Adult schools are scheduled to open now on April 26, six weeks from the end of the semester. Sort of. Student interest in returning to campus is gauged via a ton of different surveys (the word in Spanish is “incuesta,” which conjures “Spanish Inquisition.”) Classrooms into which we’d jammed 45 students now hold 7, counting the teacher.
Entry to campus will require a Daily Pass QR code. This entails answering a dozen or so questions each day and submitting to a weekly COVID test (nasal swab, unless saliva version is specifically requested). There are testing centers at a couple of schools but not at ours. Apparently, a van will visit each school weekly but as I write this, there are no additional details. Teachers indicate that they are unable to get appointments in time to qualify for the return to school.
The six lucky students in the classroom will be asked to bring their own devices, as we are short on loaners and the first six to arrive will be in the same classroom with their assigned teacher. Everyone is masked. Unlucky Seven is sent to an alternative classroom. Students taking two consecutive classes will remain in the same classroom for both. Instruction is 100% via Zoom.
There is an elaborate plan for safety procedures. A paper copy of the tome is provided to every LAUSD employee in a pink envelope. Each student and instructor will receive a private pair of noise cancelling headphones. School gates will be monitored by clipboard and thermometer bearing staff members. At busier times, there will be three separate monitors for visitors, Daily Pass holders and staff. The district advertises for1000 temporary custodians. All cleaning. All the time.
Even before the details of the instructional model is released, incuesta says, approximately 70% of ESL students prefer to continue studying from their homes. What will happen to the percentile when students learn that they’re required to wait in line for the opportunity to have a swab shoved up their noses, even if fully vaccinated, so they can struggle to find parking and sit in a classroom to Zoom and watch a teacher Zoom? Maybe there a few post-modernist aficionados of meta…
I am winding down my second semester of fully teaching online. I spend hours making slide presentations that are visible and attractive on a cell phone screen. Each class starts with a glance at the agenda and a painting. Last semester I asked students to write observations about the picture in the chat but there were so few participants, I switch it just to talk.
There’s a Thomas Hart Benton scene with speakeasies and flappers. “When is this picture from?” “The 1970s?” a shy voice posits. “One hundred years ago there was a pandemic. Many more people died than with COVID. After the pandemic, see how happy the people are? We will be happy too.” I don’t go into the prohibition thing. Weed is legal so I have no good analogy. I realize that my romantic depiction of the 1920s probably lacks woke, but I hope this is trumped by the need for simple language that brings good cheer.
After the art pontification, we put on our critical thinking cap. A great challenge is finding infographics that are relevant, comprehensible and visible on a cell phone. I try to tie the Analyze and Interpret portion of the show into the topic of the week. Now we’re working on health and safety so there’s a chart quantifying the improved mental health of kids who play outdoors and another about hidden sodium in food. “Does being outside help children with stress? How much salt is in a Lunchable? What are some snacks that don’t have a lot of salt and sugar?” It is so daunting to find charts and diagrams for each daily lesson, that I’m even reduced to a cautionary pie chart about American obesity. Eventually I hope to be otherwise reduced but until such time, I am thankful that Zoom is from the neck up.
The body of the lesson usually comes from Burlington English, a robust program I’ve used and liked even before the pandemic. There’s a good balance of speaking, reading and writing work and some of the chapters have a game at the end. There are homework assignments that gibe with the lessons.
The district learning platform Schoology is a very complicated to initiate, whereas Burlington English is simple. A lot of the conversation practice is designed for a classroom, so I adapt the conversations. “Do you have a pencil?” becomes “Do you have an iPhone or an android?” The students are sent to breakout rooms to practice a conversation and variations. Lest they start chatting in Spanish, I flit from room to room, the English language gestapo.
A stoner, Edwin is among the youngest students. Even high he is able to navigate the very complicated log-in process required to access the homework. Rather than fumbling through with individual students and troubleshooting myself, I just open up a breakout room with Edwin, and he fixes things in nothing flat. He is the most enthusiastic about games and asks for an extra turn. Baked, he has a 25% chance with the four possible multiple-choice answers. Knowing the side my bread is buttered on, sometimes I help him save face. “You mean D, don’t you Edwin?” I would be very screwed if I had to reset some hapless student’s fourteen digit/four symbols/two capital letters-password, at least once a night.
Star student Isabel wears horned rimmed glasses, has thick glossy hair and that genuine smile you can see in the eyes. She evokes a forties movie trope--the second lead/brainy secretary lets down her hair, takes off her glasses and poof! She’s a sex bomb! Isabel wins every game. Second place usually goes to handsome, good humored Joshua. One of the discussion board questions is “Do you have a pet?” Isabel has a little Maltese named Bolillo. Joshua has a turtle whose name I forget.
To gin up homework participation I make a slide for anyone who does all of it. “Homework Hero” splashes across the screen and then the student’s name spins in. There’s a campy gif of go-go dancers, Beatlemania or a tickertape parade. Isabel gets prancing puppies and Joshua’s has a turtle motif. Instead of blunts and Rasta flags, I stay neutral with Edwin adding dancing bears or Spongebob.
After class on Thursdays, I leave the Zoom open. It’s the Social Hour. I mute and turn off my own camera. Sometimes I see them sharing screens of the homework, but mostly they just talk.
A bunch of students stay in the social hour for ten minutes or so and then drift off to live their lives. But sometimes a few keep on talking for hours. It’s usually Isabel (who’s single and lives with her sister) and a bunch of guys. Joshua is the most debonaire of the lot, but in addition to name-escaped turtle, he has a wife and two kids. Edwin is a regular too and I see him acting goofy and sticking the camera under his armpit.
Late one night I come down for a drink of water and the chat is still in progress. I notice that Edwin has temporarily lost his connection and is requesting that the host (me) let him back into the Zoom. If I wasn’t thirsty, I wouldn’t notice Edwin in the waiting room. I just go back to bed. Maybe it’s a bad call and the other students find him scintillating but at the time, it feels like a mitzvah.
Adult school instructors are the last group to negotiate return-to-school. A lot of vocational instruction does indeed need to be on the campus but as far as ESL goes, most of the students want to continue studying from home. Instructors however must be on campus and Zoom continuously for the entire contracted time. This means for many of us, a two hour Zoom class in the morning, a three hour Zoom class in the evening and a five hour Zoom class on Saturday. Wearing a mask the whole time. For the last year, I Zoom for an hour and create about five hours a week of asynchronous work that students can complete at their own convenience. Students are aware they can always text me and I’ll come on Zoom to help them with whatever they need.
There are indeed some students who can’t hack Zoom and are dropped from my class roll as “no shows.” Now we offer a four-week course to teach student to use Zoom and all of the other educational apps that we rely on. A student can get the bare basics enough to enter the course from the school, and then can continue learning the fundamentals of online learning from home.
The final union compromise with the district is disappointing. Teachers have been teaching effectively from their homes, upgrading WIFI, adding monitors, purchasing subscriptions for ESL content and incurring other expenses, none of which, thanks to Trump, are tax deductible. Students have had the same schedule of one-hour classes since the semester’s inception in February. With six weeks to go, it’s bait and switch to add more than an hour to their scheduled classes.
There has been some state and school board level action to establish parity with K-12 teachers for adult educators. For a number of years there is no avenue to tenure. The path opens this year. Many adult school educators, like me, have a split shift, morning and evening and Saturdays. While the district, mortified probably by public perception, doesn’t budge on marathon Zooming from classrooms, there is the provision that instructors with a split shift can teach evening classes from home if none of their students want to study on campus.
Medically excused, I am not returning to campus myself for a while. As ludicrous as it is to force teachers to return to school, I am wondering if the reprieve for the split-shifters might have legs, post pandemic. Many private and public concerns realize the cost effectiveness of work from home. Adult ESL instructors now have a year of, administrator observed, experience. When we get back to normalcy and teachers teaching in full classroom, there will be some students who want live instruction, but many will prefer digital. While teachers are being forced back to school too soon, perhaps ultimately there will be at least home-based instruction authorized for post pandemic.
I miss moving through my classroom, tossing out posterboard and colored markers and jellybeans to count and graph, and making secret Santa greeting cards and addressing them to mail. I scour the 99 Cent and Dollar Tree between classes for crafts stuff, candy and prizes. Bulletin boards are filled with student created posters and certificates for the 100 Hour Club members. My room is next to the office so other teachers stop by before class and show me cool lesson material or groan about some bureaucratic inanity.
Now we bitch by text, or in chat during Zoom staff meetings. There are no cards or crafts but for a couple hours a week we live together. Spouses. Kids. Pets. Some are camera shy. I ask them to turn their cameras on at least when I say goodbye but always add that it isn’t mandatory. A handful are disembodied voices but for the rest, I know their faces.
On Zoom you can look really carefully at a person close up without seeming creepy. I pull a few hunks of hair back to tone down the Bride of Frankenstein coiffure, but there’s no haircut or make-up for the past year. Pupils can look at me with the same impunity that I enjoy when I drink in their faces and surroundings. Larry, the cat jumps up on my lap and swats at my face. Perry, the other cat, yowls. Opie, barks at the Amazon delivery and butts the screen with her nose when she knows that the Zoom hour is up. I demonstrate baking cookies. Himself teaches them to introduce themselves in Irish on St. Patrick’s Day. Two musician friends log on and give concerts.
On-line and classroom teaching are satisfying in different ways. I long for a peppy classroom with physical stuff to do and local field trips and holiday parties. But Zoom offers flexibility for all of us. Student (often with Edwin’s help) figure out the technology. My retention is about the same as it is in the classroom era. Students Zoom from all over. One of my morning ladies lives in a woman’s shelter in Stockton. A gal from my Saturday class logs in from a visit with her mom in the Dominican Republic. A fellow has a temporary job and joins us from a fire escape in Queens.
A year of living my life with students, having them in my home, and visiting theirs, makes for an intimacy I never imagined.
Probable changes in immigration law will likely increase enrollment in ESL and Citizenship classes. Perhaps it will dawn on someone that instruction can be provided effectively, and far less expensively, from teachers’ homes. And this might attract some additional talent to adult education the perennial pedagogical poor relation. (Note: the proper show-offy word for adult education is “andragogy,” which for alliterative purposes is useless).
No comments:
Post a Comment