Distance Learning: A Day in the Life of a Hackley Teacher
by Christopher Loomis, Dean of the Senior Class and History Teacher, Hackley School
5:47 am: I am in a twilight haze thinking about lesson planning when the cat wakes me up before my alarm. Global pandemic is not, in his view, sufficient cause to alter his standing breakfast reservation. Coffee and chores follow: living and working together with my wife Amanda (who is the Lower School psychologist) in a 1-bedroom apartment makes me feel like a sailor in an 18th century frigate: as soon as you roll out of bed, it’s time to clear the decks and ready the ship for action.
7:03 am: I open my laptop to start planning our final project in my senior Media classes. We are slated to spend the next month talking about social media, and I am hoping to refocus that unit on the current crisis. I want to have the students create a podcast — the only hitch is that I have never made a podcast before.
7:18 am: My lesson planning is interrupted when a faculty advisor emails me about their seniors. They say they are being overwhelmed by work. My colleagues are simply doing their best to move forward with dramatically less class- and homework time. Indeed, my own students already have told me that I vastly underestimated the time required for their first assignment. But we are nonetheless trying hard not to pile on at a time when students are already stressed. In striking a balance between those priorities, we are trying to err in favor of the students — especially in the first week — and we reach out to the teachers about dialing it back. This is a glass more than half-full moment: our advising system is still working. We knew there would be glitches with distance learning, but as long as our students keep talking to us about what’s going on, we can keep getting better.
8:47 am: In the long and proud teaching tradition of fake it till you make it, I post my podcast assignment on our class page. I’m calling the project “Senioritis: Senior Spring in the Age of Covid-19.” I am hoping this gives the students some valuable practice in media production as well as an outlet to reflect on what was supposed to be a victory lap.
8:59 am: I grab one final cup of coffee, and log into Zoom for homeroom with my senior advisees. When we were still on campus, homeroom was desolate. Most seniors didn’t come in before their first class at 9, and the handful who did were half asleep. This week, however, I’ve noticed that the students are more animated, eager to talk to one another and even to me. They are mostly cheerful, but there is an edge of anxiety. Their screen backgrounds also underscore the disparate impacts this crisis has had on their daily routines. One is sitting in a home office; another is in Florida with palm trees behind them; a third answers directly from bed, which I suppose is better than sleeping through advisory entirely. A fourth student has been silent all week with her screen turned off. Later in the day, I write a short note to her to make sure she is doing OK.
9:15 am: The audio on Zoom fails just in time for my first class, and I switch to the app on my phone. I’m momentarily grateful for all of the time we spent practicing Zoom and other tools as a faculty before Spring Break. I just wish TIAA-CREF had invested in Zoom back in January.
I start the class with a discussion on a 2012 Atlantic article, “Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?” In a period of mandated social distancing, the article’s lede feels more relevant than ever: “We are living in an isolation that would have been unimaginable to our ancestors, and yet we have never been more accessible.” It’s a good piece, and I’m well prepared with discussion questions, but the conversation falls flat. I can’t tell if it’s because the students are still half asleep, or because they haven’t done the reading, or because they are just not that into it. The audio is crystal clear, but what Zoom cannot do quite as well is to carry over the chemistry of an in-person conversation.
I cut my losses and move onto the podcast. Most of the students break into groups. The drawback of independent projects during distance learning is that it reinforces the student’s isolation, so I’m happy to see them so eager to work together.
I use the time in between classes to troubleshoot Zoom. I mutter a prayer of thanksgiving when the audio restarts.
10:15 am: My second class of the day is 20th Century World History. The class had just started on their research papers when we broke early for spring break, so the independent work they have been doing at home this week is basically what they would have been doing anyway.
I spend 20 minutes using Zoom to walk the class through two of the library’s best digital databases, which they will need to find sources for their papers. I miss the library stacks — which are stocked just for this project — as well as the expert support from our librarians. But I’m grateful for such a high-powered set of online databases, which make it possible for the students to do research even at home.
The students are more animated and engaged than my last section, and we have a robust discussion around the distinctions between primary and secondary sources. I am momentarily reassured that Zoom has not entirely robbed me of my ability to teach.
11:05 am: I check in with Amanda about our schedules for the rest of the day so we can make ourselves scarce, or at least quiet, during our respective meetings. While we used to work just across Akin Common from one another, we rarely saw each other during the day. Now her office is at the dining table, and mine is on the couch. “How was your day?” is no longer a viable conversation starter at dinner.
I heat up a frozen tamale for lunch, and fold laundry. I miss Flik, Hackley’s food service provider, but at least I’ve lost a few pounds since we were sent home.
12:30 pm: I join a Zoom meeting about senior projects. The prospect of redesigning one of our signature senior programs on short notice is daunting, and I’m just glad that there are other smart colleagues on the case. We want the seniors to have a voice in this process. They have lost control of so much else in their lives, and we can at least give them some agency in what the last few weeks of the year will look like. We schedule a grade meeting for Monday to hear out their ideas and concerns.
1:15 pm: I meet individually with 20th Century World students about their research papers.
Despite my best efforts to create a professional office environment — I put on a collared shirt just to sit on my couch — I can’t stop the cat from jumping in my lap in the middle of one meeting. The student is amused, and Amanda quickly lures him away with treats.
Feline antics aside, the meetings go well. When I first started teaching at Hackley, I felt like I had been handed the keys to an Aston Martin. I still get that rush every time I meet with a student. They are so bright, resilient, and kind even in the face of adversity, and I am thrilled to see them pushing ahead with creative and meaningful research. In addition to helping the students track down sources, the conversations also give me a chance to check in and see how they are doing.
2:07 pm: I manage to book History department chair Bill Davies for a faculty chapel talk next week. One of our seniors gave a chapel talk on Zoom during a lunch break yesterday, and it was beyond inspiring. I’m glad we can keep this tradition going, and with it another opportunity for students and faculty to come together as a community.
3:00 pm: We have a faculty meeting about course registration for 2020–2021. While my seniors are about to graduate, I’m looking forward to helping the new 9th graders with course selection. At the same time, talking about the next school year when we can’t even enter the building feels surreal. While I’m glad to be planning for a return to normal, I also worry that normal is going to be very different.
4:07 pm: I head up to the track to meet Dawn Crainer for a run. She takes Lane 1 and I take Lane 5 to maintain social distancing, and we switch at the mile mark to even out the workload. Faculty residents have been doing track workouts once or twice a week, and I’ve logged more miles in the past month than I have since college.
5:04 pm: Pizza arrives. It’s from a new pop-up in town called Unemployed Pizza which, as the name implies, is run by a couple of newly out-of-work cooks. If ever food could make you feel good about still having a job, this is it. We make the best of date night, but we’ve been grieving for the shuttered restaurants in Sleepy Hollow and Tarrytown.
There is much, much more to be done, but we’re both exhausted. Amanda hosts a Zoom social with her friends, and I call to check in on my parents.
