What I Remotely Learned from Remote Learning
By Jason Drury
I went to a small private Christian school from elementary to high school. I think it would have been very hard to function during a pandemic back then. Are you kidding me? You couldn’t be face to face? How would they possibly transfer the ethical, and spiritual manipulation with left over guilt over zoom? That would have been very challenging for them. Well, the Lord works in mysterious ways. Click, and the window shall be opened up to you…
But I digress, that was my education. Now I watch my daughter, she shows up, and waits to be invited to the group. You have to hand it to the teachers. They have nothing but patience. They are handed this incredibly difficult situation.
The kids, that don’t pay attention, are horribly behaved, don’t listen at all and think the whole world revolves around them. All this was true before a pandemic, before you shoved a microphone and camera in their face. Now they have volume. I love my daughter. But I could not imagine trying to organize, ten to twelve of those like her. They all have something to say. “Yes, you are right. That is the difference between a liquid and a solid. No Brittany we don’t need to see your cat, Tater. No, please put her down.”
I learned that there are some children that need to be muted. I would have been that child. I know that sounds harsh, but some of you know what I’m talking about. But I will do what ever I can to help my daughter. I realized very early when the camera is on, and the class is going, I was like my daughters stage manager.
“Daddy!” She says with panic in her eyes, “I need a sock!” “What? Why?” I ask ask in a hushed voice off camera. “For Gym!” She responds like I know exactly what she is talking about. So I hurry away and find a sock. It was what she needed, so I take a sigh of relief.“Daddy, I need my favorite stuffed animal!” She says so much more panicked than before. “Which one is that?” Knowing the amount of options we are faced with at this point. “The pink one!” She hushes out of the side of her mouth subtly, yet definitively. Two thirds of what she owns is pink, so I go and look.
Then the whole thing goes wrong. “Daddy, it turned off!” I rush over and see her screen and camera are off. She is almost in tears. I hunch over and begin to click what I can. The show must go on! Then it turns on. I see myself. For those of you who are reading this, and don’t know, this is why I can’t zoom. I look like a highly trained monkey, or the third step in the evolution of becoming man. I’m not attractive. I’m shaped like an apple. A bearded, short armed apple. I look like your weird neighbor that you never see outside, and when we do, I rush back in to eat my tunafish sandwich. But don’t worry reader, I’m an excellent conversationalist!
Anyway, I don’t want to be hard on the kids. When I think back on it, I barely paid attention to school when I was there in person. I can’t imagine what my education would have been if I didn’t have to wear pants. Yet I believe I have learned three things during this pandemic and remotely learned about remote learning:
A) The students that are trying, are really trying to learn.
B) Teachers are really trying to teach.
3) When it comes to education, I should have to wear pants.