by Shelby Clark
As the COVID-19 pandemic enters its third year, teachers everywhere are feeling overwhelmed and burnt out. We sympathize, want to help, and in our work with educators we’re doing a lot of listening. Some of the questions we all are asking include:
What does it take to be a good teacher during a pandemic?
Are teachers able to be engaged, ethical, and excellent during a time of immense pressure, while at the same time encouraging their students to be good workers?
What are the non-negotiables that teachers must focus on with their students this year? What can they let go of in recognition of how difficult this time has been?
What resources and support do teachers need to help them be good workers, and who is best suited to provide this support? What are the roles of administrators, fellow teachers, parents, community members, students, and the government in ensuring success?
These are some of the questions we would like you to consider as you watch the below videos from a set of teachers who are active on social media. These teachers speak to some of their experiences as educators during the current pandemic and share ideas with insight and humor to give us all a sense of how they are doing their work right now.
Teacher @socteacher007 discusses how The New York Times may be doing an injustice to teachers and students by writing about children “lagging” behind this year, when today’s students are working in a very different social context to pre-pandemic students.
@jack.of.all.learning discusses the “burden of labor” for teachers that comes with “identifying a need, articulating a need, and then advocating for that need to be addressed.” He urges administrators and others to take on some of this burden with classroom teachers.
@ms.m_closet, a purveyor of comedic videos for educators, role-plays a staff meeting where she desperately tries to set the boundaries she’d been told by administrators to set at another recent self-care staff meeting. She provides a cheeky take on the need for more time for teachers facing a high workload.
@drzeisner, a principal educator, describes her thoughts on teacher timetables, noting that, although teachers should work full time, their schedule should ideally include a half-time course load. The other half of teacher time can then be filled with crucial non-academic elements such as mentoring, team teaching, observations, and more.
What do you think about the ideas represented here? What do you think makes a “good teacher” at this moment in time?
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