A Day For Me

So yesterday I said I was going to put some things together and share with you today. Well, I didn’t do that. I took the day for me.

I woke up this morning and had my morning coffee. After that I had some more coffee. I then shared a video and math puzzles on my classroom Instagram account. I decided to share these because we are in a no instruction period in our state. Nothing can be required, so these are just fun things to do why being at home.

After that, I went for a run at the park. It was a great run and I stayed my distance from others. I like running in neighborhoods and streets because there aren’t as many people, I think I’ll stick with that and avoid the park.

After enjoying some lunch I sat on the Beck deck and enjoyed the sunshine and warm weather. Last week during spring break (Can I call it that?) we didn’t have nice weather. I did some reading and listened to music. By the way, last week I discovered the Hotel Poolside station on Amazon Music and I am not disappointed.

So now, I’m enjoying the rest of the day as our governor has called for all 19 counties with positive cases of COVID-19 to stay home for 21 days and closed all restaurants (except to-go orders) and businesses with close contact to close. Why didn’t he make this for the whole state? I wish I knew. There are some things about politicians that I just don’t understand. (Well, I do, but this blog is not for that.)

Tomorrow I will finish up the math tasks that I want to share with you that students can do at home. Some of them I adapted from other sources, some of them I created myself. I hope to use them when we start our distance learning. That announcement should be made tomorrow when the state board of education has their meeting.

Tomorrow will be a new adventure as my significant other will begin working from home. The biggest difference is I can’t be loud and blast music. It will be an adjustment, but I also know I’m late to the game of sharing a house while working from home. Boy things sure are different now.

Well, I guess I should finish up this post and go back to my day for me. What are you experiencing during this pandemic? Are you going crazy? Are you doing alright? Leave some comments below!

SO. MANY. EMOTIONS!

Well, it’s a Monday . . . I think.

I’ve been home for a week now. This past week has played with my emotions so many times. One second I’m fine and making plans to reach students and help them learn. The next, I’m told that we cannot have any instruction until April 6. That took me down. Hard. Then I looked into it more and I have ways to reach them and help with “things to do” if they want.

However, it’s not just school emotions.

I miss people. I am such a people person and I have seen the following people in person. (Keeping my distance of course.) People at the grocery story and my partner. Well, I guess last Monday and Tuesday I was able to go to Orange Theory Fitness before it closed, so I did see people there. Other than that, it’s been a lonely week.

Yes, I chat on social media, but boy is it not the same as being together in person. I know I’m not the only one struggling with this, but it is amazing how it hits you. One of the things that I’ve been thinking about is how some days you just want to be home and relax. You want to ignore everyone and pretend you’re the only person on the planet and stay home.

However, when pretty much everything is closed and you’re being told to stay home . . . you don’t want to. Are there others like this? The fact you’re being told “no” makes you want to get out and go places?

Anyway, keep safe out there! I’m working on a couple of things that I hope to have up and ready to go tomorrow. I’ll write about it as well as video about it.

Are These Funny?

Over the past couple of days we’ve seen an increase of the number of schools that are going to remote learning (temporary or permanent for year). Along with those are a lot of tweets and memes that people find funny, but are they?

For instance, parents sharing how they have been teaching their child for an hour and feel teachers need to be paid more. Some are looking at this as funny, but others see it as honest truth.

Some teachers have shared about having the objective posted on the refrigerator or be ready for a pop-in observation. Is this funny to teachers? Sure, but it’s part of the job. People in other careers have expectations and for their jobs. You don’t see people posting about employees needing to wash their hands before returning to work. Well, maybe people are posting those, but my feeds are full of teachers.

I guess what I’m getting at is that yes, we do have expectations for our jobs as teachers. However, in this time, should we be joking about them publicly while the country is in turmoil? I think back to when Oklahoma had the teacher walkout two years ago. Some people would share things during that time that I felt made the public look at the profession in a bad way.

Now parents, yes, we do have to post the objective of what your child is learning each day. Studies have shown that when students know what they are learning, they are more focused and learn the topic better. Is that something to joke about? Among other teachers, yes, because it helps us remember what to do as well as do our job effectively. Do you need to post the objective? Well, that’s up to you.

Do we has teachers deal with student behavior and having students talk back and get disciplined? Yup, we do. But I have secret for you . . . parents have those difficulties, too. We all deal with things differently.

With that being said, I know many are looking at the humor of our jobs and how different our lives are and I’m glad to see these things. I just hope everyone understands that this is humor to help ourselves and not a way to bash others. Just think about it for a second. Teachers lives because easier and more difficult at the same time. We don’t have to go into work, we don’t have to deal with behaviors of 30 different students at once, but we have planning to do and have to figure out teaching in a different way.

Remember though, parents have now gone from dropping their child off for 6-7 hours a day to now have them at home 24 hours a day. There is no break for them. Be kind. Be supportive. Show them how important their role as a parent is. Stop heckling them.

Now . . . where did my book go? I’m gonna go read.

So Many Thoughts. . .

Well, as the world knows, we are definitely in an unprecedented time as many students are about to go into online learning. I have a few pieces of advice for all teachers and parents as you plan and embark in this new “normal”.

For Teachers:

• Please remember that parents are not teachers. You cannot expect them to teach their child the way that you would teach them. With that in mind, remember that you cannot expect them to do an hour’s worth of work each day for you subject. It is just not possible.
• Also, remember, that some students do not have the same technology access that other students do. Not everything can be online, you need to have alternatives. What does that look like? Well, I think it will depend on your district’s plan on getting work to students and back to you.
• DO NOT GRADE EVERYTHING! You can’t grade everything that students do. You will need to learn how to give feedback for students to make corrections to help them read their best effort before you can put a grade on it.
• Teachers, you need to work with others to build project based learning items. Find a way to get all subjects into a project and not just worksheets/practice for one subject. Can you do a project for every single standard? Probably not. So then you need to look and figure out which standards are more important than others.

For Parents/Guardians:

• I’m sorry that you are now having to continue your job (in person or remote) and make sure your child is still learning. Is this the best? Of course not, that’s why we started having schools so that parents did not have to do everything.
• Do not be afraid to let the teachers of your students know if they are assigning too much to do. This is a new world for teachers as well and they may not fully understand how to make the right balance of work for your child at home. Also, not all families are created equal. If your child needs to care for others or possibly find a job to help in this difficult time, school may not be the priority in your house.
• If you need help with your child understanding something, reach out to your teacher. I hope that districts are figuring out a way for teachers to be available online or in person to help your child understand information.

There are so many things that are going to be different for everyone. At this time, we need to remember that we are all in a world that was different 6 months ago. We all need to understand that we are all under pressure and doing something different than what we are used to. This is a time to work together and to make a plan. This is not a time to place blame and accuse others for something they didn’t do.

I hope to build resources for you over the next few days/weeks to help you out. In the mean time, do a search for project based learning and how to teach online. There are so many people out there like Ginger Lewman and Richard Byrne ready to help you out!