A Day in My Socially Distanced Classroom
Or my summertime dystopian nightmare
Note: This is my realistic prediction based on 16 years as a public high school teacher, and my reoccurring nightmares about reopening schools too soon.
5:15 Wake up and get dressed in leggings and a long-sleeved t-shirt, cover my hair. Make sure my bag with scrubs, masks, and disinfectants is prepped. Take my temperature and hope other parents are doing the same- also hope they aren’t forced to medicate a feverish kid and send them in anyway due to a lack of childcare options- a common occurrence in the pre-Covid world.
6:50 Arrive at work. Don scrubs over my clothes in the parking lot because the faculty bathroom is crowded with other teachers doing the same. Sanitize my hands. Take two puffs off my inhaler. Put my mask on. Sanitize my hands again, just in case. Walk inside. Clock in by 7:15, maintain social distance. Smile at colleagues who might be smiling at me through their mask.
7:20 Wipe down desks and high contact zones in my classroom with a disinfectant and leave wet for 10 minutes, the necessary time to disinfect surfaces. Sanitize my hands again.
7:30 Greet first class of students from six feet away. Smile through my mask. Hope they can tell. Log on to the platform we’re using so the kids who aren’t there in person can listen in. Take attendance for in person students, hybrid class, and remote learning class.
7:40 Turn on video camera and stand in my socially distanced box in the front of the room to teach the day’s lesson. Remember all the coursework in college about being a “guide on the side" instead of a “sage on the stage" and sigh wistfully, through my mask and face shield.
7:45 Repeat myself because someone in the back of the room couldn’t hear me through my mask. Continue lesson.
7:47 Someone got locked out of the live stream, troubleshoot with them. Continue lesson.
7:50 Remember to walk over and monitor students attending remotely and on hybrid schedules. Clear their screens of non-academic pursuits. Walk back to where I can be seen on camera and continue lesson.
7:52 Ask a student to replace mask, or put away cell phone, or some other minor infraction. From six feet away. And without using their name in case the camera picks it up to avoid potential FERPA violations. Continue lesson.
7:55 Assign task for today and instruct students to log onto Google Classroom to view materials and then to navigate to Google Meet where they will be assigned a break out room to work in their small group to answer the discussion questions and write their claim. Wonder silently why we are doing this in person at all and try to stifle my normal morning asthma induced cough so as not to cause a panic. Turn off camera.
7:57 Answer questions from students in person. Sit behind my desk and answer questions from students attending digitally.
8:00 Monitor student work from my computer. Peek into their chats, look over their documents, offer feedback. Refocus and discipline as needed, maintaining six feet of distance.
8:08 Remind students of assignment and virtual office hours. Gaze wistfully at my classroom library, wrapped up and unused. Ask the students to wipe down their desks with disinfectant. Sanitize my hands again.
8:10 Bell rings, students leave. Disinfect high contact areas, and as many desks as I can, just in case.
8:15 Bell rings. Try not to panic about the disinfectant not being on quite long enough, or that I missed my duty of standing at the door to help maintain social distancing and mask use in the hallways. Repeat similar pattern to first period, only this class has a co-teacher I also have to navigate six feet of space from. We resort to texting so we’re not shouting across the room.
9:00 Third period is my prep period. There’s another class in my room, so after disinfecting every desk and high contact area, and after worrying about how many wipes I’m going through and where I’ll find more, wave at my colleague and find a place to work. The English Department Office is a small windowless room that has been reassigned for children exhibiting symptoms waiting to be picked up, and the main faculty room is crowded. I find a corner of the library or an empty classroom somewhere, disinfect, sanitize my hands, and log on to my computer to answer emails. A parent is upset with me. She was listening to the live stream and I referred to one of her daughter’s friends by his preferred name and pronouns, pursuant to NJ regulations. But he’s not out at home, and now I’ve put him at risk.
4th period (9:50, if you’re still keeping track) is my duty period. This year, I am assigned to the mass study hall we use to save money on substitute teachers. I report to the auditorium, obtain my rosters, seat my students six feet apart, and take attendance. One student begins sobbing and panicking, convinced that the teacher’s absence means everyone is getting infected. Calm her down as best I can, from six feet away. Give students their assignment and monitor.
5th period Another teaching class. Wipe down thoroughly before I let the students enter because I wasn’t the last to use it. Hope that the label was exaggerating about the 10 minutes for effective disinfecting.
6th period Wipe down and teach again. It’s getting pretty stuffy. We’re not using the HVAC system because it circulates air between rooms. My windows are open the full six inches each, but my door must remain closed pursuant to policy for fire code and active shooter protection. Mask wearing becomes more challenging to enforce.
7th period Study hall duty. Another mass class held in the cafeteria. Take attendance, enforce social distancing. A student is coughing. Another accuses him of faking. I have no idea what this protocol is, call for backup. Panic because I forgot to wipe down the phone. Sanitize my hands while trying to keep the room full of angsty kids under control. Really try to maintain social distance.
12:00 The bell for the end of our half day rings. Take a deep breath, then race out the door. I only have an hour and a half to get home and sanitized before I have to be back on camera.
12:05 Get to my car and strip off the top layer, the mask, the hair covering, etc. Sanitize my hands, use inhaler, and drive home. Console myself that this ridiculous process adds a layer of protection to the car I pick my kids up from daycare in. Use my commute to mentally go over my to do list, or cry, whichever is most pressing.
12:45 Arrive home. Strip bottom layer in garage. Sanitize shoes, keys, etc and leave in garage.
Go inside, wash hands, start laundry, and get right into shower. Prepare for afternoon virtual classes. Remember that I had promised my husband I’d squeeze eating lunch in today and grab a granola bar on my way to my “home office.”
1:25 Log on to afternoon class. Upload videos created earlier in the day for reinforcement or issues with the live stream.
1:30 Begin live instruction. Take attendance, give lesson and demonstrate activity. Assign and monitor breakout rooms. Smile often, since tomorrow they’ll see me masked all morning. Engage with students in their discussions. Recommend further research or revisiting a key passage. Ask follow up questions. Try to forget about the screen and connect. Try to check in with each student before class ends. Try not to dwell on this block of remote learning at the end of the day using the exact same structures and pedagogy but remotely, rather than mask to mask.
Truthfully, my nightmare has never made it this far before panic ensues, or there’s an outbreak and the school has to shut down anyway, or I get sick myself, or I infect my own family. There is one especially terrifying version where I go to begin class and instead of students, I’m greeted by rows of tombstones. I have a very vivid imagination, sure, but my anxiety is revealing a deeper issue here.
I’m not an essential employee. Every snow day has taught me this. My job, my professional expertise, is to educate children. I can do that from home, as so many other professionals continue to do.
What my nightmares reveal, apart from my palpable fear, is that my presence in the classroom isn’t about what’s best educationally. Because the virtual session used the same methodologies without the masks or social distance.
My presence in the classroom isn’t what’s best socially either. Socially distanced education doesn’t allow for much interaction, and most of that is through a screen while masked. My afternoon sessions will feel a lot more engaging without the visible reminders of the ongoing trauma.
The reason I’ve become an essential employee is to serve as childcare.
As a mother of two myself, I understand and empathize with the difficulties of finding quality childcare. It is a massive problem that must be addressed. But, these proposed hybrid schedules where students meet every other day for a half day don’t even solve the childcare issue. Parents will still be scrambling to find care.
The nightmare I described above cannot be the solution. Those images belong in a dystopian novel that I book talk to recommend and distribute to interested kids from my classroom library. Please don’t allow this to become our students' reality.
