Treehouse teaching and laundry art: Educators find creative ways to reach kids - The Washington Post

Treehouse teaching and laundry art: Educators find creative ways to reach kids - The Washington Post

Treehouse teaching and laundry art: Educators find creative ways to reach kids

The year 2020 was tough for everyone — and unprecedented for the U.S. educational system, which was forced to go online overnight, with innumerable glitches at the start and long-term consequences that are still becoming clear.

But while school districts grappled with health metrics and decisions to open or close buildings, hard-working teachers across America found ways to reach their students. Ideas ran the gamut — making art from laundry, taking bike rides as a class, teaching from an old treehouse.

The Washington Post gathered stories of creative teaching from throughout the Washington region. The anecdotes collected below do not represent everyone’s experience, but they highlight notes of grace — and offer sparks of hope.

'Everyone's got laundry!'

As the weeks of online learning stretched into months, art teacher Abigail Dillingham was struggling.

She kept thinking about the projects cut short by the pandemic: The crown-wearing dinosaurs her kindergartners would never finish painting. The cityscapes her second-graders would never finish crafting.

Dillingham, who teaches at James K. Polk Elementary School in Alexandria, was also concerned about her students’ lack of engagement — so few were completing the assignments she emailed to parents. She couldn’t be sure whether her kids were uninterested or whether they lacked the necessary pens, paper and crayons at home.

That’s when she spotted it, shared on an online forum for art teachers: Someone had twisted the CONTINUE READING: Treehouse teaching and laundry art: Educators find creative ways to reach kids - The Washington Post