‘Crisis teaching’ — What challenged, succeeded in a year of pandemic education
On March 6, 2020, Pennsylvania recorded its first case of COVID-19; by March 13 Gov. Tom Wolf made the announcement that all schools must close for two weeks. They wouldn’t reopen until August. When they did, the landscape of teaching had completely changed. “Last year was crisis teaching,” said Baldwin High School biology teacher Tina Gaser. “It was pure exhaustion up until early December.” In the year since the initial school closure, teachers who had never taught outside of a classroom now use their kitchen tables as desks, taking the idea of bringing work home with them to a new level. “I think teachers always have trouble having any kind of work downtime boundaries, but this year it is impossible,” said Courtney Laskowski, a sixth grade English teacher at Cecil Intermediate School. “You want to make sure you’re addressing everyone’s needs as immediately as you possibly can. Because our students are working at all times of day ... we get emails asking for help, clarification, reteaching, etc., all times of day.” In trying to find a worklife balance, teachers have turned to each other for support, and they found it in abundance. “I am so impressed with my colleagues and school leaders for the way we have instinctively redesigned and learned how to do a new job in a year’s time,” said Justin Leidy, a fifth grade teacher at Chartiers Valley School District. “I just cannot emphasize that enough.” Tammy Rellick, a first grade teacher in Baldwin- Whitehall School District, said she has always had a tendency to “pour a lot” of herself into her job, but this year it has been especially hard determining when to shut it off. She currently has her students in class four days a week and online every Wednesday. She still goes into the classroom for online days. “At some point you have to allow yourself to decompress,” she said. “It has gotten better as the year has gone on, and we’ve gotten more accustomed to the situation.” Part of becoming more comfortable with their new reality is figuring out how to balance the technology with traditional teaching methods. She now has students sit at their desks in the classroom and log on to Google Meet to discuss the readings with her and a small group of other students, also in school. That way they can still collaborate with one another while following the district’s COVID-19 guidelines for the classrooms. “I really have been trying to give them not the same, but similar experiences as what they’ve been doing,” she said. “I don’t want them to come in and just be on their computer all day and doing independent work at their seat without collaboration.” For a recent polar project, students used an iPad to take photos of themselves and place their picture inside a polar habitat made as posters. Using a combination of materials keeps things interesting for her first graders, Mrs. Rellick said. Because of the district’s guidelines, students are not allowed to share lab materials. So Ms. Gaser relies mostly on simulations or videos of herself doing the lab that she sends to her students, or when possible sends materials home for students. She has half of her students in class Monday and Tuesday, while the other half attend via cyber learning. Everyone is online Wednesday. For Thursday and Friday, the students switch. In one instance, for a statistics lab involving M&M’s, Ms. Gaser provided the candy for students to do the experiment at home. Everyone then got together to discuss the results. “That’s another challenge — ensuring equity of resources to every student,” Ms. Gaser said. “I can provide what I can provide, but at the same time even getting to the students can be difficult.” Baldwin has a material pickup day once a month so students can get any materials they may need. Teachers in the district say it’s a mixed bag on the number of people who make it. Work schedules and transportation are two of the main reasons districts have trouble getting materials home to students. Ms. Gaser explained that sometimes if a student lives near someone who can’t get to the pickup day, the student who can will pick up for them. Having the proper material is only one piece of the puzzle, though. With this new system, students need a level of independence they didn’t require before, a few teachers noted. It is now up to students to log on, get the proper coursework and complete it on time. “The biggest struggle by far is having a small population of students who won’t join our classes and do their work,” Mrs. Laskowski said. “I feel like I am failing these students who I just can’t get to because they won’t make themselves available to me.”
Poor internet connections, siblings, a lack of routine and other unavoidable distractions are all reasons students may not be joining classes. In many instances, Mrs. Laskowski feels reaching out to parents hasn’t helped.
“We spent a lot of time talking about how we can get to our students most effectively, and how we can reach them while still thinking about their mental health,” said Misty Slavic, the assistant superintendent for Chartiers Valley School District.
School districts have had to walk the thin line of making sure students are still being educated while also recognizing that everyone is
dealing with things they have never encountered, and that sometimes long division and diagramming sentences aren’t at the top of the priority list.
Ms. Gaser doesn’t require her students to have their cameras on during class. But without the person-to-person interaction — even over a computer screen — vital communicationcan be lost.
“They have to be much more proactive in their own learning,” Ms. Gaser said. “But one of the major benefits to the type of teaching and learning we’re doing right now is the equity for students to be able to access their teachers.”
She now can schedule individual or tutoring sessions over Google Meet. The morning before a test, she offers to be online early and anyone who has questions about the material can join in. It’s also easier for her to set up after-school sessions.
This eliminated the problem of students who used to have to find rides for a tutoring session either before or after the school day. Now all it takes is an email.
Ms. Gaser wants to continue this method of tutoring in the post-pandemic world.
“If education goes back to where we were pre-pandemic, I think we’re missing a huge opportunity to truly transform education,” she said. “We’ve got a lot of great things in place.”
Teachers said that even with online classes, they feel a better connection with their students this year.
“I teach sixth grade, so this isn’t always a group that is big on sharing their personal lives,” Mrs. Laskowski said. “But we have gotten to see some adorable pets and siblings, everyone’s favorite Christmas ornaments and special decor in game rooms.”
With the uncertainties surrounding the vaccine rollout in Pennsylvania, it’s not clear when pets will have to drop out and students can return to the classroom, but in the meantime teachers will continue to show up and hope.
“I keep hearing how our students are falling behind, but I completely disagree with that,” Ms. Gaser said. “I think our students are developing problem-solving skills, time management skills. They’re becoming more effective communicators.”
She said she is most amazed at their resilience and creativity, but she is ready for the day when they can all be in the classroom again.
“I miss the talking and laughing of the classroom,” she said. “That’s what I’m looking forward to the most — laughing with my students again.”