Mar 13, 2021 4 min read

one of the big challenges, one of the hardest things has been communication, in a regular year i communicate face to face and this was a hard year, our sd had option for students to remain entierely remoe or come face to face, i feel like i wasn’t abel to adequately communicatioe, for favirous resasons realying on ctechnoloyg to communictat, that fails us, communication was really trickty because i was feeling that i wasn’t able to give one of my students the same experience, even remotely, tehre’s soetlhting lacking about when you raise your hand on th comutper, tyoure missign all those face to face nucances that as a teacher, you pick up on things so much better in a face to face setting. Somethimes, you can see a student ssturggginling, with camerea on. We did the very best taht we could, it’s really hard. on their end, it’s hard, there are some students i havent met all year and that’s an odd experience. Communictionc was fiddifuclt and . It’s a disconnect, there’s something lacking about learning remotely about learning face to face, we do the best we can. there’s no way to replace it in my opioinon. Until it’s safe to do that, there’s a definite disconenct, you’re sused to seeing someone’s face, facial experession. One thing from lesson you have planned can spark into a oncvermation, that gets lost. Wehn we’re in full remote setting it’s me doig all the talking. i like the back and forths, but it’s different because of the format. It’s a much harder way to navigat throught eh curriliculum. It’s been a tricky year, I teach English. a lot of it is practicing, pickup up on grammar rules, mechanics, you’re typing, not handwriting. I have a portion of student population remote. It’ 4 days a week MT ThF, wednesday remote, that’s day we address remote learners. For myself, I teach live every day, i give my remote learniners as much of FTF i have 2 or 3 studnets who take advantage of it, if it hlpes those 2 students in class, it’s worth it, some days Internet lags. I have to say from remote students i’ve gottent o experience and meet their pets, i have lucy the dog who attends every morning, ryan the orange cat, i’m just happy to have some interaction with my remote kids, i am going to ask you about your weekend, might have had your siblig. its’ the human connections you make as a teacher and i’m happy to make those connectinons, we have pet indroductions, avatar of tv show. as a teacher, it’s more than the lesson i’m teaching, it’sthe human lesson, these are the htings that are getting lost. Anything you can do to have that, it’s worth. 

Neill found a silver lining in technology that, even though there were bumps, made it possible for students to take part in classes. 

Students who had to quarantine, or missed the bus, could still sit in on classes remotely.

That’s a tricky one – if there is a silver lining, even though comm has been challenging, we still have found ways to do it. Even talking to someneon when they’re home. I had a student the other day, she missed her bus, slept in, she’s in person, she jumped on and said can i take part in calss? If you’re well enough to attend, jump on the lesson. Silver lining, at least in my circumstance, i go live every day, when we went back to face to face, i said I’ll stay live. I tell in-person students if they want to join class, they can. We’ve found alternate methods to issues where in teh past you’d just be out of luck. We have several kids who go on quaratnine for several days, they have so many days they ahve to b out, but you can still be connected to our class. We’ve figured out ways to make it happen and keep safety at the forecfornt. Hopefully too, were trying to figure out for students without adequate tech., we give them hot spots. That goes back to communication, if we know about it … communication has been the trickiest thing. I try to verbally say, Hot spot might be better. As a teacher you get blamed for a lot.