LOOKING BACK: TEACHING (AND PARENTING) DURING THE FIRST YEAR OF PANDEMIC

We’re now a calendar year into the first cases of COVID-19 in Ontario. TRENT Magazine is looking back on some of the stories of alumni frontline workers.

With students returning to elementary and secondary schools after the January lockdown, educators will be tasked with teaching through a heavily modified pedagogical system, meaning tougher workloads and more creativity in keeping students engaged. They’ll also resume their role as a frontline defense against the spread of the virus as they use class management skills to promote physical distancing and proper hygiene in their crowded rooms.

Parents will have already made the tough decision of whether or not to send their kids to school. The ones who decided to keep their kids home are hoping that a fresh academic year will make the e-learning experiment more successful than the emergency roll-out earlier this spring.

Last April, TRENT Magazine and the Trent Voices podcast sat down with two educators, Rich McPherson and Mitch Champagne, along with Dr. Cathy Bruce, dean of the Trent University School of Education, to talk about teaching during the pandemic; balancing working, parenting, and educating kids; as well as ideas on how parents can help make the home educational process more rewarding. That conversation is as relevant today as it was then.

Be sure to listen to the full audio interview on the Trent Voices podcast:

TEACHING (AND PARENTING) DURING THE PANDEMIC

This interview has been edited for length, brevity and clarity.

TRENT Magazine (TM): Our last elementary and secondary school year went from being perfectly normal to schools being closed and kids being at home. There was then a slow roll-out of an emergency educational plan. How much of a challenge did this present?

Mitch Champagne (MC): Teachers tend to be flexible and adaptable by nature. No two days in the classroom are ever really the same, so in that sense, I think education as a whole is adapting and handling this very well. But we can’t forget that it hasn’t just been like it went from normal in-class instruction to knowing what was going to be happening and it being online. It was rolled out two weeks at a time, or three weeks, so, as a teacher, the most difficult thing to get my head around head around, was how long this would be going on. Looking at what was happening around the world, you kind of got the sense that the year was over. But the fact that it was never really said made it difficult, for me anyway.  

In terms of getting the students involved, it was a new challenge, but it’s been exciting. It’s been a way to challenge myself to try to learn how to do things in a new way—in a way that makes the kids want to participate. In the classroom, getting participation is a lot easier because they have to be there. They have no choice. And because they’re there, and they’re grade twos, they’re all eager to learn and want to try things out. But remotely, I don’t really know what situation they’re all in at home. Everyone’s got a different home life, so you have to adapt your lessons and your ideas so that everyone can participate.

Cathy Bruce (CB): A teacher like Mitch is doing his best to engage his students and his students are eagerly responding, which is brilliant. But we do have some real disparities with students who may not have access to technology; who may not have access to wi-fi. I know that the local school boards have done quite a bit of work to try and get computers into the hands of students. They’ve turned their parking lots into wi-fi zones. They’ve done all kinds of things to try and help. In some cases, materials are being delivered by mail or dropped off to students’ homes. There are all kinds of strategies going on, but, as Mitch says, it’s been piecemeal because there was no time to prepare.

TM: When you’re dealing with high school level kids who have a bit more autonomy, and who also heard that their marks ultimately wouldn’t be affected by the pandemic, is there more difficulty keeping those kids “in school” for e-learning?

CB: I would say that a motivated student will stay motivated. And those students who are less motivated might not be as engaged.
 We did start a free tutoring program at Trent, reaching out to roughly 400 students in the community. It’s set up as a student work-study program, where teacher candidates are getting paid to tutor over the summer. It not only employs these teacher candidates, but also gives students a one-to-one opportunity to talk with somebody else and to go over their schoolwork together. We’re hoping that offers a motivational strategy.

TM: Many parents have been finding it difficult to juggle working, providing care, and providing rewarding day-to-day learning experiences. As a parent, how has it been for you?

Rich McPherson (RM): It’s been a learning process for myself, and I have spent a good chunk of my career working from home. My partner and I have been very fortunate that we’ve been able to continue our jobs. Not a lot of people have that opportunity. Going into this, our expectations were high in terms of sticking to schedules and plans. For the first couple weeks, we were adjusting. Then we got into a groove by week three—taking turns squeezing in education in between meetings and deadlines—and the kids were enjoying it. But, by then, we found ourselves getting tired. As a teacher that’s where I felt guilty. The voice in my head would be saying that I should be doing a lot more. I had all these resources and access to tools, but it became irrelevant because there was just so much else going on in our lives that we were trying to manage. Eventually those conversations started to turn to the appropriate amount of screen time that we could give our kids. Because, realistically, while we were lucky enough to be working, we did have to work. Sometimes we couldn’t just drop things and do real academic learning with our kids. So we’d come together at lunchtime and in the afternoon, when some of the work demands cleared. We made sure to do academics in the evening.

But the biggest thing we did was just getting outside. Out front, there was sidewalk chalk all over the place. We’d go biking, rollerblading, or just out for walks around the neighbourhood.

We don’t really have a routine anymore. We just kind of take advantage of the moments that we have, when we have them. But there’s a lot of communication between my partner and I. Plenty of encouragement. Reminders that everything is going to be OK; that our kids are young and a lot more resilient than we are. We’ve gotten to the point where we realize that it’s fine to just play with our kids, get into life skills, and just be with each other, and work on those relationships.

CB: What Rich just said is what I would call the ABC method. A is for Active. Get outside. B is for Balanced. Try and do something independent and have your kids do something independent, and then do something that you enjoy together. C is for Casual. Remember that this is all temporary. We need to stay calm. We need some fun. We need to do what we can without getting overly stressed. There’s a lot of potential for mental health issues during this pandemic, and we need to be very careful about overburdening children and parents. And teachers!

TM: Mitch, teaching from home, your day is obviously different than it was three months ago. How is the work-life balance at your place?

MC: My wife and I have four beautiful kids, so we’ve got a very loud and busy household. My balancing is trying to keep my own kids working while making sure that I’m doing the job I have to do to support the students in my class. Without my wife, Christine, this just wouldn’t’ be possible.

But being a parent is really helping me better understand what I need to be providing for my students. So, I’m using a Google Classroom format, which many teachers are. And I’m posting all my work on Monday morning. The whole week’s work is laid out so that my students have a chance to look at it, to plan, and to make their decisions as to what they want to work on today, tomorrow, or the next day. They’re supposed to be doing about five hours of work a week, but I’m posting more than that and letting them choose what you they want to do. They all have their own situation at home. Some of them have a lot of help from an older sibling or a parent, others are working more independently; so, I’m providing opportunities where students can pick and choose what they’re able to do. So, while I might post 15 or 20 hours’ worth of work, it’s very wide-ranging, with something for everyone.

I’m seeing my own kids log into Classroom and I’m very appreciative whenever there’s a task that they can just sit down and do. Both my wife and I are teachers and want to spend time helping them. But we have to balance four kids, and our own needs. So, we’re taking pretty much the same approach that Rich is, and that Cathy alluded to. We’re trying to find a balance every day and throughout the week. We’re trying to make sure our kids are happy and engaged. And moving forward from there.

TM: What techniques do you use to keep your students engaged from a distance?

MC: I just want to mention the importance of trying to maintain community. Because our students are missing their friends. They’re missing their peers and classmates and their teachers. So I’ve been really trying to focus on ways to build community. While the Ministry of Education has told us that we should be focusing on literacy and numeracy, I’m trying to add in other sorts of things that are going to engage students and make them want to contribute and be part of the classroom.

One thing that’s been pretty successful: I’ve created a Google slideshow that’s open to anyone in my school and I’m calling it the Weekly Lego Challenge. On Mondays, I’ll announce the challenge, to build an amazing animal or a rocket ship or a dream home. I’m having all the teachers at my school post it in their own classrooms and make that same slideshow available. Students have that week to get creative, build something, post it to the slideshow, add their first name and their grade, and have other students from other classrooms get to see their work, leave comments, and sort of create that sense of school community that we have.
At my school, we do things as a school. We have dance parties. We do yoga. We practice for cross country as a school. All kinds of great things. And I’m trying to find ways to keep that going.

CB: I’ll add another layer, and that’s around wellness checks: taking an opportunity to really ask the students how they’re doing. To connect and check in on them. It makes a huge difference. The students want to be in that community. They want to hear each other. They want to have a chance to chat. They want to see their teacher. As a teacher, it’s sometimes about showing that you care about them, and teachers do care about their students so much. And the students really appreciate those moments.

TM: What have you been doing to keep your kids engaged in the educational process?

MC: I’m going to let you in on a little secret here: It’s easier if you have a whole bunch of kids. If you have one, it’s all on you. You’re the entertainment. With four kids, I really try to leverage the resources I have in my house. So the older siblings teach the younger siblings. Whenever my youngest, my senior kindergarten has some homework to do, he’s doing it with his older brother or one of his older sisters. And likewise for everybody else.

It’s a good strategy, because we learn best by teaching. You learn a little bit by reading or watching. You learn a little bit more by doing. But when you can get to the point where you’re actually showing someone else how to do something, you’re learning in a much deeper way than you ever could otherwise.

CB: When kids are outside and they’re playing, or whatever they’re doing, they are learning. There is school learning, and there’s life learning, and sometimes those intersect really well. But what is available to kids right now is a whole world of backyards, with all kinds of learning opportunities, including family time and alone time, and being resourceful on your own when your parents can’t help you. Those are all rally important parts of the bigger picture of learning.

TM: How, as educators, do you prepare for situations like this?

MC: I think staying on top of trends in education is an important first step. While there is a large population of teachers that were starting to transition to online teaching for the first time, or had only dipped a toe in, I was already pretty well immersed. Even with my grade two students, it was pretty easy to pivot to a different platform. What’s important is having an open mind and not expecting things to work out perfectly the first time, or maybe even the fourth time. We need to be adaptable and not be too hard on ourselves when things don’t go well. And we need to remember that everyone is learning. I think putting that stance forward in your classroom with your students, whether it’s in front of them or virtually, makes making mistakes OK. It also gives your students the confidence to try something new without the fear of failure.

TM: What does the School of Education do to prepare teaching candidates for situations like this?

CB: Part of it is remembering that the fundamental qualities of a good teacher are the fundamental qualities of a good teacher, whether they’re working in the remote environment or in person. Listening to Rich and Mitch, the skills they have are evident. It doesn’t matter if it’s in person or online, they’re going to be amazing teachers. So there’s that piece. We always want to focus on those fundamental skills of being an engaging, knowledgeable thoughtful, inquiry-based teacher.

But on top of that, there are some real technical types of issues emerging. For example, what happens in the fall if the schools close again and our teacher candidates need to have placements? What does that look like? One idea is that we could help prepare the teacher candidates to know how to run literature circles, so they can meet with five students at a time with a very specific piece of reading, or novel, or whatever it may be, and guide them through thinking about that text, and reading and sharing the love of that text, together. Or the teacher candidate could lead a small group on solving math problems, and work with that small group to guide and support them in that inquiry. There are some really interesting possibilities. But it does change the way we think about priorities. In a remote environment, one of the most important things is engagement. Not so much classroom management, but more about how we are interacting with students on a one-to-one basis, in small groups, and so on. So far, it’s been a really engaging conversation. I’m looking forward to seeing the innovations that our faculty generate through this process.

TM: The School of Education recently celebrated their 15th anniversary. Tell me a little bit about the significance of that,

CB: As the dean, I can say this very proudly: we have an incredibly popular and successful program. We have a very strong program. Many students want to come to Trent to do their education degree because of the reputation of our faculty, the small class sizes, and our focus on social justice, on Indigenous education, and on supporting learners with special needs. Those kind of core pieces to our work have made us stand out. I’m so proud of being the dean at Trent in the School of Education, and I’m honored to work with the faculty here and our teacher candidates, who are exceptional. Our Teacher Education Stream and our master’s programs, too. It’s just a joy every day.