The Surprising Things I Don’t Hate About Remote Teaching
Yes, I can tell when you’re not looking at me!
My real classroom has always been a little bit crazy. My teaching persona is a little bit of Ms. Frizzle if she had been trained as a gameshow host. My classroom has been home to chickens, cockroaches (for research), and a steady stream of fish and plants. I’m a book dropper, a marker thrower, and a firelighter.
When I used to finish a day of real, in-person teaching, I’d feel energized. Spending the day with my students and seeing them make connections between new and old concepts would fill me up. Sure, I’d be tired, but it felt good.
I dropped by my school last week to pick up some things. It’s not that I don’t work there anymore. Or maybe it is. Now, I work from a makeshift desk in my bedroom, teaching my five daily science classes remotely.
My in-school classroom has been mostly emptied of furniture and there’s nothing on the walls. No smelly experiments, half-built Lego contraptions, or wildly drawn diagrams on the whiteboard. Instead, there are eight desks, spaced well apart, each topped with a basket of cleaning supplies.
Most of our school is remote, but a handful of students come into school one day a week for extra support and structure. On the day I visited, they were quiet, seated…
