"shop-teacher" (shop-teacher)
10/16/2020 at 12:12 • Filed to: Worklopnik
7
14|
"shop-teacher" (shop-teacher)
10/16/2020 at 12:12 • Filed to: Worklopnik | 7
| 14 |
If you missed part 1, and care to read it, !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . The short version of how things are running in my district is this:
I have some students that show up to the building Monday and Tuesday. I have other students who show up Thursday and Friday. I have other students who show up all four of those days. I have yet more students who don’t show up to the building at all. Then the fifth group is the people from the first three groups who get pulled for either having or being exposed to a COVID symptom at home (understandable), or get pulled in and out at random to go on vacation (less understandable).
The district’s directive was for me to somehow, someway, without any of the technology needed to have a chance at MAYBE doing a half decent job of this, teach all of those groups the exact same thing, at the exact same time.
Riiiiiiiight.
That was going rather poorly. The principals at the three middle schools in my district made a command decision to allow those of us who teach lab classes a nd PE to be asynchronous with the students at home, and focus our attention on the kids in the building. This is especially critical, because I only get them for a half hour a day, twice a week.
Things have gone much better since then. I’m still working harder than I ever have in my life making all the necessary demonstration videos and grading and emailing and whatnot, BUT at least things are working in the building and things are getting made. The kids are super happy to be here. I have not had one single behavioral issue. That part of my day is super pleasant.
Unfortunately those teaching core subjects are still being forced to attempt teaching to all groups simultaneously. I don’t really talk to anybody in the building these days, but my sense of things is that this is going about as well as one could expect ... not very well!
I do feel like I’m finally getting my sea-legs for the way hybrid is supposed to work for me. My 6th and 7th grade classes will rotate at the end of next week, and I’ll start those over with new groups of kids. I have laid-out a solid quarter-long plan for them. Much of the videos and leg work is already done for it, so my work-load should begin to resemble normalcy in the next few weeks.
NOT SO FAST! Word is the county health metrics have reached the level that will require us to switch to full remote next week. It’s not exactly a surprise, since they have been more than double that level in the actual town I teach in, for about three weeks. The district chose to ignore that, and use the county’s lower numbers.
That’s why I’m even taking the time to write this. Otherwise I would be busy readying things for next week, so I don’t have to do them at home this weekend. Since I don’t know what next weekend looks like ... not much point in that.
Balls.
Have some of my kid’s sidewalk chalk art, for your time.
Chariotoflove
> shop-teacher
10/16/2020 at 12:22 |
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Our school has gone the other direction. Because of good results from our hybrid segment, we’ve gone back to full in person for the high school. My girl is thrilled that she gets to go to school all day every day with her classmates. Which is a weird thing to type and confirms to me that we are getting our money’s worth out of the tuition we are paying.
I like cars: Jim Spanfeller is one ugly motherfucker
> shop-teacher
10/16/2020 at 12:26 |
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That SUCKS.
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shop-teacher
> Chariotoflove
10/16/2020 at 12:30 |
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That is excellent!
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shop-teacher
> I like cars: Jim Spanfeller is one ugly motherfucker
10/16/2020 at 12:30 |
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Indeed.
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Chariotoflove
> shop-teacher
10/16/2020 at 12:41 |
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I know I’m kind of crowing on your complaint thread, but I’m too please to fully contain myself.
AdamB
> shop-teacher
10/16/2020 at 12:59 |
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That’s not so good. My school is still doing saliva pool testing and one week my group goes the and the next is a different one. Well it turns out my pool testing group came with one positive case, so everyone in that saliva pool group has to get tested. I just got tested this morning and missed a whole morning of classes. And the Upper School was fully remote today. So things have gone downhill very quickly within hours. Better safe than sorry I suppose.
vondon302
> shop-teacher
10/16/2020 at 13:07 |
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Ugh my English/history wife is just starting to get the hang of this virtual classroom ( Their still fully online) but the late night and early calls helping other teachers is really wearing her down.
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shop-teacher
> AdamB
10/16/2020 at 13:31 |
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We’re not doing any testing, or going to anything near those extremes to isolate when positives happen. The district is blaming the increased positivity rates on “outside activities.” Which is suspect on one hand, but on the other hand every playground in the area is filled with kids who aren’t wearing masks.
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shop-teacher
> Chariotoflove
10/16/2020 at 13:31 |
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It’s all good. I’m happy to hear good news from elsewhere. Some places are doing a good job of dealing with this mess.
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shop-teacher
> vondon302
10/16/2020 at 13:32 |
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Yeah, that is tough when you’re the go-to person for other teachers. I went the other way, I barely see or talk to other teachers. That sucks for other reasons.
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Chariotoflove
> shop-teacher
10/16/2020 at 13:44 |
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I’m guessing that this is where small parochial schools have a distinct advantage. My daughter’s freshman class has 9 students. Also, the school is geared for a no greater than 10:1 student:teacher ratio by its constitution. Much easier to herd the cats when you have a shepherd for every 10 cats or less.
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shop-teacher
> Chariotoflove
10/16/2020 at 13:48 |
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Yeah. That takes a hybrid group, to get down to those numbers here.
RooseveltDad
> shop-teacher
10/16/2020 at 16:19 |
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My partner teaches at the college level. All remote. Meetings, office hours, faculty meetings, and instruction - all on Zoom. It’s exhausting. At the moment, she’s across the room from me, having office hours. Two laptops, three screens, a decent gaming headset... and walking her students through their HTML code (an intro class, they’ll cover HTML and CSS and Java programming this quarter).
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shop-teacher
> RooseveltDad
10/16/2020 at 16:31 |
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Yeah, we started the year remotely, and it is exhausting. We just got the word that we’ll be remote starting W ednesday, for the next two weeks. We’ll be back to hybrid after that, if the metrics improve enough. Given the behavior I’ve seen in public ... I’m not optimistic.