Pandemic Lessons – Teaching Students in Quarantine

There has been very little that was predictable about this academic year with the exception that students would regularly end up absent for stretches of time while they quarantined. While it would be lovely if it were not so, it has been the one constant in the last four and a half months. On any given day, there is a reasonable chance that one or more students will suddenly be absent or sent home to quarantine. It doesn’t happen every day, but it happens frequently enough that it is something that I have come to expect. Sometimes, it is one student. Sometimes, it is a couple of kids in one class and a couple of other kids scattered throughout the day. Sometimes, it is more. At one point, more than half of my first period was home quarantining. Sometimes, it is the same kid who has had to quarantine multiple times because he was a close contact.

At the outset, I knew this was coming and recognized the havoc that missing so much of a math class could wreak on students. It’s rough when a student misses a day or two of math class, never mind several weeks. I decided that my only option was to try to provide the option of reducing those missed instructional days. That meant class was going to happen with kids in the room and kids at home on a regular basis. This is something that our district is not requiring, but I just did not see any other option for actually giving kids access to the lessons that they were missing. So, I continued with so much of what I did during remote teaching last year while simultaneously teaching in person.

What does that look like for my class?

Every week, I post the work for the upcoming week in my Google Classroom as assignments. I number the items to help kids keep track of what comes first, what comes next, and so on. I organize them under a topic with the dates for the week.

1. The first item, 1 – Overview, is a Google Slides entry that is an overview of the week. The first slide lists each day and the topic for the day. The second slide is the work that will be done on Monday, the third is the work for Tuesday, and so on.
2. The second item, 2 – Monday, is the work that will be done on Monday of that week. I describe the work in the assignment and then attach links to the Desmos activity that we are doing, the Google Jamboard that we might be using to collaborate (because even if we are in person, kids stay in their assigned seats and collaborate either with the kids at their table group or collaborate digitally so that we can manage the need for contact tracing), and PDFs of any foldables or handouts that we might use.
3. The third item, 3-Tuesday, is the work, links, and attachments for Tuesday.
4. The fourth item, 4-Wednesday, is the work, links, and attachments for Wednesday.
5. The fifth item, 5-Thursday, is the work, links , and attachments for Thursday.
6. The sixth item, 6-Friday, is the work, links, and attachments for Friday.j

All of this means that I have to plan pretty thoroughly well in advance so that things are ready to upload. I do the upload on either Thursday or Friday for the following week, which sometimes throws kids off because they don’t always look at the dates (just look at the most recent Topic rather than actually checking to see if it is the correct week). I live with this and expect them to do so as well, because it takes about an hour each week just to upload all the items in Google Classroom (that is just the upload time, not the time it takes to make everything). So, it happens when I have the time to do it.

In addition to posting everything in Google Classroom, I use Desmos extensively (almost every day). This means that I can build lessons that show literally everything that we are doing in class. I can see students work whether they are in the room or working from home. I can give students feedback, even when they are working from home either synchronously or asynchronously. If I need to, I can embed a video lesson to ensure that kids at home get what they need to be able to do the lesson without me. Are all my lessons in Desmos master lessons? Absolutely not. Some are better than others and some are what I have to do to get the job done during this strange time. They are the best I can do given the amount of time that I have and strange world that is school during this pandemic. They seem to be doing the job, though, given the work that I am seeing and the test scores that kids are getting.

Finally, I open a Google Meet for kids who are quarantining so that they can attend class from home if they are feeling up to it. I opt for a close-up kind of view of the classroom. I was offered a camera that would show the entire room, but felt like it showed a big picture of the room but didn’t really show anything in enough detail to be worthwhile. So, I place a Chromebook on a small table a few feet in front of the Promethean Board so that kids at home can see the same screen as the rest of the class. When I talk to the class, I sometimes do it sitting in front of the Chromebook and I sometimes do it from wherever I am in the room. When I move to collaborative work, I pick up the Chromebook and carry it over to the table group where the kid usually sits and point the camera at the group so that the kid can be with/talk to their group. If there are several kids working from home, I either make them a group and they talk to each other in the Meet or I set up Breakout Rooms in the Meet so that they can join separate groups. (I have found that it usually works more smoothly if I just make the at home kids a group, though). I check in with the kids at home a lot during class to make sure they are getting what they need. I look at their work in Desmos and either give them feedback in Desmos or just pop over to the screen and have a brief conversation with them just as I would in class.

All of this is time-consuming and a little constraining and pretty exhausting, but it means that students who suddenly find themselves at home have access to pretty much the same materials that they would have if they were in class. It means that they can do the work with us during class if they feel up to it or they can do the work asynchronously if they don’t. (Almost all of them choose to join us synchronously for the whole quarantine. The only ones who haven’t, were too sick to do so.) It means that the isolation of being at home is not quite so bad. It means that students come back to class and they are almost never behind. So, it has been worth it.

2021 Week One

We are a week into the third school year of this pandemic. It seems like it should be getting easier by now. It isn’t, though. This is hard, really hard. I’m doing the best that I can, but it feels like I am forever behind despite my best efforts. There are so many things that I want to do, there are so many limitations on what I can do, there are not enough hours that I don’t have but need to make them both work together.

This was Week 1.

Quarantines and positive cases are already upon us. I suspect this is going to be a big part of this year because I teach 11 year olds. It has been a challenge figuring out how to meet everyone’s needs.

1. I am using Google Classroom the same way that I did during remote learning because of it. I create a topic for each week. I post items under the topic with a number and a day of the week as part of the title. Item 1 for each week is a Google Slides presentation that is an overview of the week. The first slide is a snapshot of the week. Then, there is a separate slide for each day of the week to break down the details for each day. Item 2 is the work for Monday with all associated links, item 3 is the work for Tuesday with all of its associated links, and so on.
2. I am holding a Google Meet during class for kids who are quarantining/absent so that they can be part of class since two weeks is a long time to miss math class. We are not required to do this, but it just seems awful to leave them completely on their own. I have a separate chromebook set up in front of the promethean board so that they can see the screen. They don’t get to see their classmates, though. I haven’t wanted to put everyone in the Meet because of bandwidth. When we did the Zeros in the Quotient Auction, I put them in a team and had them fully participate. In one class, the kids on the Meet were a separate team and communicated with via the Meet and Chat. In other classes, I added them to a team in class and had the whole team join the Meet so they could talk to each other. I also had them do a Decimal Division Add ‘Em Up Jamboard that worked well for them to be able to collaborate. It was a fun day and managed to include both “in the room” kids and kids at home.
3. I had kids do a foldable summarizing decimal operations. It was a way to have kids summarize what they knew about each operation. It was not an assignment, so I hadn’t posted it in the Google Classroom which meant I didn’t have it readily available for the kids at home. It wasn’t required, and I adapted for them the best that I could but ended feeling like I let them down.
4. The start of each period feels like there need to be at least three of me. Trying to set up the Meet, watch the hall, making sure kids hand sanitize when they come into the room, making sure kids sanitize their desk, making sure any handouts are distributed in a Covid-safe way is a lot to manage all at the same time. I wanted to spend time each day doing some of the getting to know each other things/building relationship things I did during remote learning but am having trouble building that in because these other things are taking so much time.

Finding ways for kids to collaborate that keep social distance and still allow them to see each other’s work has been challenging. This also involves constant reminders to kids that they need to stay socially distant rather than getting up and going over to look at someone else’s notebook. It feels so awful to spend so much time telling kids they have to stay apart. It would feel worse not to do so, though.

I miss getting to play games to practice skills. There has been no decimal division Jenga or decimal multiplication Don’t Get Zapped. These are not pedagogically brilliant, but they let kids practice and play and compete and they love it. Spending five minutes at the end of the class was something that kids loved and now we can’t do it anymore. Instead, I have to find new ways for them to practice and play together digitally.

I have been trying to embed some “how to do school” lessons into my lessons. So far, we have learned how to use Cornell Notes and made it a part of our routine. We have learned to add color into our notes to help connect ideas. We have learned how to make a Flow Map to show a mathematical process. We have learned how to do all three of these things at the same time. We have learned that comparing and contrasting concepts can help us learn (you need to align decimal points in addition/subtraction, but not multiplication). We have also learned that these are techniques that can be used for every class, even if someone is not making us do it.

Choices Big and Small

It’s another pandemic school year, full of choices. Some big. Some small. Every year is full of them, but pandemic years seem to make the number grow exponentially. These are some of the choices with which I have been grappling these last few weeks.

Google Classroom – One vs Many

Should I use one single Google Classroom for all of my students or should I have a separate one for each period?

Last year during remote learning, we were mandated to have one for each period and mandated how we would name them. This was an attempt to make things easier for students and their caregivers at home. The uniformity of approach seemed to work well for them, but it was a lot of work to enter things in multiple Classrooms.

This year, I decided to go with a single Google Classroom since I teach the same course five times every day. I started building it and then abandoned it the day before school started. It would have made my life so much easier to do things once instead of five times, but it would have been more confusing for my students. I wanted them to have separate Desmos classrooms, so there would be five links attached to each assignment. I knew that some of my students were going to have a hard time navigating that, so it is back to five separate Google Classrooms. It’s more work for me, but better for them this way so that is what I am going to do.

Classroom Layout

How should the room be laid out?

In normal years this is easy. I want collaboration and discourse, so I create quads – two kids face each other and two others are at the end of the pairing, facing towards the front. Everyone can see the front of the room, so they can see whatever is displayed on the Promethean Board. Everyone can see each other within the table grouping and can share their work and easily collaborate. Everyone is free to get up and move to the floor if that works better for the group. The layout matches the purposes of the room.

This year, things are more complicated. The first priority is to keep kids safe, which means apart. As much as it pained me to do it, I started out with kids in rows facing front. I looked at that layout and kept wondering how to make the collaboration and discussion work. I knew I could use Break Out rooms in Google Meet, but that seemed a little crazy when they were sitting in the same room. The day before school started, a friend came up with the idea of having them sort of in pairs, but off-set and a bit farther away. I played with it and found that I could have them on diagonals with some space between the desks and create about 6 feet of separation between them. This would give me the physical separation and still enable kids to do some collaboration. So, the day before school started, I rearranged everything into this configuration. It has mostly worked. When the kids stay at their desks, they can talk and discuss the math. They can help each other and do some cooperative learning. However, it has been a learning curve for them to stay in their desks. When they talk to each other or try to help each other, their natural instinct is to get up and go over to their partner. So, there has been a lot of reminders to stay in their desks (which does not feel great for any of us but it is what we need).

Homework

Last year, I lightened the work load considerably. I had 90 minute blocks every two days. Half of that was synchronous and half of it was asynchronous. I made sure that it was possible to get everything done in that 90 minute block of time. It meant that kids did less than they had in years past, but it was right for the time.

This year, I am trying to thread the needle somewhere between what kids did last year and what they did the year before. I am definitely giving less homework than I had in previous years, but not eliminating it entirely.

Hybrid

How should I handle things for kids who are not in school?

Before the pandemic, it was rare to have kids out for more than a few days unless their family decided to take an extended vacation during the school year. Catching kids up who were sick was usually doable because they hadn’t missed that much. Some extra help before school was usually all that was needed. If kids had missed more because they were sick, I worked with to find a solution. It was a rare thing, so it was doable.

Now, I was faced with that question on Day 2 of school. That was when my first student was quarantined. I had another batch quarantined on Day 4 and more quarantined on Day 6. I had everything posted in the Google Classroom and kids could access the work readily, but they were still going to miss the instruction and the discussions that happened in class. I didn’t see how they were going to be able to not end up with giant gaps if they were out so long. So, even though the union and school district agreed that teachers don’t have to do hybrid instruction this year, I am trying to do Google Meets so that students who are home sick or quarantining can join class if they are up to it and want to do so. It’s hard, really hard, and I don’t know if I will be able to sustain it but I am trying.

Sanitizing

How do I keep the room as sanitary as is reasonable?

I know that I can’t make this space pristine, but I teach 11 year olds who are not eligible for a vaccine. So, trying to create an environment that is as safe as I can is important.

I decided that it is all about layers of protection.

I have brought three air purifiers into my classroom. My daughter was concerned, so she gave me two that she had when she moved. Then, she bought a third larger unit and had it shipped to me as well.

I am not letting kids share anything. That means the bins with scissors and tape and post it notes on table groupings are gone. The staplers are put away. There is a single, electric pencil sharpener that kids can use hands-free. There is no puzzle table. There are no games to practice skills (no decimal division Jenga, no equivalent expression Rummy, no Don’t Get Zapped decimal multiplication,….). Instead, we did a virtual auction and did an AddEmUo cooperative learning structure on a Jamboard. There are no physical card sorts (those have moved to Desmos).

Kids have to hand-sanitze when they come in the room. Then I give them a paper towel with a sanitizing solution sprayed on it and they have to clean their desk before they sit down. After a week, they have settled into the routine. It takes time that I would rather spend in other ways, but it is time well-spent for now.

Kids keep their masks on. If it slips, which happens all the time, there is a reminder to pull it back up. If a kid takes it off, there is a direction to put it back on (this has not happened often, thankfully).

There is a constant message that we are all in this together and we need to take care of each other.

Relationship-Building

How do I find the time and ways to build strong relationships with my students?

Last year, I worked really hard at this because it felt so essential. I opened Meets early, just so kids could talk. I started class each day with some sort of question or something that had nothing to do with class, just to help kids get to know each other. It was a good thing for all of us and something that I want to continue.

This year, I don’t feel like I have done this quite as well. So many of those opening minutes have been taken to teach routines/procedures to keep kids safe that there hasn’t been enough time to spend time daily on those things that drew us together last year. Hopefully, now that we have had a week and a half of school those routines are becoming automatic and I can spend a little more time on making relationship building a bigger parter of how we start class.

Should I Even Be Here

Last night, my daughter told me that my mother had a conversation with her in which my mother said she wished that I wasn’t going to school. She is afraid because of the ways in which the Delta variant has changed the equation. She is afraid that I will get sick, even though I am vaccinated. Her fear is magnified by our famiy’s experiences of the last year. We know what it is to be separated when someone is sick and dying. We know what it is to do FaceTime goodbyes and live-stream funerals. All of that brings an added weight to our decisions.

For now, my decision is to be here, to be with these kids. It is work that I love and that I think is important and that I think I do reasonably well. Knowing my mother and the rest of my family feel the way that they do though, makes that decision a little bit harder.

A teacher at my school resigned on the second day of school. I don’t know why, just as I don’t know why there are record number of vacancies in my district. I do know that the question of “should I even be here” is one with which many teachers are grappling.

The strangest thing

Layers and layers and layers.

Layers of clothing because the windows are open and the air conditioning is on to provide better air circulation. It’s August in the desert. That means it’s sixty early in the morning and 90 late in the afternoon. So, the sweater you need in the morning needs to be peeled off by late afternoon.

Layers of sanitation. Hand sanitizer when you walk in the door. A paper towel sprayed with a cleaning/sanitizing spray to wipe down the desk (top, seat, bars, all the high-touch surfaces) before you sit down. Air purifiers scattered around the room – there are three of them now.

Layers of protection. Masks tugged up over noses and mouths and only eyes left to tell the stories of their lives. Watching those eyes and trying to gauge if everything is OK. Desks spread out as far apart as space will allow. Spreading lines out while waiting for the all-clear during the fire drill. Telling kids to stay in their space, not sharing the things in our room – no mathy puzzles to play with after finishing the pre-assessment, no books to loan out for someone to read, no extra pencils for the kid who lost his or forgot hers.

Trying so hard to keep everyone as safe as possible and still having a positive case and lots of quarantined kids and lots of other kids absent for undetermined reasons.

Among all of these strange things, the strangest thing has to be telling kids that they can’t come near me or near each other – that they have to stay far enough away to stay safe. Instead of leaning in and looking over a shoulder, having to put up a hand as a reminder that they are close enough. Instead of smiling when they go over to help someone, having to tell them they have to help from afar. Readjusting everyone’s thinking to the idea that the most generous thing is to keep that space between.

I wonder if they think I am a little over the edge with all of the routines and reminders. The thing is, I am Ok with that, with all this strangeness that feels so wrong but I know is so right, if it means that we somehow get through this thing without a tragedy.

Week 1 – 2021

When you become a teacher, no one tells you that your window into the world will fundamentally shift. Because you spend so much time building relationships with students, you get glimpses into hundreds of different worlds each and every year. You get to see so much good and so much heartache and so much of all the lovely, messy journey that is life from so many different perspectives.

This week, my first week back with students, was a snapshot of all of that in a few short days.

Early in the week, before students were back, two of my former sixth graders surprised me. These two amazing, full-grown adults filled my heart with joy. We talked about their college plans and experiences, what they are studying, what it was like to graduate without a graduation (and the realization a year later that it was a lost milestone but that it is really OK) and what it is like to be heading off to a college in a different state sight unseen because he never got to visit during the pandemic. We talked about their friends and how they spent their summer and it was wonderful and hopeful for the days ahead. It was such a gift.

As the week wore on, a number of former students stopped by for a quick visit or sent an email. Several students from last year stopped by after school on the first day to see how I was. Others sent me emails telling me how much they had liked my class and that they hoped I would keep teaching. It was unexpected and lovely. I feel so lucky to have such thoughtful, generous kids in my life.

As school started, I was thinking of a former student who is battling cancer but who gets to return to school this year and is busy thinking about Homecoming instead of treatments. I thought of her experiences over the last year as I was surrounded by a sea of 11 year olds who have not had a normal school year since they were in 3rd grade. I was unsure what to expect with these kids who have faced so much uncertainty. The transition to sixth grade is always filled with a strange mixture of fear and excitement. What would it be like for them, when this is the third year of “not normal” and some of them haven’t been in a building with other kids for a year and a half? It turned out to be surprisingly normal. They had the same nervousness and excitement and uncertainty that they always do. I could only see their eyes over their masks, but the eyes told the same stories. They were good and kind and curious. They were eager and helpful when someone got stuck. The only thing that was not normal was having to remind these amazing little beings that they have to be kind and helpful with a good 6 feet between them, that they need to offer suggestions from afar rather than coming over to someone and their device and showing them how to do something.

On the second day of school, I got news that students that I know are having to quarantine. I knew this was coming, but did not expect it quite so fast. News of confirmed cases and possible hospitalizations or deaths of kids that I know is something that I have been dreading since the pandemic began. We are not there yet and I am thankful for that. I think it will break me if it comes to that.

On the third day of school, I came home and turned on the news. While I was reveling in the chance to be with my amazing students both old and new, a student at a middle school in my city shot and killed another student. I would like to say that I am shocked, but I am not. I have been watching this happen too many times in too many places for too many years. The only difference this time is that it happened in my town. It is heartbreaking each and every single time.

A Message for Every Teacher in 2020

As this year draws to a close, I want to thank each of you for all that you have done in the face of so many challenges.

You have learned to navigate new technology platforms and found ways to adapt your use of them to meet the needs of your students. You have taken every single lesson that you have ever taught and turned it on its head, recreating something that was already fabulous into something totally new and different. You have worked harder than ever at forming relationships with your students and building a community, knowing the loneliness and isolation that they have faced. You have spent countless hours reaching out to students and families to help your students be successful. You have worked tirelessly to make sure that your students have access to devices and broadband, to iron out technical difficulties that they have encountered. You have worked to make sure that your students have materials, creating countless Donors Choose projects to get your students books and manipulatives and all manner of other materials. You have worked to make sure that your students have food and clothing as their families have been hit by job losses. You have checked in on students and families who have become ill. You have been a steady, supportive anchor for kids who have faced such a challenging year.

While doing all of this, you have supported and mentored your colleagues. You have led professional development sessions for national organizations, for the district in which you work, and for your school. You have worked as Department Chairs and Instructional Council leadership to find the best way forward for your school. You have led Professional Learning Communities. You have shared your expertise on Twitter and in Blogs. You have shared lessons that you have created.

You have done all of this while also carrying the burdens that this pandemic has placed upon you and your own family.

Each and every one of you is amazing and I am so grateful to you for all that you have done this year.

My Pandemic Artifacts

A lifetime from now, my grandchildren will ask me or my children about this time.

My daughter who is a Doctor of Physical Therapy will tell them about being furloughed for five months because health care changed so much. She will tell them about the challenges of getting the clinical hours for her residency in orthopedic physical therapy while furloughed. She will tell them about the research that she did with Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and Arcadia University. She will tell them about presenting her research for the first time virtually at a conference. She will tell them about returning to work and working 70-80 hours a week as she ran a clinic, worked as a research assistant, and graded for the university. She will tell them about not playing soccer for the first time in many, many years in order to stay safe. She will tell them about staying in Philadelphia alone for Thanksgiving and Christmas in order to keep herself, her patients, and her family safe.

My daughter who is a lawyer will tell them about the nurses who came to her because of the unsafe working conditions that they faced. She will tell them of the delivery drivers who came to her because of their working conditions. She will tell them about the trials that she did on Zoom and the hearings over which she presided virtually. She will tell them about the many, many masks that she sewed and sent to all of her Wellesley friends – the friends who are medical students or residents, the friends who are pilots in the Air Force serving around the world, the friends who are scientists and engineers, the friends who are in law school, the friends who are in grad school. She will tell them about the Zoom Happy Hours or teas that she had with her far-flung friends to replace the trips they had hoped to take together. She will tell them about having Zoom Thanksgiving and Christmas with us even though she lives 10 minutes from our house to make sure that there will be future Thanksgivings or Christamases together. She will tell them about the many, many times that she watched Harry Potter because it just felt comforting to go back to a different time.

I will tell them about turning on a dime and learning how to teach math virtually. I will tell them about Jamboards and Desmos and Google Meets and Breakout Rooms with my students. I will tell them about kids who were lonely and families who struggled. I will tell them about staff and students and families who became ill. I will tell them about watching all the Star Wars movies and The Mandalorian so that I could talk to my students about them. I will tell them about watching The Great British Baking Show in it’s entirety multiple times because the worst thing that could happen was that someone’s cake wasn’t quite right. I will tell them about resilience. I will tell them about learning to live in the moment, to not compare themselves or their circumstances to others or to compare what happens in these times to what happened in other times or what might have happened. I will tell them about the power of creating to quiet the mind and the soul. I will tell them about the hours that I spent in the evenings hand-quilting a Christmas quilt, about changing my plans for the quilting design because my eyes were just too tired after a day on-line to do the elaborate design I planned. I will tell them about the weekends that I spent making a cozy flannel quilt in the colors of the sea because comfort and calm was something that everyone needed. I will tell them about starting a bright and sunny pinwheel quilt when the vaccines began to be administered and give glimpses of hope for the spring and summer to come, even as we faced the hard days of winter. Then, I will give them the quilts that I have made, the quilts that tell some of my story during this pandemic, the quilts that are my artifacts of the pandemic and that will become part of their family story.

When the pandemic began, I encouraged my students to write. I told them they will one day want to share the stories of how they lived and how they felt as they lived through this time. I hope they have been doing it. I hope they have been documenting their stories, their histories. I hope that one day they too will share their own artifacts, whatever they may be, from this pandemic.

Classifying Numbers Card Sort COVID-Style

Pre-pandemic, card sorts with actual cards were a regular part of my classroom. I used card sorts to practice properties and to match graphs to stories and to classify numbers and to do all manner of other things. I love that card sorts can be done collaboratively, that kids can have conversations about the choices that they are making and why they are making them. I love that kids can look at choices that other kids are making and question them. I love that kids can debate and revise their thinking and deepen their understanding of ideas. I love card sorts.

Now in the midst of a pandemic, I can obviously no longer do card sorts quite the same way. I have been unwilling to give them up so I have had to adapt. For some of them, I have built them into Desmos lessons/activities. (Desmos has been such a gift this year.). However, I could not figure out how to do Classifying Numbers as the kind of sort that I wanted in Desmos (I know it can be done, I am just not quite advanced enough in building Desmos to do it yet).

Instead, I settled on building the card sort on a Jamboard. I sent students into breakout rooms. There was one Jamboard for each breakout room. The students worked together to sort the numbers into the apppropriate classification. The image below shows one of the Jamboards in progress.

Students collaborated. They had conversations about the choices that they were making and why they were making them. They looked at choices that other kids were making and questioned them. They debated and revised their thinking and deepened their understanding. It was a little bit of perfect in an imperfect world.

Here is a link to the Jamboard for anyone who might want it.

https://jamboard.google.com/d/1eTXWh_bgWxuK6A7IUVIbuGOP9kYuMAvhTUG3_pQX0TU/edit?usp=sharing

One Good Thing….

A year ago, none of us would have envisioned that life would look like this now. For each of us, what “this” looks like is a little different but it is strikingly different than what it once was.

As I watched this reality begin to sink in for my students, I decided that it was time to reframe their thinking. One Monday morning, a day where I actually see all of my students instead of just a subset of them, I asked each of my students to tell me “one good thing” from the past week. I got quite an array of responses.

” I don’t have anything. I just stayed home all the time.” That was the answer I could see in some of their faces and I wondered if it would spill out into the open. It did. It needed to be said. It was the fatigue of six months of endless days at home, spilling forth from the mouth of an eleven year old kid. It was an echo of what I had heard from my aging parents who are feeling isolated. It was the echo of my own thoughts as I considered the trips that I didn’t take, the friends I didn’t see, the things I no longer do.

Yet, if this pandemic has taught me anything, it is the importance of taking joy in the small things, the moments that can bring bits of joy. That is what I shared with him that day. I reminded him that “one good thing” doesn’t have to be big, that it can be something small, some little bit of wonder that crossed his path. Kids started to pipe up with all kinds of wonder, big and small. “I got a new puppy” (which we have all now met). “I went to clear a trail in the mountains with my family”. (How cool is that!). “I got to talk to my cousin on the phone” (isn’t that the best? I talked to my parents.) “I made cheese biscuits” (we now regularly discuss her latest culinary experiment). The “one good thing” gave us each a glimpse into the wonders in each other’s lives and gave us the chance to revel in our shared experiences.

Now, every day, I have a question of the day. I open our Google Meet about 10 minutes before class and we just talk for those ten minutes. Mostly, it is just silly stuff, but it brings us together. Here are some of our recent “questions”

1. Is a hot dog a sandwich? – This was great because everyone had an opinion. Mostly, kids thought only a sandwich was a sandwich. Then, I started asking things like what makes a sandwich? Is a lettuce wrap a sandwich? What about a quesadilla or a taco? What about a calzone? Or an empenada? It gave us the chance to talk about what might be an equivalent to a “sandwich” in a lot of different cultures.
2. What is the best pizza? – I was expecting things like Chicago Deep Dish, or the folded slices that people eat on the east coast, or something like that. Mostly, kids talked about their favorite toppings. (Surprisingly, not one of them mentioned green chili, which is very much a thing here.).
3. What is your favorite ice cream? Lots of kids talked about chocolate mint, cookie dough, and the classic vanilla. It also gave us the chance to talk about summer afternoons making hand-cranked ice cream in the back yard.
4. If you were an animal, what animal would you be (this is not what is your favorite animal) and why? One kid said he would be a chameleon because he could adapt to lots of different situations. Another kid said he would be a shark because he would be at the top of the food chain. The “why” was the best part of the question.
5. If you were a kind of candy, what kind of candy would you be and why? My favorite response was from a quiet student who said he would be a Reece’s Peanut Butter Cup because the peanut butter cup has a hidden surprise inside that you don’t necessarily know is there at first. He said there are parts of him that most people don’t see until they really get to know him.

Those ten minutes when we aren’t actually supposed to be in class are the most important minutes I have with my students every day. They are the minutes when I learn that someone’s parent is quarantining with COVID 19, that someone’s family had to travel out of state for a parent’s surgery (all non-emergency surgeries have been canceled here because the hospitals are nearing breaking point), that someone has a new baby brother, that a coyote tried to carry off someone’s puppy. They are the minutes that have to carry us forward together until we can be together again. They are the minutes that have to make do for a bunch of 11 year old kids who are all at a new school and who don’t really have friends right now.

Homework

On Thursday and Friday, I assigned my students homework for the weekend. Their assigned task was to do something that makes them happy. At home. So that they stay safe. Because my heart will break if something happens to them .

Every week, I have been asking students for “one good thing” that has happened over the course of the last week. I have been encouraging my students to find those small good things that are happening amidst all of the hard things. Sometimes, they are successful at finding those things and sometimes it has been a struggle. My heart ached the day one of them quietly said “there was nothing good this week”.

This week, I decided to shift gears a little bit. As each student arrived in our Google Meet on Thursday or Friday, I asked them to tell me something that makes them happy. It was one more question among the forty-ish questions that I have asked so far this year to help me know them and to tell them that they matter. The answers were poignant, funny, and ordinary. Ice Cream. My family. Hiking in the Jemez. Sports. Watching my little brother. My dog. Spending time with my friends. That feeling I get when I get to really dive into something that interests me. Sleeping.

Tomorrow, I will ask each student as he or she arrives in our Google Meet, what they did this weekend that made them happy. I will listen to their small joys and watch for those that struggle to answer. I will tell them about my small happiness – fixing my sewing machine so that I can sew again.

Next weekend, they will once again have homework. Their homework will be to do something to make someone else happy. At home. So that they stay safe. We will brainstorm things that they can do. Small unexpected gifts of happiness that they can give someone else. A letter to a grandparent for no particular reason. A story read to a younger sibling just because. Cleaning up the dishes after dinner even though it is not their turn. Raking up the leaves that will inevitably come down after our snow this week. Leaving a hopeful chalk message or drawing on the sidewalk for someone to find. A hand-painted rock left on a neighbor’s doorstep. Small unexpected gifts of happiness for others that I hope will also give them happiness.

Living through a pandemic is hard. The lessons that I hope my students will take from it are both big and small. I hope they will learn to see the small moments of wonder in their lives and to not miss them in the mad rush that is life. I hope they will learn to see the importance of finding small amounts of time to do something that makes them happy. I hope they will learn that giving small gifts of happiness to others can also make them happy. I hope they will learn to see not just the sacrifices that they are being told they must make, but also the positive impact they can each have.