Friday Night Virtual Lessons in Teaching, Together

This isn’t easy

We are five friends gathered on a Friday night, talking and laughing, just as we have for more than 30 years. But unlike the Friday nights of years ago, when we spent much of our time in the same house, tonight we gather virtually. We are miles apart, physically scattered across Massachusetts and Southern New Hampshire, but we are internetting together, looking at each other’s faces, hearing each other’s voices.

We yell at each other to unmute, to turn on the camera, to turn on a brighter light. We gesture, laughing, as our technical difficulties continue, our home networks fritz and our families yell into the conversations. We take 10 minutes to finally assemble entirely, and to be seen and clearly heard.

We are all educators, in widely varied academic settings, serving students from kindergarten to community college. But despite this spread, we are working with students in similar ways to how we are attempting to meet tonight. We are all struggling with it in some manner that reflects the communities and grades we serve. We share the challenges we’ve encountered in this mode of instructional delivery and how it is affecting our classes.

Some students have access to computers or internet. Some don’t. Some have parents who want them in online classrooms…