Crisis Learning

Ok…Let’s call it what it is! We are not remote learning. We are not E-learning. We are not homeschooling. We are Crisis Learning. Since mid-March, when the efforts to flat-line the pandemic of COVID-19 cases occurred, our education system has been thrust into a methodology for which we were totally unprepared: Crisis Learning.  I have heard this term floating around and as I ponder it, I realize that this is definitely the type of education that we are currently pursuing.

 I feel it is important to define this, not because I am looking for excuses, but because it gives a clearer picture of our current situation. Also it should help to define our goals a little more realistically.  I want to take a look at what Crisis learning entails and hopefully this will encourage you to continue doing the incredible job that I know you are already doing. 

1.  The first thing to keep in mind is that Crisis learning was no one’s choice. You see, remote learning and homeschooling are choices that a person makes for a particular educational path. You have probably heard people say this:

 “I am going to take some online college classes because that fits my schedule better.”

Or this:  “We have decided as a family that, for this season in our children’s lives we are going to educate them at home.”  These are choices that people make. 

What we are currently doing is no one’s choice. Teachers and administrators didn’t choose it. Parents didn’t choose it and students certainly did not choose it.  This is important to keep in mind because it gives us some perspective. No one began the year thinking,” I wonder how I could effectively teach Fourth grade from home?” This never crossed our minds. But now, here we are. This is the path we have been given and we must walk it in as positive a manner as possible. It’s a huge leap to go from a class meant to be delivered in person to one that is totally online. Which brings me to my next point.

2. It’s a crisis…give yourself some grace.  We are doing our best to educate under some pretty tricky circumstances.  I must say, however, that I have never been more proud of my profession than I have been over these last five weeks.  Educators have risen to the challenge and are delivering the best lessons possible under these circumstances.  The creativity, love and compassion have been second to none. 

But I talk to a lot of you who feel that you are not doing such a great job.  Maybe you do not feel like you have enough support, are overwhelmed by software tutorials or maybe you are just holding the bar a little too high during this time.  Whatever, the case, you need to give yourself grace during this unusual season. There is a lot to learn and things may not always go as planned. Speaking of which….

3.  Everything takes longer in a crisis.  We know this from lines in the grocery store and we know this from our new way of educating.  The communications to parents, guardians, students, administrators, and other teachers is overwhelming.  Grading is different and it seems like it is taking me longer. Reconfiguring my Zoom meeting settings is a process. Transferring my class video recordings to file folders that my students can access is getting faster, but is still an extra step in my daily routine. Setting up tests is still a challenge and therefore takes much more time than I would like.  For my General classes, I have begun doing shorter, but more frequent quizzes.  I have discovered how to prepare multiple choice questions so that the program will grade the quizzes for me.  This is nice.  Of course, just last week, I had a class open a multiple choice quiz and they said, “Hey! Are we supposed to be seeing the answers?” Sigh!  I really thought I had that software worked out so that they students could not see the answers. Well, score one point for honesty and then it’s back to more tutorial videos for me! 

4. The last and probably the most problematic point is that students who were already in crisis are now in panic mode. You have probably noticed by now that you have some students that are MIA.  They simply have not shown up in a virtual classroom, despite phone calls and emails to parents and students, alike.  As I have thought through the students who are missing, I have realized that most of them have something in common: they were in crisis before the pandemic.  MIAs are ones that have struggled with anxiety or depression, have difficult home situations, have struggled with behavior during classes or were totally apathetic towards school in general. Now that an effort has to be made to attend virtually, these students are not able to or are not desiring to make the effort. This remains a difficult hurdle. My advice is to just keep pouring in to these students through your communications; even if you are not hearing anything back from them.  There will at least be a trail of digital bread crumbs showing them that someone cares about them and misses them when they are not where you expect them to be.

I hope these points give you some validation that you are not in this alone and that it is a difficult situation for everyone attempting to teach right now.

I would love to hear from you!  Do you have some wisdom or maybe a funny story to share?  Leave a comment in the section below!

Be on the lookout for my next post where I will talk about some ways to motivate students and put some fun into our Crisis Learning. I am also working on tips for classroom management during virtual classes.