An Open Letter to COVID-19 From an Overly Honest Teacher
As a teacher and school principal, COVID-19 has completely changed the landscape of education as I know it. It has forced us, as teachers, to contradict ourselves by prioritizing screen time over collaboration or human connection. I wasn’t looking for another challenge. Working to shape the next generation into kids of kindness and empathy was a big enough challenge on its own.
Dear COVID, I’m Angry.
I’m certainly not the only one, as I know you are the recipient of hate mail from the masses. Countless emails, texts, and Tweets, all espousing complete and utter disdain for you and all that you stand for.
As a teacher and school principal, you have completely changed the landscape of education as I know it. You have forced myself and my fellow teachers to do what we have challenged our students to strive against—working from a distance, from behind the filter of a screen. Communicating with one another outside of the physical space we find so essential to emotional, tactile, interconnected development.
You have robbed us of the chance to watch friendships bloom, witness moments of spontaneous kindness unfold, delight in the jokes, antics, and banter between ourselves and our students, each moment so essential to our craft. We teach our children that humans are not meant to live in isolation, but instead, to thrive in community with one another. COVID—you are really getting in the way of that.
Sure, you’ve challenged us to get creative—to roll up our sleeves and dig deep to find ways to keep our students engaged. We’ve had to rely on apps to collect assignments, YouTube videos to instruct students about Art projects, Zoom workouts to prevent them from developing habits of the sedentary. Sure, an iPad and a stylus can help a child form letters, and digitally, we can witness the results of that, but it’s not the same as us inhabiting the same classroom, the same air, the same shared elation when that letter formation evolves into the crafting of a sentence, a paragraph, an essay. Emailed certificates are standing in for the ceremonial celebration and validation that comes from a job well done, and virtual stickers and “thumbs up” on a conference call just don’t have the same oomph.
I speak for myself when I say—I wasn’t looking for another challenge, COVID. Working to shape the next generation into humans of kindness, compassion, empathy, and determination was a big enough challenge on its own.
But now, you’re asking me to do that from afar, all while trying to find ways to get my kids to show up to daily Zoom meetings, hoping that they are being honest and forthright when they tell me that, “Of course I am taking notes!” and “Yep! I am following along with the book we are reading together.” You and I both know, COVID, that you’ve lifted the veil of accountability that was and remains so essential in my classroom. I can only do so much from behind a screen in terms of making sure that the eyes I see glued to the camera as we are speaking are not really gazing just beyond to their cell phone while Instagram stories run continuously in the background and capture their attention far more than my Vocabulary lesson from a distance ever could.
I’m mad at you, COVID, because you have placed an incredible burden on my students’ parents.
The hardworking moms, dads, and guardians who now have multiple jobs to balance. While I have always relied upon teamwork with my families, now more than ever, we are calling upon them to step-in in our absence. To not only continue doing that which commands their attention from 9-5 each day, but now, to also play teacher, counselor, referee, coach, mentor, mediator, nurse, and playmate. You’ve robbed many of my parents and guardians of their incomes, their jobs ripped out from under them with no way to prepare. And, what you’ve stripped away in terms of professional fulfillment, you’ve instead replaced with the worry, and fear, and anguish, and heartache that comes with wondering how they are going to keep their families afloat until you go away.
Go away, COVID. Can’t you take a hint? You’re not welcome here, or anywhere, and it’s time for you to leave. Don’t worry, you will long be remembered, though you’ll likely find yourself mounted on the wall of infamy with the likes of those who came before you and sought to destroy the human spirit. The human connection. The collective human voice that bands together and rises out of the ashes of your failed attempt to destroy us.
So, COVID, I’m writing to tell you that we will not be deterred. Sure, it will remain difficult and unideal to educate from afar. It will not cease to break my heart each time I have to send an email to a student instead of chatting with them in the school hallway, or stare blankly at a virtual facade of them in lieu of their actual face on a conference call. It will continue to boil my blood at each opportunity lost, news of each family that struggles, each report of another who has succumbed to your wrath.
But, we will keep teaching. We will keep creating. We will keep striving to expand the hearts and minds of our students everywhere. We will keep going because, as teachers, that’s what we do. We don’t give up when it’s hard; we don’t throw in the towel when a hurdle is tossed in our lane.
We rise, we jump, we pivot, we persist, and we teach our students to persist, too. And, no amount of social distancing is ever going to change that.
Cold regards,
Meredith
Four Ways to Help Your Kids Cope With Change and Uncertainty
Sheltering-in-place is bringing out the best and worst of all of us: teachers, parents, and kids alike. Kids especially do not have the emotional experience to understand how to navigate change this dramatic and are looking to the adults in their life to learn how to cope. While you may feel frustrated, anxious or short-tempered because you are coping yourself, how you handle this quarantine will inevitably shape how your kids will navigate this and any future life obstacles. As a teacher, I have helped many kids and parents navigate change and here are 4 of the most effective tools.
As you are sheltering-in-place, it is likely that you are seeing your child at both their very best and worst. Pancake making dance parties spiral into catastrophic meltdowns. Discussions between siblings devolve into the kinds of battles that Marvel movies are made of. You find yourself teaching the best math lesson that has ever been taught when suddenly, and for no known reason, your child is screaming at you to stop ruining their life.
Sound familiar?
Believe me—as teachers, we see and feel this daily. Maybe the meltdown comes because of a change in routine. Maybe it’s because a student (or, three!) has had enough writing for the day. Perhaps it’s because they would just rather be anywhere else than where they are.
And, in today’s COVID climate, it could simply be that they miss the way life used to be.
A sentiment I think we can all relate to.
But, as hard as this new world circumstance is on you and me, it’s even harder on your child. You and I have weathered plenty of storms in our lives—job changes, breakups, illnesses, the loss of friendships—the list goes on. And, while sheltering-in-place and isolating ourselves from our usual social interactions is entirely unchartered territory for all of us, as adults we have access to a memory bank full of coping strategies to draw upon, while your child does not. Perhaps they have lived through divorce or grieved the loss of a grandparent, either of which is clearly jarring and not to be discounted, but the absolute disconnection they are now experiencing is entirely new.
As a teacher, I always anticipated the difficulty that came with routine changes. I knew that when I swapped class schedules, changed my hair color, or altered the date of a class party, there would inevitably be backlash from a handful of kiddos. I still have former students who call me by my maiden name because the married moniker just doesn’t feel right to them.
I tend to find change jarring and can absolutely relate to resistance.
But, as the captain of my classroom, I knew that how I reacted and responded to change—whether I saw it coming or not—would mold and shape how my students perceived it.
If I let them see me sweat, meltdown, throw a fit or lose my cool, then I was modeling to them that they should do the same.
Now, let me be clear:
Is it okay to cry? Yes.
Is it acceptable to be unhappy and frustrated when we are thrown a curveball? Definitely.
Is anger an appropriate feeling when things don’t go as we intended them to? Surely.
Are we going to have moments when we are anxious, impatient, and flat out annoyed? Absolutely! We are human after all!
Our kids benefit from seeing vulnerability as a necessary part of healthy communication and resolution.
But we also need to be acutely aware that we are our kids’ point of reference. They mirror what we do, what we say, and how we say it.
How you are handling this quarantine is shaping how your kids will navigate this and any future life obstacles.
Here are a few ways that I approach change and crisis with my students:
Talk about it.
I’ve never shied away from using “I” language to talk to students about feelings. “I am feeling angry”; “I am feeling disappointed.” I always follow those statements with specific reasons for my feelings. Maybe it’s frustration over a poor choice that they made. Maybe I am irritated because a lesson that I was really excited about landed like a lead balloon. Even now in the COVID crisis, I am honest—“I am really struggling with the fact that we’re not in school together. I miss everyone and our daily routines.”
When talking with your kids, use “I” language so that they learn how to attach emotion-specific words to their feelings. Coach them in qualifying those mindsets so that you can understand where they are coming from and respond specifically.
Take a time out.
So often we want to be the loudest voice in the room—have the last word. But, when it comes to frustrations hitting a boiling point, less is more. There have been many scenarios when I would need to address a student’s reaction or response to a particular situation, but instead of us both approaching it fired up and angry, I would give us time to level out.
Some scenarios need to be tackled in the moment (blatant disrespect or physical aggression, for example), but if you are both coming to a head over a grammar assignment or their lack of initiative on a math worksheet, take a break. Give them time to get up and move around, and give yourself time to breathe. Likely you are both more tense than usual due to confinement and overwhelm. So throw on a three song playlist, and agree to come back together to discuss feelings when it has ended. Believe me, those 10-minutes can and should make all the difference.
When in doubt, write it out.
Sheltering-in-place is giving us all a valuable gift of time. Sure, it may feel like it’s never ending, but it is a great opportunity to have your kids put pen to paper and write! Command of the written word has slowly diminished with the onslaught of abbreviations and emojis. Have your child keep a daily journal of their quarantine experiences. Have them write about what they’ve been doing, how they are feeling about it, things that they want to remember when this is all behind us.
Teachers often use journals as a way to read and respond to kiddos who are less apt to vocalize their feelings. Perhaps you should try this strategy if your child is having a hard time communicating their thoughts to you in conversation—write notes back and forth to one another. It is a great way to bridge the uncomfortable.
Make the “new” an adventure.
If you project excitement, your kids will follow—even if it takes some coaxing. If I sprang a pop quiz on my students, I would soothe the anxiety of those who didn’t like surprises by making it a “lolli”pop quiz, and give a Tootsie Roll to everyone as they completed the task. Find some way to make each day feel new and exciting—take turns having each person at home make lunch for the other members of the household, for example. Hide prizes within chores. Use Jolly Ranchers, stickers, or smelly spots from lip gloss as rewards for getting academic tasks done throughout the homeschool day. The more excited you are about this whole debacle, the more your kids will be willing to acquiesce to change and even disappointment long term.
I won’t generalize, but I can pretty confidently say that nearly everyone is sharing the same feelings of loneliness, disappointment, and overwhelm. There are moments when it feels charming—staying in PJs all day, taking Zoom meetings from bed. But those moments are generally shattered by the reality that life as we knew it is vastly different.
You‘ll never get this time with your kids back. You won’t get the chance to be present for those “aha” moments between 8AM and 3PM that we teachers live for. Soon enough you’ll go back to being the parent, and we’ll resume our work as teachers in the classroom.
So, instead of fighting it, use this time together as a means of instilling long-lasting coping strategies in your child. And, keep reminding them, and yourself, that this is only temporary.
5 Tips for Homeschooling Your Kids Like a Pro During Coronavirus Quarantine
Coronavirus has given parents a number of new roles including teachers and homeschooling experts. Juggling these new roles and ensuring your kids still grow academically is challenging, to put it lightly. Integrate these five teaching tips and you will both thrive!
Coronavirus Is No Match For Your Parenting!
Here in San Francisco, we’re in the thick of the official COVID-19 shelter-in-place. It’s been toilsome, I’m not going to lie. If you’re anything like me, the allure of “Netflix and chill” wore off after the first 12-hours, and now you want to climb the walls. And, if you’re a parent, that’s a whole bunch of minutes in which you have been playing mom, dad, cook, housekeeper, teacher, friend, counselor, referee, circus clown, and about 17 other odd jobs you never fathomed would pepper the landscape of your March 2020.
As an educator, I’ve been marveling at watching how my students are coping with the shelter-in-place. For some, the very idea of not being with their friends, surrounded by the sounds, shenanigans, smells, and sights of their school environment leaves them blind. They don’t know where to look, what to do, how to even begin learning from a distance.
For others, the idea of being on their own and removed from the performance pressures and social anxiety that comes from working amongst their peers is the deep breath that they have, for years, been waiting for. They are doing their work, engaging with their teachers via Zoom, and all around, living their best student lives. Still, others are as apathetic to distance learning as they are to classroom learning—school has never been their thing, no matter how you package it up. And, COVID-19 isn’t going to change that.
Fair enough.
So, we work together, you and I, to do what we can. To engage our kids to the best of our abilities from afar or up close at home. And, to do so with as much grace and flair as possible, here are my top five ways to thrive both during and after COVID-19:
Never be above negotiating.
If there is one single thing that I have learned during my 17 years in education, it’s that you’ve got to be ready to compromise. Does this mean that you are giving in to the theatrics of your nine-year-old when they only want to watch YouTube and eat Cheetos for breakfast? Nope. But, does it save you from finding yourself at an impasse every five minutes as you try to ramrod that Vocabulary worksheet down their throats? Definitely.
Barter with them—40-minutes of Math work for 15-minutes of FaceTime with their friends. Silent read for 30-minutes (they should do a total of 60-minutes a day), and then take a body break (check out www.gonoodle.com). Seven carrot sticks at lunch before they have their Takis or make their bed before they jump on Instagram in the morning. The more control they feel, especially in times of things being out of their control, the easier it will be to maintain both balance and normalcy.
Set-up a schedule.
Perhaps your child’s teacher has already given you one which mimics their daily classroom routine. Awesome! If not, I would highly recommend reaching out to them and seeing if they can provide you with a framework. Or, develop one yourself that includes dedicated time to each subject with allocated breaks in-between. Have your child be a part of the planning process—put it up on a whiteboard in the kitchen, on a large sheet of butcher paper in the living room, or lipstick it on the bathroom mirror. Your kids are craving structure, all of the time, but especially during this time of uncertainty. So, the more you can establish a routine, the better!
And, get creative with alarms. Gone are the days of a basic kitchen counter egg timer, take a peek at these links to online countdown clocks that use visualization to help kiddos understand the concept of counting down the minutes:
Designate workspaces.
The boundaries of going to school and then coming home from school are blurred during this time of sheltering in a single place. Create a space that is for “school only.” This can be a section of the kitchen table, a corner in your child’s bedroom, a folding table erected in the living room. Make that their school space, and after breakfast, that’s where your child goes to complete their work. When they take breaks, or when the school day is done, have them practice organizing their materials, pushing in their chairs, etc. just as their teachers would request before they change subjects or head out to recess. Having a specific workspace will also help them to get into school mode versus just hanging out and completing a worksheet or two. With this long gap in direct instruction from their teachers, we need to make sure that their heads and hearts are in the game, albeit remotely.
Have fun.
Fractions can be studied while baking cookies and measuring the ingredients. Counting steps, leaves, trees, rocks, stop signs on a daily neighborhood walk will support number sense. Reading a story together and writing an alternative ending is great for Language Arts. Have your child film and narrate a family reality show to practice public speaking. Dance-offs are great in lieu of P.E. class, a family game of charades to understand vocabulary, or completing a jigsaw puzzle as a means of developing fine motor skills.
We, as teachers, want you to help your kids complete the content that we provide to you during this time of distance learning, but we also recognize the enormity of value that comes from time spent together. Conversations that cultivate communication are essential to your child’s ongoing development.
Be patient.
It’s not going to be easy every day, all day. But, it’s not always easy in the classroom, either. There are plenty of days when lessons go awry; kids have meltdowns; someone throws up while another spills a bucket of paint. Do what you can. When you can. How you can.
My favorite thing to tell my students is that they are more than good enough. So now, I am telling you—as you strive to be everything for everyone, what you are doing to keep your kids on track in this time of crisis—you and your efforts are more than good enough.
Together, we’ve got this.
3 Parenting Hacks For Scheduling Gratitude Into Your Child's Routine.
Gratitude needs to be overt. The practice of being appreciative is not a given anymore—no, it is a concept that requires modeling, discussing, outlining, and referencing over and over again. The practice of thankfulness can not only be a great way to re-establish the routine that all kids are craving during this time, but it also is a terrific way to quell their anxiety, too. Follow these helpful tips for creating a schedule that promotes communication, accountability and engages your kids in regular offline fun. Use these tips and download my schedule template to get started today.
You Can Stand Under My Umbrella
I went out for a walk this morning. In the rain. In this new age of social distancing. And, on my way back home, I gave my umbrella to a stranger, sitting on the soaking wet sidewalk, clutching a newspaper to cover his matted hair. I didn’t really think about it—no preconceived plan about how I could extend a helping hand to another human. No thought before I left the house of what I could do to shift, ever so slightly, the permeating negativity that has shrouded us all in such a pall. None of that. I just handed my umbrella over to him, knowing it was the right thing to do.
Now, I don’t bring this up to pat myself on the back. Not in the slightest. I will say that I have never been less bothered by the rain than I was in the moments that followed our encounter. But, being without that umbrella got me thinking about all that I am grateful for. Even right now as we all face the COVID-19 crisis together, there are still reasons to be glad.
“And most generally there is something about everything that you can be glad about, if you keep hunting long enough to find it.”
― Eleanor H. Porter, Pollyanna
It was easy to give that stranger my umbrella because I was walking home to shelter, and warmth, and a modicum of security. I acknowledge that. But, outside of that, do I give myself the space to continue to stand in gratitude and appreciation on the regular? Do I carve out time to focus on that for which I am thankful? And, even more so—do I teach my students, your children, to find joy in the minutia often enough?
Gratitude needs to be overt.
The practice of being appreciative is not a given anymore—no, it is a concept that requires modeling, discussing, outlining, and referencing over and over again.
Here’s how I approach it at school:
When I ask a student for something and they deliver: “Thank you so much for listening to what I said that I needed you to accomplish.”
When a student complains about “having” to take a Literature quiz: “Oh, you don’t have to take it. You get to take it. Aren’t we grateful that your brain can grow in knowledge!”
When a classmate holds the door open for them, but they just pass through: “Hold up. You need to thank [student’s name] for helping you out there.”
In this time of uncertainty, your children will feel a sense of worry, of fear, of panic. Social distancing is a far easier concept for us adults to comprehend than your child who wants to run and play and hang with their friends and go to the park.
The practice of thankfulness can not only be a great way to re-establish the routine that all kids are craving during this time, but it also is a terrific way to quell their anxiety, too.
According to Psychiatric Counselor Madhuleena Roy Chowdhury, in her article The Neuroscience of Gratitude and How It Affects Anxiety & Grief,
“Significant studies over the years have established the fact that by practicing gratitude we can handle stress better than others. By merely acknowledging and appreciating the little things in life, we can rewire the brain to deal with the present circumstances with more awareness and broader perception.”
Increasing your kiddo’s capacity for joy and gratitude is a great way to maximize the learning that is going on, both during our quarantine and beyond. To do so, start by creating a schedule that promotes communication, accountability and engages them in regular offline fun.
Below, I have compiled some best practices for each focus and created a helpful downloadable schedule for you to use day-after-day in creating a routine for you kids.
Communication activities that inspire gratitude.
Have them write letters. Maybe you set-up a pen pal network with friends and classmates and have kids write letters to each other (note: the postal service is not considered a transport of the virus).
Have them maintain a positivity journal and write about one thing each day that was great, special, or made them feel glad. Go on a scavenger hunt around the house to scope out items, photographs, etc. that hold meaning and special memories.
Have them correspond regularly with their teacher(s). Educators feel just as worried during these times as our students do, so having your student be on the giving end of encouragement is a great way to flip the script and nurture in them a sense of giving care to others.
Household activities that ignite accountability.
Additionally, use this time of quarantine as a means of reestablishing your child’s role within your household. In the hectiness of life between work, school, basketball practice, piano lessons, and four birthday parties every Saturday, it’s easy to let things slide and give everyone a pass from contributing to the inner workings of your home and family. Use this time to get everyone back on board!
Empty/load the dishwasher
Make beds
Fold clean laundry
Wipe down bathroom countertops
Help with meal prep
Not only will it be a great way to cultivate a spirit of giving and appreciation for the work that you, as parent, do on a daily basis, but it will also nurture a sense of teamwork that is so necessary in times of turmoil.
Offline activities that spark joy.
And, finally, use this time of social distancing to serve as focused breaks from social media, too. Your child’s exposure to online content can certainly fuel their feelings of anxiety and uncertainty as well as increase their consumption of misleading information. Carve out time for activities that engage one another in conversation and communication—time to be grateful for family.
Games
Puzzles
Arts and crafts
Cooking together
Daily/nightly read-alouds
Watching home movies
So, while you can’t actually stand under my umbrella (remember that 6ft. of space rule), we can rely upon each other for moral support and solidarity in this time of crisis. Let’s use the quarantine as a means of reminding our kids how much we have in life to appreciate.
To put these tips into action, I have created a downloadable schedule for you to print out and use day after day. With your download comes a sample schedule showing you how to apply these tips to your child’s routine.
