Much have I learned from my teachers,
more from my colleagues,
but most from my students.
–The Talmud
I have used this quote from Rabbi Chanina often over the course of my career, and as an experienced educator, I have always appreciated the truth of its underlying message: that it is only as we instruct others in something that we truly develop our own understanding and knowledge of it. To teach is to learn, and I will never forget a moment nearly twenty years ago when I was teaching about a fairly complex topic—the mitochondrial electron transport chain—to my AP Biology class and suddenly realized that I had taught about this topic so often that I could no longer understand why it was so challenging for them to grasp it. The ideas had become so utterly a part of myself that I grew increasingly frustrated with their inability to not see—what had become for me—the obvious.
And that, too, was a moment of enlightenment brought to me from my students. I realized that I was going to have to teach myself how to see material through their eyes again because only then was I going to be able to expand my mental toolbox for teaching a given topic successfully in the future. Thus, every time since then that I have found myself growing frustrated with an apparent lack of understanding, I have had to ask myself: “Is this an electron transport chain moment?”
I share these musings this morning as I write because in these first few weeks of hybrid learning, my students have been at it once again, teaching me to understand the world a little better. One of the ways they have done so is to show me that I have severely understated the ultimate cost this pandemic is having on education in this country and the damage virtual learning is doing to so many of our children. In the past two weeks (for fluky reasons I won’t bore anyone with), I have had the opportunity to witness firsthand the difference in-person learning versus virtual learning has on the exact same set of lessons, and the experience has frankly left me speechless.
Allow me to elaborate. I teach an early morning class to a group of 9th graders, and until two Tuesdays ago, class with them has been just painful (they were a major motivation behind Notes from the Trenches). They stare at me on my computer screen like zombies, totally without any affect on their faces, mute buttons on (and often video off to keep from being dropped from the zoom call—but more on that later), and the only sign that there is any engagement at all with the material (or with me) is that they do produce answers to my questions and complete assignments. It has, frankly, been emotionally exhausting to present a persona of upbeat enthusiasm to at least attempt to engage them each time we meet.
Ah! But two Tuesdays ago was our first in-person hybrid learning day, and what walked into my room were these animated, smiling, practically garrulous children, who eagerly attacked the lesson of the day of designing an experiment. The differences in behavior were so intense that I texted a couple of my former colleagues at day’s end, “Am alive as a teacher again!!”
Yet two days later, when we had our virtual lesson for that week, the return to zombie-land was immediate, abrupt, and total—even though we were doing an actual lab activity at home in their kitchens. Even worse, when I taught that very same activity the very next day in-person to my other section of 9th graders, the differences in their responses to the analysis questions was stark: in-person students grasped the material well; zombie-land did not provide a single correct response.
Furthermore, before my readers who are fellow teachers start arguing that different sections of any course can be radically different in ability and personality, this past Monday and Tuesday, the schedule finally re-aligned, and I was able to teach both classes the exact same lab activity on chemical reactions in person. The responses to the analysis questions showed equally good understanding across the board—except for the three students who have chosen to remain virtual and had to be zoomed into the classroom for the hour.
As a scientist, I know that correlation is not automatically causation, but as an educator, this is pretty scary stuff. And it is made all the worse by the digital divide among my students, which again, I now believe I may have seriously understated in my COVID-19 and the Digital Divide post earlier in the pandemic. Nearly all my students of color are regularly forced to turn off their video feed in order to remain on the zoom call during class, and I have one young Black boy who is dropped by the system on average at least twice a class and constantly has to ask to be readmitted. I would estimate that he is missing approximately 10 minutes out of 60 for each virtual class we have, and that is a lot of instructional time to be losing on a weekly basis.
But at least I am now getting to see this young man once a week in our hybrid model so that I can try to counteract the impact of the remaining weekly virtual lessons. Too many of my students whose families have chosen to stay all virtual are children of color (in order to protect parents and grandparents who are often “essential” workers), and I know from talking to colleagues at other area schools like ours that they are seeing the exact same pattern. So not only is this disease already decimating the bodies of the members of these communities disproportionately; it is doing so with the minds of their youth as well—even at a school with the kinds of resources available at mine. I can only shudder to think what the true cost is to the Black and Hispanic communities here in Baltimore whose children are in the City Public Schools.
Which brings me to a different variant of white privilege. Knowing now from firsthand experience what a difference even a small amount of in-person learning can do for my students, I am all the more struck by the stance of the protests by Baltimore City Public School teachers against returning to in-person learning for at least the most vulnerable population of the school’s students. Nor are they alone in their protests; similar ones have been seen around the Baltimore area in independent and public schools alike, as well as throughout the country, and as I mentioned in Notes from the Trenches, I do understand and appreciate the root of people’s fear.
Yet, this past week, after teaching my morning class in person—all while wearing my mask and maintaining everyone at appropriate social distancing—I decided to treat myself and walked across campus to a local grocery store that is about a block away to get a deli sandwich. However, as I stood in line, it hit me: why are these workers any more “essential” than I am? I have frequented this establishment for decades now, with many of the workers and I recognizing one another, and here I was, asking someone I have direct personal knowledge of to take the potential risk of contracting a deadly disease so that I could have a sandwich as a treat. Granted, my doing so was contributing to these people remaining actively employed, but why should my employment as a teacher put me at any less risk than anyone else who does essential work?
Because what we as teachers do IS essential! And while I have always believed this to be true, I have never known that fact as deeply in my bones as I do now from the lesson my own students have taught me these past few weeks. What I do each day at school is no less important for society than the people who keep me fed, and there are not gradations of “essential.” The very word does not allow for it. Hence, in a society where the majority of students are now children of color while the vast majority of teachers remain white, I would argue it is nothing but quintessential, classic, unrecognized white privilege for my fellow teachers to protest that they should be allowed to work safely from home while their students suffer from receiving a poor quality education—even with the best intended and well designed of virtual lessons.
Those of us who keep us from physically starving must wear a mask; perhaps those of us who keep of us from mentally starving must be prepared to do likewise.
References
Bowie, L. (Oct. 14, 2020) Baltimore City Schools Will Bring a Limited Number of Students Back to School Buildings in November. The Baltimore Sun. https://www.baltimoresun.com/education/bs-md-city-school-reopening-20201014-45alojxxu5czvjq74rpy7lttxi-story.html
Gonzalez, J. (March 12, 2017) Four Ways Teachers Can Support Student of Color. https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/students-of-color/.
National Center for Education Statistic (February 2014) Projections of Education Statistics to 2022, 41st Ed. Institute of Education Sciences. https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2014/2014051.pdf.
Light a Candle 