Isolation and the Single Girl

Warning:  This post is going to very long.  While I have a lot to do, I don't have anywhere to go, so I am going to keep writing until I have said everything.

Disclaimer:  I have no training in psychology or neurology.  I am an educator and a brain enthusiast, so this is based entirely on my experience and reading, not on actual expertise.  Fact check as needed.

If you are reading this right now with other people in your house, you are having a different experience than those of us who live alone.  You may be irritated with your spouse or child because you have been cooped up with them for too long, but it is a different experience than going for multiple days without seeing another human in person.  Phrases like "apart but not separated" and "physically distant but socially connected" are well-meaning, but they were not written by people who live alone.  In Genesis, Adam was face to face with God on a daily basis, and God still created Eve because he had designed the brain for community with other humans.  Since this aspect of brain health is being deprived, I am using what I know about the brain to make sure it is being kept healthy in as many other ways as possible. 

Familiarity and Novelty
Your brain craves a balance of familiarity and novelty.  It's why we like to binge-watch favorite tv shows but also really look forward to new episodes.  While there is so much that cannot be done the way we normally do it, those things that can remain the same should.  I get up at the same time every morning, and it is only half an hour later than it was when we were in school.  The first day I was home, I wrote out a daily schedule and have alarms set to keep me on it.  (There are days it has required alterations for unexpected faculty meetings or weather, but you cannot alter something that doesn't exist.)  For the past ten years, I have opened class with a scripture passage and prayer, and I am still doing that.  We picked up where we had left off the Friday before.  I work a crossword puzzle every day.  THIS INCLUDES YOUR CLOTHES!  I keep seeing posts from people who have only worn pajama pants for the last six weeks.  That may be comfortable and convenient, but it is not good for your brain.  It is making you feel less like yourself.  I am very grateful that my school asked us to continue dressing professionally for our classes because I get up every day and choose my clothes the same way I normally would (except for shoes, I am wearing sneakers no one can see).  On Fridays, I still put on jeans and a GRACE shirt because it is GRACE Day.  These may seem like small things, but the familiarity keeps your brain healthy.

Your brain also requires the stimulation that comes with novelty, so do things that help your brain.  For me, that includes changing up my walking routes each day (more on outside and exercise later).  For you, it may be throwing a new song into your familiar playlist or, as my art teacher friend has done, learning a new skill.  You don't have to master it for the act of doing something new to stimulate your brain in a healthy way.

Do Not Attempt Multitasking
First, all of the research says multitasking isn't real anyway, but we still attempt it.  As a person who lives alone, you have the benefit of not being required to deal with kids.  There is no benefit in getting ahead of schedule for the day because it doesn't mean you "go home" early.  It can be difficult to concentrate on one thing right now, so don't fool yourself into thinking you can concentrate on more than one thing.

Allow Limited Escapism
Like all "isms," escapism is a bad way to structure your life.  In terms of general brain health, you don't want to make denial a way of life.  However, this is not deniable.  You are in it all day every day, so it is okay to allow yourself an hour or two of immersing yourself in a novel or a movie that takes you away from things for a while.

Establish Physical Boundaries
Again, this is a benefit of living alone.  You have the ability to dedicate a room in your house as the work area.  For me, this an upstairs office that I actually had not used in years before this all started.  My work materials and computer set up are left there so that I don't have to re-arrange things each day.  The healthy brain benefit of this is that I am "at work" when I am in that room.  I go up to at 7:30 each morning to get ready for the day, and I only come downstairs to use the restroom and eat lunch until 3:00 (or later if there are meetings) each afternoon.  Then, I "go home."  It makes a big difference.  I highly recommend it.

Don't Fake Fine
You are not fine.  Some days you are finer than others, but you are not fine all the time.  Pretending that you are isn't positive thinking or optimism or any of that other garbage.  It's denial, and it is bad for your brain.  Now, I'm not saying that you should do the irritating Facebook post, like "Just having a really tough time, y'all.  Prayers appreciated."  That's the same stupid grab for attention it has always been.  I'm saying if someone asks you how you are, be honest.   You have a friend you can cry with.  Reach out to that person and be real. 

Limit News Exposure
Twenty-four-hour news in multiple formats is not good for our brains.  When you see the same news story three times, your brain interprets that as three separate events, leading to an interpretation of things being worse than they are.  Limiting your exposure can be difficult because of people's obsession with posting news articles on social media, so you are exposed even when you don't mean to be, but you have the power to place some limitations on it.  Establish a time or two each day when you will expose yourself to the news.  Delete the CNN or FOX news app on your phone, and don't go intentionally to their websites unless it is during the time you have set for yourself.  You don't have to see the press conference live every day.  The two times that I have were times I wished I had not (they were the President answering a reporter's question about fear with "I'd tell them you are a terrible reporter!" and the bizarre musing about putting UV into the lungs and injecting disinfectant).  My personal boundary is 30 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes in the evening, and I don't feel any less informed than if I had listened to "analysis" all day.

Vitamin D
This is the most important thing I am going to tell you.  GO OUTSIDE!  Depending on the level of lockdown order your state is under, you may be limited to a backyard or balcony, but you have to go outside.  I am, fortunately, in a position where I can walk on city sidewalks every day, so on school days, I walk from 45 minutes to an hour, and I may walk as long as three hours on weekends.  We were all a little Vitamin D deficient when this started because we were just coming out of winter.  There is arguable no more important vitamin for your health.  It is related to energy level, mood, thyroid health, weight regulation, calcium absorption, heart health, blood sugar balance, and regulation of your immune system.  There are even Vitamin D receptors in your brain.  Your body is incredibly efficient at making Vitamin D from the cholesterol in your body under the right conditions.  If you go outside in "minimal clothing" (i.e. shorts and a tank top) for 30 minutes, your body will make all of the Vitamin D it needs for a day.  So go outside (and if you can't, order some supplements online).

Exercise
We all know exercise is healthy of your heart and bones, but you may not be aware that it is healthy for your brain as well.  It increases the flow of oxygen to your neurons and causes a release of neurotransmitters.  The well-known endorphins that you always hear about in relation to exercise are chemical cousins to those released when you hug someone.  It won't replace social contact, but it will mitigate the negative effects.

One part of your brain health is being necessarily compromised and will require recovery when this is over, but you can help yourself and put your recovery in a better position by intentionally engaging in other brain-healthy practices.  You aren't a passive blob in pajama pants that is just absorbing food from the environment.  You have the power to make healthy choices.

Student Connections During Quarantine

If you took every teacher blog, tweet, and Facebook post of the last five years and made a word cloud, the word "relationships" would surely make the top ten.  We all know that to teach our students well, manage our classrooms, and make the difference we want to make, we must get to know our students.  In fact, my school's theme this year is KNOWN.  As you can imagine, the restrictions imposed by quarantine have changed the way we cultivate our relationships with our students.  Yet, it has never been more important than it is now.

Fortunately, we did have three-fourths of a school year before this all started, so we aren't trying to start from zero, but the distance changes how we maintain those relationships.  In my physical classroom, I have kids who rarely speak during class, but we have loads of non-verbal communication with a nod, some eye contact, or a wink.  If I wink at the Google hangout screen, I'm not really winking at one student.  I can't say something quietly to the student closest to me or subtly ask, "are you okay" to a kid who seems a little down.  And, I am fortunate.  I see each of my students at least two to three times per week in a live class session.  Some of you don't have that and are only left with videos posted to an LMS, leaving you with an even bigger challenge. 

Like everything, how you approach connecting with students during this time will depend on your context and what your school or district allows (and, of course, your personal comfort level).  Here are a few ways some teachers I know are maintaining their relationships with their students.

Social Media - I know some schools will not allow teachers to be friends or followers of their students on social media, but if you are not in that position, this is a great way to learn about your kids and interact with them where they are.  Instagram is their platform of choice, but believe it or not, there are still a few on Facebook and Twitter. 

Email - As soon as our one to one program started, email became one of the primary communication tools of our school.  Every student has a school email address and uses it frequently to ask teachers questions about grades and assignments.  What's nice about email, as opposed to social media is that it is longer form, so you can have actual conversations.  Some schools may not allow this because it is private communication, so make sure your school is okay with it first (or make sure you include a parent on the email you send).

Zoom or Google Hangout Clubs - Most teachers have a couple of kids who are always around.  They come to your room to chat at lunch or hang out with you if their mom is running late in the afternoon.  One of my colleagues has a group of six girls and knew they would be in need of talking to her and also talking to each other.  She's held three virtual game nights with them over Google Hangout, and it means the world to them.

Drive-By - We've been seeing these all over the news.  Groups of teachers driving through the students' neighborhoods as a parade.  The way the districts are arranged in some places allow for that, and I have a friend in Oklahoma who got to participate in one.  North Carolina, where I live, is not districted that way.  My school, however, did arrange delivery of yard signs, caps, and gowns for our seniors.  We put them on the porch, rang the doorbell, and stood on the sidewalk.  These were some great moments of connecting with our students and their parents.

Snail Mail - This is my choice.  I've long believed in the power of a handwritten note.  For one thing, I have an unhealthy love of my own handwriting (like, it should be a font) and Sharpie pens.  Also, I believe there is heart and soul in handwriting that doesn't come across in typed information, even in 2020.  I've bought a lot of stamps in the last few weeks, but let's face it, 55 cents is a bargain for the payoff of a student finding a card from their teacher in the mailbox.  I know if I had received something like that from a teacher, I would still have it to this day.   (I have also found walking to the post office to stick these in the slot is a nice reason to get out of the house without violating social distancing guidelines.)  They are not terribly long (3-4 sentences each), so I write between 5 and 10 each day.  That means in a few weeks, I will have written to every student.

What you do is up to you and the context in which you live, but I would encourage you to do something.  It doesn't have to take a lot of time, and it would mean the world to your students.

What I've Learned From Teaching in a Virtual Learning Environment

Let me just admit my bias up front.  I'm a big, big fan of in-person classroom learning.  It is my belief that learning has always been a social experience, even back to the Garden of Eden and that it is the way God has designed our brains.  For those who have taken well designed online classes, that's wonderful, but I still believe you would have had a richer experience by being with a teacher.

That said, because of the shutdowns caused by the Coronavirus, I am now headed into my fourth week of teaching in a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE), and I've learned a few things that I would like to share.

More planning - I would never have dreamed how much harder it is to plan for an online class than an in-person one.  That could be just because it is different than what I am used to.  It could be because we are on an AB days schedule, which is hard to wrap my brain around for the classes that have multiple sections.  It could be because I have to figure out what can and cannot be done without the things from my classroom.  After 21 years of teaching, my planning for the following week at school usually takes 20-30 minutes, not to be ready to teach it but to get it mapped out.  Mapping out that same week for the digital class takes over an hour and half (even though it is only half the content).

Science Demos - This one is strange in its inconsistency.  Demos that work live don't always work online.  I expected that.  I can't do a lab or blackout the room to use a UV light.  I won't have color mixing stations for my light demos or be able to give students 9V batteries to explore circuits with.  I knew these were likely difficulties.  What I did not expect were the demos that the kids would create themselves in the middle of class.  I was talking my 8th grade about how instruments produce the sounds they do when one of mine typed, "I have a drum set in the room with me."  Well, turn on your camera, honey, and show us what vibration of a membrane looks like.  That's something that could not have happened in my classroom.  There's no way to make that consistent because the people in my other classes didn't get that experience, but it was a neat moment for the one class.  Other experiences (like showing reflections from concave and convex mirrors) have been possible but weirdly modified to show up on the screen, one of the reasons why planning takes so much longer.

Standing up - I am just old enough to remember when teachers taught from their desks.  Sitting was the norm.  Now, I cannot imagine it.  The advice I once gave to a new teacher after an observation was that she had to make herself the biggest thing in the room (whether through her voice or her movement or her proximity to students).  I once worked with a 350lb man who brought a whistle to class after seeing the movie Kindergarten Cop.  I said to him, "No one your size needs a whistle to manage their classroom."  The first few days of teaching in a virtual environment, I tried sitting at a desk.  This may work for some, but it does not work for me at all.  I felt like my hands were tied behind my back, so I ordered a bar table from Amazon and put a plastic crate on top of it.  I had to put a TV table next that for supplies, and I hung to pictures from school on the closet doors behind me so there would still be some school in my shot.  During class, I stand up to teach.  I sit down for grading and office hours, but I just cannot teach sitting down.

Non-verbal communication -  I knew that non-verbal communication was important, but I don't think I knew just how much of classroom communication (especially coming from the students to the teach) are from facial expression and body language.  When we started, we asked students to keep their cameras and microphones off, just to cut down on distractions.  As went on, we realized how much we needed face to face time with them.  I ask my smallest class to leave their cameras on for most of the class, and I ask all of my class to join with them on, just so I can see them to start.  Then, I kind of let them decide about their cameras.  Some still choose to turn them off because they dont' like seeing themselves.  Most keep their mics off unless they have a question or I ask them to turn it on.  What's still missing, though, is the ability to see confusion in their faces or recognize if someone is having a bad day.  More than ever, they have to advocate for themselves and volunteer that they are confused.  This has to be the biggest drawback of the online environment and why online classes aren't for everyone. 

Classroom management -  It is easy to believe this is better because the flow of my teaching doesn't get interrupted by students having conversations, but that is only true because their microphones are off.  Since I cannot see most of them, they can be doing anything.  I know most of them are eating, which is fine because they are at home with no worry of bugs in my classroom.  They aren't interrupting my teaching, but they could be texting, talking, or even going away.  I use cold calling on them or asking for a full class turn on your camera occassionally, just to refocus everyone, but I'm not crazy enough to believe I am truly managing my class.  Don't kid yourself.  It just isn't the same.  My students are mostly doing very well, but they have many more distractions at home than they do in my classroom. (As do I.  First period every Friday is interrupted by the garbage truck on my street, which doesn't happen at school.) 

Assessment - Different teachers have handled their assessments differently.  I wrote about it last week.  I'm not sure any of us feel like we are getting a true understanding of student knowledge or thought processes, but we are coming up with a few things we might like to use in augmenting our normal assessments when this is over. 

Boundaries - I have never concerned myself much with the whole work/life separation that so many seem concerned with.  I don't have a husband or children at home that I need to give undivided attention to, so the number of hours I spend at school never bothers me.  I don't own a cell phone, so I don't have to worry about students attempting to text me.  They email a lot, but there's less expectation of immediacy from that, so this paricular life choice took care of that boundary without my having to think about it.  During this time of teaching from home, I had to think about it for the first time.  My "classroom" is upstairs, and I remain there throughout the school day, other than to eat or use the restroom.  I dress for school the way I would if it were at school, and I do not change until my last class has ended (although I do sometimes put on shorts for the office hours time while leaving on my professional shirt).  When I come downstairs, I have "gone home."  It doesn't mean I don't do any school work, but I don't do any that I wouldn't have done at home before the lockdown started. 

I've seen a lot of posts with mixed reactions to what is happening with schooling.  They run the gammet from those now see a teacher's value in a way they never have before to those who think this proves schools are redundant.  For those calling this homeschooling, I think that is disrespectful to those who do homeschooling right.  This is crisis schooling.  It does not represent the planning and activities that are done by true homeschool parents.  For those who think this proves schools irrelevant because this online thing is going pretty well, there is a lack of recognition that this is not representative of a true online class.  My kids know each other and had spent three fourths of the year together and with me in a face to face environment before this started.  When one of them speaks, I know their voice.  None of that is true of actual online courses.  I haven't even mentioned the lunchroom, clubs, athetlics, teacher hugs, extracurricular activities, and the myriad of other school things that have no ability to be replicated digitally; but there are many things that make up school other than curriculum.  Am I grateful we live in a time where we have the technology to navigate this crisis digitally?  Absolutely!  Does it replicate the school experience I want for my students in non-emergency times?  No way. 

An Alternate Form of Testing in the Virtual Learning Environment

My plan for this week had been to write about everything I've learned from two and a half weeks of teaching in a virtual environment.  One of those lessons is just how exhausting the change in lesson planning is, and my brain is too tired to go into all of those lessons today.  I was, however, determined to blog this week because I was too tired to do it last week. 

I was sending an email to my colleagues to update them on an experiment I did with testing.  I figured since I was already having to expend the mental energy to write to them, I could just modify that for this blog. 

The hardest thing to figure out when we were planning for moving our classes online was assessment.  We knew just giving a regular test was a recipe for cheating, so we weren't going to do that.  We brainstormed a lot of ideas and read a few articles on the best practices of those who do actual online classes on a regular basis.  The article I liked best was about something called "Open-Everything Tests."  You assume they are going to have notes and books and the internet open and write your questions with that in mind. 

I knew about FlipGrid from one of our English teachers and decided that would be a good way to have them submit their answers in video form.  I could see them answering, and they couldn't just copy and paste from other people's texts.  I sent them the questions ahead of time so they could prepare and wrote questions that required preparation.  Some questions ask them to film things in their house (a question about transparency).  Others asked them to find or draw a picture to use in their answer.  I want this to be an additional learning opportunity, not just an assessment of their knowledge. 

Here's a modified version of the email I sent my friends.

"This is both a good idea and a bad idea.  Here are some of the pros and cons in case you are considering using this method for yourself.

CON:  I did not take into account just how long it would take to watch the videos.  I had assigned ten questions to every student I have, resulting in over 800 videos, each ranging from 30s to 5min.  It's a good thing I don't have classes this week and actually need things to fill my time.  That won't be the case when the next test comes around.

CON:  You can't really skim a video like you can with writing.  I mean, I kind of have figured out that if I start watching someone who sounds like they know what they are talking about, I can skip to the middle of their answer, hear a little more that confirms they know what they are talking about, and then skip to the end, but it still takes way more time than scanning the same amount of writing.

CON:  A few students in our context are using more limited wifi than others or had a little trouble with their camera. (We don't have the equity issues some others are having because of the program we had in place.)  I gave them permission to submit it in text form by email if they needed to.  That was only a couple, but it is good to keep in mind that a few may need some grace.

PRO:  Using carefully considered questions results in "uncheatable" answers.  The one that said to film things in the house resulted in some real-world application and certainly was not Googleable.  I'm thinking of making that one a homework assignment in future years when school is "normal" again.

PRO:  Students are more creative answering in a video than they are in writing.  They don't typically write out little asides and jokes, but they will definitely make them in the video.  It also allows them to hold up a picture and point at things.  In a question about how musical instruments make sound, I asked students to find a picture, but a few who play instruments just showed it to me live.

PRO:  My extension question is far more delightful to watch (and I already enjoyed reading it).  One student's explanation of the after-effects of eating two thousand M&Ms made me laugh so hard, I nearly fell out of the chair.

For our next test, I will reduce the number of questions submitted this way and find some other way to assess the rest.  I'm thinking of a Kahoot based one for multiple-choice questions.  You can set the time longer than 30s, so it could be done without the pressure (and if you have the educator version, it sends a report with the percentage they got right).  Friday's experiment with one class showed that I probably cannot use that in the live-group format, but I think I would still get the report if I did the "Assign as homework" option.  I have a while to think about it, though."