Teachers and Students Describe a Remote-Learning Life
They talk about how the change to online instruction has affected them.
This article is part of our latest Learning special report, which focuses on the challenges of online education during the coronavirus outbreak.
We asked teachers and college students about their experiences with the change to online instruction. The Learning Network, a site about teaching and learning with content from The New York Times, asked students in grades K through 12 how they have been coping with remote learning. The following comments have been edited and condensed.
Teachers’ Voices
So much of what we do in classrooms are driven by student responses and reactions. I’d give anything to watch their faces light up, their hands in the air, their smiles and fist pumps when they share a new learning or big idea with me. – Meg Burke, teaches grades 3 through 8, Doylestown, Pa.
Here I am, at 66, within a year of full retirement, having to learn how to use Google Classroom with 35 first graders at various places in their learning. I feel as though I am attempting to drive on a road that I am simultaneously paving while also following a paper map. – Janet Kass, teaches first grade, Bloomingburg, N.Y.
Over 80 percent of the students at my school come from low-income families, and
only a quarter of my students have a computer at home. For economically disadvantaged students, this outbreak means they will fall even further behind their wealthier peers. – Kaitlin Barnes, teaches fourth grade, Baltimore
Dear Parents: I promise you that we have your child’s best interest at heart. We worry about them, we miss them, we want more than anything to be back in the classroom. We don’t teach because we like figuring out how to work Zoom, we don’t teach to stare at a screen all day, we don’t teach to field an onslaught of emails each day. We teach because we love your children. – Kara Conceison, teaches sixth grade, Watertown, Mass.
Teachers’ Voices
So much of what we do in classrooms are driven by student responses and reactions. I’d give anything to watch their faces light up, their hands in the air, their smiles and fist pumps when they share a new learning or big idea with me. – Meg Burke, teaches grades 3 through 8, Doylestown, Pa.
Here I am, at 66, within a year of full retirement, having to learn how to use Google Classroom with 35 first graders at various places in their learning. I feel as though I am attempting to drive on a road that I am simultaneously paving while also following a paper map. – Janet Kass, teaches first grade, Bloomingburg, N.Y.
Over 80 percent of the students at my school come from low-income families, and
only a quarter of my students have a computer at home. For economically disadvantaged students, this outbreak means they will fall even further behind their wealthier peers. – Kaitlin Barnes, teaches fourth grade, Baltimore
Dear Parents: I promise you that we have your child’s best interest at heart. We worry about them, we miss them, we want more than anything to be back in the classroom. We don’t teach because we like figuring out how to work Zoom, we don’t teach to stare at a screen all day, we don’t teach to field an onslaught of emails each day. We teach because we love your children. – Kara Conceison, teaches sixth grade, Watertown, Mass.