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Breathing new life

5/14/2020

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It’s the end of Week 7 of remote learning and I’m starting to feel the isolation even more isolating. We’re getting into our routines of remote learning, we have a pattern going, we’re in a flow. While I still connect with my colleagues regularly, it’s not close to the amount I was when we first started this journey together. We’ve been adapting to our new classroom environments and it just doesn’t seem like we need each other as much. Or maybe, most likely, it’s that we’ve become overwhelmed by the need to support our students that we have once again forgotten to take care of ourselves too. 

I don’t know about you, but as much connecting with colleagues is in efforts to plan and to work together in developing online lessons, my connecting is also about taking care of my mental health. I have a very supportive family and I can talk to them about everything, but, there are just somethings they don’t quite get. That’s why it’s so important to me to find somewhere I can not only share my thoughts and feelings, but be understood. Truly understood, by someone else who is sharing the experience alongside me.

Making time for me

I decided for my mental health that I needed to carve time out for myself. A time that was just for me, that would allow me to step away from the screens, from the stress of teaching remotely, and from the uncertainty. What was I going to do? I’m not a cup of wine in the bathtub kind of person. I could binge the latest Netflix series, but that wouldn’t get me away from the screen. I could go for a walk, but, I’ve most likely taken one earlier with my daughter. So, it was time with my houseplants.

My Houseplants

To preface, I had 7 plants in my classroom over Spring Break. I couldn’t tell you how much I thought of them and worried about them dying. Yes, I know they’re just plants, but I’ve had them for a few years and brought them through trying times of dealing with pests and managed to keep them all healthy. As time passed, I worried about their condition and their need for water. I wondered if they’d be alive when I was able to get to them. Well, 6 made it. My coffee plant did not. 

As soon as we were allowed to schedule a time to go into school and collect the belongings we’d need for teaching online I was there. Yes, I grabbed my books and other things I’d need. But, my top priority was my plants. 

Did you know you could order plants online? Well, you can.

Needless to say, my houseplant collection has significantly grown since physical distancing began. I went from 7 in the classroom and 6 at home, to a total of 27. I’ve even started propagating three of them, literally breathing new life into my plants. Who knew you didn’t have to buy plants, but that you could grow your own from the ones you already own? 
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Just one of my deliveries.

THeir Beauty

While I believe all 27 of my plants and their babies (my propagations) are beautiful, I didn’t just consider them to be some green decoration that adorned by shelves. As the plants began to become take over my home, I became more attuned with each of their individual personalities and their individual needs. Much like we do as teachers with our students. Each one needs a little something different from me, I had to learn when to feed them, water them, prune them, and I had to learn when I had to leave them to their own devices. Especially Flame, my Croton (yes, I’ve named my plants). I’ve apologized to him many times for having him on the shelf in my classroom being knocked constantly, not realizing until how sensitive he is to constant movement. He prefers to be left alone). 
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​It’s their uniqueness in appearances and needs that make them beautiful, they truly represent life and all of our diverse needs. Once I think I’ve figured out one of my plants, something changes and they demand something different than before. Take Ellie, one of my orchids. She seemed to be doing fine, she was still living, but she was just dormant, she hadn’t shown any new life in nearly a year. Well, with a little extra love and care, taking away her potting medium, I could see some of her roots were rotting. She needed my help. So, that’s what I did, I helped her. By cutting away the rotten roots and moving her to full water culture I was able to give her what she needed. A fresh start. Only 4 short weeks later Ellie started breathing new life and producing a new leaf.
​With love and care the plants grow and show their beauty. With each unfurling leaf comes new life. But, the true beauty in plants is to appreciate their imperfections. Recognizing that a burnt leaf, from being a little to close to the window, tells a story that is equally important as the story the new bloom of the orchid can tell. 
Ultimately, it comes down to find something for you. What can you do to rejuvenate yourself?

What is it that can breathe new life into you?

​- D'Alice
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Maintaining a Sense of Community During Remote Learning

5/4/2020

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Let me start by saying that most educators choose this career because of the relationships that we have the opportunity to build. (I don’t know of anyone that decided to be a teacher for the pay, but, that’s another topic altogether.) The question comes up every year and when it does I tell my students I became a teacher for two reasons:

  • captive audience, that’s forced to listen to me and to laugh at my jokes
  • school supplies

But, really, the main reason I became a teacher was the relationships. The relationships that I had with my teachers going to school greatly influenced me. Along with the relationships, I developed while coaching. It was while coaching that I had my “ah-ha” moment. Sharing in their triumphs, seeing them smile and breaking through the defence, breaking through a barrier. This is why I became a teacher. To help support others in their growth and to encourage them along the way.

Well, it’s not the same anymore. I don’t feel connected, I feel like the relationships I’ve built with my students this year is slipping away.

So, here I am, I’m going to break this down into three branches: connections, relationships, and community.

CONNECTIONS
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Connections, to me, is the main root of education. We, teachers and students, are all linked together through our association with our classroom, with our school. No matter what our relationship looks like, we are connected, good or bad. 

​RELATIONSHIPS
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Relationships are another main root of education. My success, any teacher’s success, in teaching is based on the strength of the relationships formed with our students. The relationship between teacher and student is fundamental in creating a welcoming classroom environment. We are after all in our classrooms together for an average of 5 hours a day. Not only, do teachers use these relationships to motivate students, but we also use them to experience fun. Fun, in both learning and teaching, for the students and the teacher. I don’t know about you, but, I can learn just as much from my students as they can learn from me. The “content” we learn might be different, but we’re learning from one another. It’s a mutually beneficial relationship.
So, how do we maintain these relationships through remote learning?

COMMUNITY
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Community is where it all comes together. You cannot have connections and relationships without creating a sense of community. We’re all involved. Ideally, we’re all working together to create a positive environment in which we support one another and learn from one another. You might ask who we are. Well, “we” is you, your students, those in the classroom across the hall, down the hall, those in the office, those anywhere in the building. Each day we all interact with one another, each day we greet one another. There’s a flow to which we move together. It’s a dance.
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Now, the true question is, how do you maintain the connections you’ve made, the relationships you’ve built, and the community you created through remote learning?

This is the question I’m struggling to answer. I don’t know if you truly can. But, we can certainly try.

One thing I knew that was important to me going into remote learning was the attempt to maintain our classroom community. Not only for the relationships I worked at developing with my students, but to help preserve the relationships developed amongst the students themselves.

As such, there are two things that I am continuing to do in our online classrooms:
​1. Our daily Would You Rather

Each day in our classroom started off the same, I’d project a Would You Rather question on the classroom TV, students would grab their personalized magnets and vote. There was a method to my madness, it helped me with daily attendance, it created structure and routine, and it created a fun engaging atmosphere. Students loved to challenge each other while defending their choice.

It only seemed natural that I continue with this online. By continuing to post these questions daily. And I am thankful I have. While there is not as much debate as there would have been in class, given the asynchronous environment, students are still commenting on others’ posts.

2. Table Groups

In our classrooms, students are able to sit in groups ranging from 2 to 8. They have the tendency to sit with their same peers, they had the option to sit wherever they wanted with the use of some flexible seating.

Now, clearly this cannot be duplicated in the online environment, so instead, I created fixed “Table Groups” based on their usual choices made in the classroom. The groups were created using the Rooms feature in GoogleChat.

Each morning students are asked to participate in Table Group Chats for 15 minutes. This is the only synchronous activity that we ask our students to join in. I know it doesn’t work for everyone, but it does for most. If students are unable to make it to the scheduled chat time, then they are encouraged to check in with their group at some time throughout the day. During the daily Table Group Chats, students are asked to see how each other are doing, to offer support with work, to provide encouragement, ultimately to be there for each other.

By using the GoogleChat feature it has allowed me the opportunity to monitor what is being said for safety reasons and the ability to monitor their engagement level.
​Additionally, I have added two other activities in an attempt to maintain our connections, relationships, and classroom community.
1. Table Group Challenges

While students would often work together in small groups in class, I wanted to create something more entertaining to help with their Social Emotional Learning.

Each week Table Groups receive a challenge they have to complete together. They are assigned 30 minutes of synchronous time on Monday morning to allow for planning. They start the challenge synchronously but finish it asynchronously. There are groups that choose to schedule times in which they are all online together, they use their preference in the platform. Really, my goal is to decrease the expectations of learning, while disguising it as a fun challenge.

Challenges have varied from completing digital Breakout EDU games, creating music playlists, writing 2-word stories, and more. They’re meant to be silly but are based in SEL and curricular expectations.
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COVID-19 Recording Studios: Groups had to work together to create a playlist of songs that represented their experiences of living through the pandemic.
​2. Whole-Class Engagement Activities

This is something based on Social Media posts engagements. Usually twice a week, I’ll create an engagement activity based on a hashtag for the day of the week, and students respond similarly to how others would if it were posted in a Facebook Group or on Instagram.

For this, I use GoogleSlides and share the slides so all students can edit. Not only does this allow students to post their responses, but it also allows them to comment on others and to have conversations back and forth.
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#TripTuesday. An example of one of the engagement posts.
Now, even with all of this (and the video calls, emails, and instant messages), as much as students are “engaging” it’s not the same. There’s no way possible to replicate the sense of community in a remote learning environment. Especially one that was created to teach during a world-wide pandemic. As much as we want to try to carry on as normal by maintaining some form of routine, it’s just not something that can be done. And this is where I’m struggling. Try as I might, it’s just not the same. 
The important take-away for me, is that there is still a sense of community, it’s simply different from what we are used to. No matter what we are going through individually, or as a whole, I want my students to know that they are not alone.


​Stay safe, stay healthy,


D'Alice
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    An educator in New Westminster, BC, that has a passion for life long learning.  We learn from our students as much as they learn from us.

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