By: Brice Helms
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — In my brother’s old bedroom, quickly painted and transformed into an office over a weekend, my mother settles in to her, and countless other teachers around the world’s, new normal.
Recording lessons on a camera to be uploaded online for students to follow along with at their own homes.
The change from business as usual to wait and see to its happening now was an abrupt one.
“Well we had three hours to get up to school, pack up the kids book boxes to distribute to them and grab as much materials as we could,” said Helms, “and then we were expected to be on meetings the next morning to start learning what we needed to do and how we needed to do it.”
The thing she misses the most about teaching? Interacting with her students in person, something that for obvious reasons, can’t be done over a video lesson.
She became a teacher because she loved working with kids, loved to help them believe in themselves and grow, something that has been made more difficult by online learning.
She’s worried because the subjects she teaches, math and science, are best learned hands-on, students aren’t getting the full benefit of the lessons.
“There are some things that they will not be fully prepared for, for next year in 6th grade,” she continued, “but we’re all starting to prepare for that as well, and trying to figure out, and keep good notes about what students are going to need what extra intervention at the beginning of the year.”