lesson plans better and will do wonders for the person who doesn't’ see humans all day.   

• If one of you is Digitally Drowning Downtown, one of you knows how to do some of that. Help that person. One trick or process or application at a time. 

• Please find that North County Newbie and help that person. Honestly, it doesn’t matter if you have time or not. Remember when you were new and remember the colleagues who had time for you and the colleagues who didn’t. Some people make a difference in the lives of their colleagues too. 

• The Loner in Largo thinks they can do it all by themselves but honestly, their lives would be a whole lot easier with a “divide and conquer” strategy, too. Fine them and divide some work. You take this task and you take that task and everyone has less to do and our stress levels decrease. And maybe we take a deeper breath tonight and relax more. 

• And our colleague who is Panicking in Pinellas Park and Palm Harbor also needs ... a friend/colleague to talk it out with. Because who can better help you prioritize than someone making the same decisions. Who may have figured out one of the problems. Who may have a good idea. Or who can talk it out with you. 

Be excellent to each other. It’s a little harder now with social distancing and masks and teachers working from home and Teams meetings. But it’s crucial for OUR OWN mental health and professional well-being to find our colleagues and work together, safely. 

In Bill and Ted, Socrates told them “The only true wisdom is knowing that you know nothing”. Bill and Ted replied “That’s us, dude!”. Of course you don’t know nothing, but recognize that you have things to learn from a colleague.  

Find your colleagues and work together. Find the ones you like and the ones you need specific skills from and the ones who need something from you. Socially distant or virtually, but don’t let this slide. It is so important to your stress levels and to your overall wholeness. 

And ... you can always call us here at the district SS office if you need us. We are happy to help with the panic, digital needs, overachievers, newbies, and EVERYONE! 

This is hard. Don’t let anyone tell you it isn’t. Make it easier on yourself by letting many hands make light work. And then, enjoy a virtual happy hour to celebrate actually having some free time when that happens (hey, it will!)

As always, I love to hear from you! Email me at newmantr@pcsb.org

-Tracy