Creating an Environment Conducive to Learning
“Mrs. Essalat, you worry too much.”
Oh, how many times have I heard this?! Being an educator for over 14 years and a worrywart since I left the womb, my throw-caution-to-the-wind Seventh Grade students used to love to tease me. Some of my most memorable points of panic:
“Don’t lean back in your chair—you’ll crack your head open.”
“Don’t run in the classroom—you’ll either trip yourself or someone else.”
“Pens are for paper, not for people—don’t let that ink absorb into your skin.”
“Don’t throw a pencil across the room—you’ll poke someone’s eye out.”
“Playing basketball with a Jolly Rancher in your mouth—you’ve got to be kidding me!”
And, of course, my all-time favorite:
“No running with scissors!”
But, I mean, how can you blame me for being concerned?
A student sliced their finger wide open one day trying to cut a pencil with a pair of craft scissors. Another, while walking backwards on a school trip to Yosemite, broke their ankle and had to head home early. Countless kiddos would collide into each other at recess, use Sharpies to tattoo their hands and kneecaps, go bounding out to the play yard after cramming three Starbursts into their mouths at once. And don’t get me started on the number of erasers that would go flying across the room.
Kids will be kids. Believe me, I get it. Pushing the boundaries of safe play and goading me into having a heart attack are all part of the developmental process of exploration. But, as we are staring down the barrel into a school year unlike any that we have encountered in our lifetimes, those with a propensity for apprehension—like me—are running at an all-time high.
It’s not so much my fear of getting sick, though believe me, I think that is something that weighs heavily on the minds of educators everywhere. No—it’s far more than that.
It’s the worry about whether my students will get sick.
It’s the fear that they will, in turn, spread the virus to their family members, especially grandparents or older relatives.
It’s the concern over logistics—one way hallways, fewer desks, cohorts of students on alternating days, recess and lunch indoors with no shared supplies.
It’s my trepidation over the cost of opening under such strict (but necessary!) guidelines—1:1 technology and textbooks; revamped cleaning supplies, staffing, and protocols; hand-washing stations; thermometers and an isolation area for students who are sick.
Compound that with the anvil that is sitting on my chest over the thought of Kindergarteners not being able to learn how to share by collectively pouring through a basket of plastic dinosaurs; Middle School students navigating what would normally be a collaborative art project, now done solo. Classroom birthday parties—stifled; field trips—offline; morning assembly and first day of school festivities—poof! How will my students know when I am beaming with pride over a concept they have finally mastered, or laughing out loud at a joke they tell, when my emotions and facial expressions are veiled behind a face shield and goggles and mask? What do I do when they are sad and so desperately need a hug? No handshakes, no high fives.
At first I thought a wave and a wink would suffice—I’m not so sure anymore.
All of these hallmarks of the rich vitality that exists beyond the textbooks and homework assignments of an academic community are put on the back burner until who knows when, and I worry that, when we are able to finally regain normalcy, we will have forgotten what those traditions even look like.
I don’t think that there are many people who are misaligned around the fact that we want to see kids back in school. That is a sentiment that seems to be universal. Students and teachers working together in the same space, sharing, in real time, questions, answers, and anecdotes. We teachers know that we are the most impactful when we are right there, by our students’ sides, helping them navigate through a Math concept, decode the vocabulary in a novel, discuss the evolution of characters or plots in reading. We want to watch how our youngest students learn to grip a pencil and begin forming their letters.
We want to be there.
We need to be there.
But, the worrier in me has to ask at what risk are we willing to get what we want? Where, in the narrative of reopening schools and reducing funding for those that remain at a distance, is the dialogue around the health and wellbeing of the teachers and staff who run these academic institutions? Educators are essential workers.
The stance on reopening schools has to take into account how to protect teachers. How to effectively disseminate the PPE, funding, and training necessary to keep teachers and students healthy and virus-free. The Kaiser Family Foundation has said that “nearly 1.5 million teachers are at a greater risk of serious illness if infected with the Coronavirus.” That’s one in four teachers.
Big. Time. Worry.
The CDC doesn’t have the answers. The Department of Education doesn’t have the answers. I don’t have the answers. But, what I do know, is that we must, must, must take into account the health and wellbeing of our teachers and educational staff as we talk about the safety of students. Our teaching staff has to feel equipped to handle the COVID crisis within their classrooms. They must feel protected by the gear that we provide to them to ensure that the virus has to fight hard to make its way into their bodies. They need to know that they are essential and that we will care for them, like we care for our students—giving our all to ensure that they remain the vital lifeline to our future they always have been.
So, what’s a worrier like me, and maybe like you, to do? Well, for starters, we need to model for our kids the bravery it takes to overcome fear. They will look to us to set the example, the tone, the courage to forge into the actual unknown. We have to put one foot in front of the other and carry on.
As an educator and administrator, if I am given the green light to open under a hybrid model this Fall:
I need to buckle down and get to work implementing the safest learning environment I can for my students and teachers while they are on campus. And, when they are at home, I need to make sure that I am bridging the digital divide—checking in on them with frequency while they work from a distance, making sure that their access to reliable wi-fi and technology is sufficient.
I need to educate my students, their families, and my fellow colleagues on how to best protect themselves and one another from getting sick and potentially spreading illness to those in our community. I need to seize this teachable moment as a lesson in benevolence and compassion and empathy, all the while giving everyone practical tools and strategies for staying safe.
I need to partner with the parents and guardians of my students, maintaining honest and transparent communication to ensure that, if their child is sick, they will honor the process in place for addressing that-- no matter the inconvenience that comes from having to leave work early or stay at home altogether to allow their student to heal.
I need to work with leaders of surrounding academic communities—to share any insight that I have been given and gain from their perspectives, too. We need to collaborate when it comes to finding and stocking PPE supplies on our respective campuses and create a workable schedule that takes into account the best way for our students to learn and our parents/guardians to work.
I need to get creative—how can school continue to be the rich, immersive experience that it always has been? Can I run morning announcements via YouTube and have Art class via Zoom? If this extends into Halloween, can we do a virtual parade or costume contest online? How can I get the vibrance of our annual Scholastic Book Fair to translate from behind a screen? I have to make these traditions come to life even if they look far different than usual.
That’s what I need to do.
But, there’s more. Together, you and I, need to keep reassuring our kids that we are protecting them and working to create an environment as conducive to learning as possible. Because we cannot let COVID, or any other hurdle, get in the way of their academic growth and development. Not to be hyperbolic, but their very future depends on this moment, right now.
Erma Bombeck once said, “Worry is like a rocking chair: it gives you something to do but never gets you anywhere.”
There’s plenty to do to get ready for whatever the Fall has in store, and it is going to take a village to get our kids, our schools, and our routines up and running. So, let’s stop rocking and start moving.
