Virtual care for teachers’ kids a real screen saver
Kinkaid students help watch children through program
Some days are better than others for Quenby Mott and her 9-year-old daughter, Sydney.
At times, the third grader will sit down and work on her multiplication tables. Minutes later, she may be tugging on her mom while Mott is talking with her Kinkaid School students in a Zoom meeting. Other times Sydney cries in frustration, upset she cannot see her friends, missing the routine of school and wanting to play with the neighborhood kids. Monday was different. Mott signed Sydney up for a virtual child care session as part of a program created by 16-yearold Kinkaid student Henry Segal, called StudentTeacher. The program lets upper-school students at the Memorialarea private school sign up to tutor or play with teachers’ younger students for hourlong blocks, allowing educators and counselors to focus on Zoom lectures or lesson preparations.
Mott said she could hear Sydney’s giggles through the door as she
played charades and went over her multiplication tables with an 11th grader Monday morning. That gave Mott time to make some calls to students and catch up on paperwork.
“Just to have someone to play with or do yoga with on a screen has really helped alleviate some of the pressures,” Mott said. “It’s knowing you’re not leaving your kid just by themselves on a device. There’s more intentionality to it.”
Segal, a sophomore, said he got the idea watching teachers try to juggle video calls with caring for their own small children, who often darted into the picture to ask for help or to entertain themselves.
Segal approached school administrators with the idea about three weeks ago and was able to get the program up and running during the last week of April. Jennifer Kehler, who organizes student activities in addition to teaching 10th grade English at Kinkaid, said it took almost no time for administrators at the school to green light the initiative. Within days of sending out information about the program to other teachers and staff members, Kehler’s inbox was filled with messages of gratitude.
“This is such an amazing gesture by our upper-school students,” Kehler said. “In time of stress for themselves, Henry noticed other people need help, too.”
Now, Segal has created a website that provides resources for students at other schools to launch the program at their campuses for free, saying he hopes it will provide relief to teachers who are struggling to balance working from home with helping their own children with their schoolwork. The goal, he said, is to give teachers across Greater Houston and the country time to work with their students without being interrupted.
So far, 40 students in Kinkaid’s upper school have signed up to help, as have students at a school in New York and another in California. Although he’s spent the better part of 20 hours a week on the project, Segal shrugs off the praise of his teachers.
“I think there’s no reason to just pout and sit down, it’s kind of all out of our control more or less,” Segal said. “You might as well try to make the most of it and try to solve a problem.”
Teachers and other school staff can sign up by filling out a Google form that asks them about their children’s interests and what they are working on in school. The older students then create a play day or lesson based on the responses they receive. One high schooler began teaching some youngsters how to do yoga. Sometimes, students will just read to the younger kids or watch them draw.
Kehler’s 4-year-old son, Reiner, signed up to chat with the president of the upper school’s Star Wars Appreciation Club and has been compiling questions to ask his new mentor about Jedis and the force.
“I can imagine, for these little kids, they must be so excited to have the attention of a big kid,” Kehler said. “They look up to them, they see them as these all-star celebrities, like ‘Oh, they’re high schoolers, they’re way cooler than mom and dad.’ ”
Bryan Akins, 15, said he signed up to entertain some of the kids several weeks after a toddler, wearing only a diaper, sprinted on screen next to his English teacher during a Zoom lecture. He since has begun teaching an 8year-old about the weather and the human body after the boy said he was excited to learn more about science.
The experience quickly brought a realization for Akins: teaching is much more difficult and time-intensive than he thought.
“It’s especially hard on Zoom because you have to keep the child entertained and communicate what you’re trying to make them learn,” he said. “And lesson plans take a long time to make.”
Mott said Sydney has jumped into camera view several times as Mott, a college counselor and academic advisor, worked with her own students. Sydney is an only child and relies on Mott and her husband for play and help while the three of them are spending their days at home due to the pandemic.
Sometimes, the constant needs of her child, cooking her meals throughout the day and working from home pile up.
“Not being able to follow through with promises I made to her because of my work is hard to manage,” Mott said.
Now, instead of tantrums, Sydney asks when she gets to talk to her high schooler next.
“… it’s kind of all out of our control more or less. You might as well try to make the most of it and try to solve a problem.” Kinkaid sophomore Henry Segal