It's 9:57 a.m.
Three minutes away from my daily classroom Zoom meeting with my fifth graders.
I've just traded in my PJ top for a button-up and tamed my top knot into a smoothed out bun.
I escape from my own children to my bedroom (i.e. my makeshift office and the only room in our house aside from the bathroom with a lock). I can hear crying in the other room and my 3-year-old daughter’s fingers are sliding under the door as she calls "Mommy! Are you in there?!"
I say a silent prayer that my biological kids will chill out in front of the TV so I can attempt to teach my other 30 kids for the next 45 minutes.
With an agenda of lofty class meeting to-dos jotted on the back of my daughter's unicorn coloring page, I balance my laptop on the TV tray and begin opening tabs of the resources I'll share and use to teach my students. Late night research of "remote learning" and a few Google searches of "fun activities for class Zoom meetings" have left me with all the false confidence and naive optimism necessary to click "Start Meeting" with a smile.
One by one, they join
I'm not a fool — I have them muted upon entry and disabled all other functions, but as their faces pop up on my screen, I greet them by name and ask them questions. They promptly click the microphone to answer and noisy chaos quickly ensues. Feeling that things are getting a bit too chaotic, I make the decisive move to "mute all" and, once again, we have relative peace.
We begin with my planned ice-breaker activity: Students take turns asking "Where in the world is…" and ending with a classmate's name as they all point in varying directions searching the grid for that friend's face. While moderately engaging at first, this activity takes approximately 78 times longer than I had anticipated. Yet, we must finish. No student can be left out.
Eleven minutes in and I note that more than half of the students have stopped paying attention. Alyssa currently has her puppy on her lap entertaining her friends while countless others are holding up random items from their room to show off. Jason and Jared are busy changing their virtual backgrounds while Patrick has somehow figured out how to replace his face with Peppa Pig.
No problem, I'm a professional. I have planned for this. I move on to today's lesson where the real learning will take place just as Erik "accidentally" begins sharing his screen. Hmmm, I thought I disabled that.
Once I have regained possession of my hijacked screen I get back to the topic at hand: fractions. A bit frazzled, I stumble through three wrong clicks and finally manage to share the "engaging introduction video" I carefully selected last night. As the video plays I let out the stress breath I've apparently been holding and allow the nice man with the British accent to take the lead with teaching for the next 2 minutes 37 seconds.
As the video closes, I take one sip of coffee for good measure and get back to the tiles that are my students only to find that two kids have left the meeting completely and seven have disabled their camera and could be playing a video game or in the kitchen making a sandwich for all I can tell.
I'm losing them and we all know it. My anxiety level is rising but I keep my voice calm and playful as I call everyone back to attention. (There are parents listening, after all).
Several students are unmuted but I can’t tell who. Murphy's Law means that it has to be the kids with the worst internet connection, therefore making the whole meeting sound glitchy. I politely remind students to mute unless they have a question.
Nothing changes
I power on. Because I am a teacher and I cannot be fazed.
I ask if anyone has questions about yesterday's math lesson and video that I recorded.
Sudden silence.
"Anybody have a question about dividing fractions?"
"Did anyone watch the lesson video from yesterday?"
Their guilty faces tell me all I need to know, but I resist the urge to step up on my usual soapbox. The one where I lecture, "You need to be responsible for your own learning." I so often step on that one when I’m in the confines of my own classroom and have a captive audience. But the rules have changed now, so I tread lightly and simply say, "Don’t forget to do your math lessons. I made the videos just for you!"
I ask if there are any other questions. "They don't even have to be about school," I say.
Aubrey raises her hand.
Oh, Aubrey! That one on-task dependable student I can always count on to be engaged and lead the class in participation. Thank God for you!
"Yes, Aubrey, what’s your question?"
"Um ... is the meeting almost over?"
My heart sinks as I say, "Yep, almost!" with a smile pasted across my face.
They're done.
I'm done.
"Well, if there are no other questions we're going to sign off for today, guys! Just remember to do your lessons and have your parents email me if you need anything. Anything at all!"
"And I’ll see you tomorrow …"
"And I miss you." (More than you'll ever know).
They all do silent waves (except the three that never did mute). Jacob suddenly blurts out, "Hey, come meet me on Roblox!" to all the remaining students. And then they’re gone.
And I'm sitting in my bedroom with a TV tray and a laptop, button-up shirt and sweatpants.
My one opportunity to teach them today and it's over
And it didn't go like I planned.
It didn't go well.
It was a moderate catastrophe.
Tomorrow we will meet again and maybe it will go more smoothly. Maybe no one's computer will cut out and they will all participate in the lesson and take turns when they talk.
But probably not.
And that's OK because I saw their faces and I heard their voices. I'll keep doing everything I can to teach them and create engaging video lessons and find fun ways to interact in this strange new normal we’ve all found ourselves in.
And in the meantime, maybe, just maybe, they'll do their math lesson.
