The Elementary School Gap Year
This year has been tough on us all in more ways than one. The Coronavirus (also known as Covid-19) has turned our world upside-down. It has done irreparable damage to many businesses, from the entertainment industries in Hollywood and Broadway, to the bodega on the corner and the mom-and-pop dry cleaner down the block. We have all felt it: the ways in which our lives have changed; how irritating, yet necessary it is to wear a mask; and how annoying and careless it feels when others aren’t wearing one correctly or not wearing one at all. We feel the uneasiness in our collective gut when the infection rate rises and when the number of deaths increase worldwide. We are all anxious, nervous, depressed. And, in spite of the much-needed hope that the most recent election results might have given us, we can’t help but feel at least a little hopeless.
All of these feelings are being communicated to our children. Whether we want them to or not. They feel it. And there’s very little we can do about it.
In the spring, our city, the one that never sleeps, was shut down. Curfews were imposed and schools were closed. As a kindergarten teacher in New York City, with 3 children of my own, I was worried about more than the virus and it’s impact on my family’s health. I, all of a sudden, didn’t know how to do my job, a job which I had been performing (excellently, if I do say so myself) for 20 years. I didn’t know how to teach online. I didn’t know how to “Zoom” or “Google Meet” or even what a “Microsoft Team” was. I had to learn phrases like “put it in the chat,” and “share my screen” and “you’ll find the link in the stream.” I immediately felt obsolete; like my teaching methods and practices were a thing of the past. Get with the times, Old Lady, or this train will zoom right past you! (See what I did there?)
My children were also having a difficult time with this new way of learning. For years, my husband and I have read article after article about how devices and our addictions to them were rotting our brains and ruining society. After witnessing proof of this notion all around us, we easily subscribed to that way of thinking and vowed never to be the type of family who would value the virtual over the actual. We were, for the most part, a device-free home. Our children didn’t have iPads or phones. We had a television, but the programming was closely monitored and the time spent watching the television shows was limited. We were the weirdos who talked and danced and played board games and built lego kits with their kids. We made and ate dinner together most nights and talked about our day with each other. Our kids were not involved in any regimented extra curricular activities — a weekend gymnastics class here, an piano lesson there… We prized independent reading time and unstructured play, indoors and outdoors. That’s what all the books and articles and experts had told us was the most valuable thing to do. That’s what our own childhoods were like and we wanted that for our own children. Time to explore an idea or an area of land, alone or with a friend. Time to be bored enough to come up with an original game or a song. Time to study a bug or a rock or a cloud. Time to be a kid.
And then the rules changed. School changed. And we were, in one remarkable, astounding instant, left behind.
We had to get our hands on devices for our kids and quickly. We had to learn how to use these devices together. I mean, my husband and I had smart phones and iPads of our own, but we mainly used them for work, and in the traditional sense — sending emails and texts and playing Tetris. (Tetris! I know, right?) We certainly didn’t use them for video conferencing! We had to figure out Google Classroom and Storypark and different learning platforms, like Nearpod and FlipGrid and Book Creator and something called Zearn? Luckily, my kids are kids. And, as such, they picked up these strange tekky things rather quickly. Soon, most of it became second nature to them. Not so much for me. It was and is still really difficult for me to wrap my ancient-feeling head around all of this. I’m trying, but I feel so stupid. My dyslexic brain can’t seem to get the hang of all of this and I’m drowning.
To make matters worse, over the summer, when we finally felt like we could take a breath and regroup and devise a plan for how to attack this in the fall and hit the ground running, we were hit with 2 bombshells. Both my father-in-law and mother-in-law had contracted the Coronavirus. She died on Memorial Day. He died in August.
I had hit my limit. Something had to give.
I decided to take a leave of absence from teaching. As much as I felt an extreme sense of guilt for leaving my colleagues and my school community during this unusually challenging time, I also felt that I could not able to give them my best self. I was spread too thin. Not to mention that I had come to believe that this way of teaching was not actually teaching at all. Not in the way I had learned to teach, any way. I know that there is something to be said for changing with the times, but there are a few core-shaping, brain-strengthening, personality-cultivating aspects of good education that cannot be taught through a screen. Nor can they be adequately communicated through a mask from 6 feet apart. So much of what we do as teachers of young children is expressed through the senses. In Kindergarten, it’s primarily sight, sound, and touch. How can you teach children to read facial expressions if you cannot see 60 percent of the other person’s face? How can you learn someone’s personal boundaries during play if you can’t touch them? How can you develop language and understanding if you can’t clearly hear what someone is saying through their mask?
My children have been through a lot this past year. They have not only lost 2 beloved family members, they have lost their friends, their school communities, and their former selves. My oldest, who is about to turn 14, was looking forward to being a freshman in high school. We promised him a phone and more independence. He wanted to reinvent himself, with new people in a new place. He wanted to try to be cool and look smart. He told me that he wanted to wear “shirts with buttons and serious pants.” No more jeans and t-shirts for this guy. He was cultivating an image.
There was also a girl with whom he had formed a bond in middle school. He had even taken it upon himself to learn a piece on the piano that he thought she might like. He worked on it for hours every day, practicing without his parents’ insistence. He wanted to share it with her before the end of the school year. Sadly, that didn’t happen.
When the new school year began, my husband and I shifted our perspectives. We were resolute in our determination not to take this school year too seriously. This is not to say that we don’t appreciate and value the important work that educators are doing. I know firsthand how hard everyone is working and I can’t applaud them enough. This is an amazingly difficult undertaking, during an incredibly unique and trying time. I only mean that, we have decided to look at this as more of an educational gap year of sorts. Our children are still attending their scheduled meetings and completing assignments at their own pace. However, much of their time is being spent exploring the outdoors (in a safe, socially-distant way, of course), playing games with each other, reading, watching nature documentaries, helping more with chores around the house, creating art. Stepping away from their devices and re-learning what it means to be a human being. Finding moments of joy during a time when those moments are fewer and farther between.
They may fall behind in their schoolwork. But, everyone is behind in their schoolwork. Grading on a curve, when everyone is on the curve, is just riding the wave. And isn’t that what we’re all doing?
Although our family has suffered great losses this year, I feel that what we have gained is a stronger, more firm connection with ourselves and our environment. It’s not backpacking across Europe, but it’ll do.
