906 Words
By Lauren Peacock
It is safe to say that COVID-19 hit America hard, hitting essential workers the hardest. People in all different fields were forced to continue to work to keep food on the table or because their country needed them to keep people alive, educated, safe, and healthy.
Simply living our “normal” life during such uncertain and anxious times while being locked inside was enough to make anyone go crazy. Essential workers had to forget everything they were taught and go into a panic mode, leaving them burnt out, stressed, and hopeless.
Teachers had to learn how to teach in a new remote environment and online format while worrying about covid for themselves and their families. Some teachers had to work from home while watching and helping their own children at the same time.
Tracey Winand, a third-grade teacher at Pine Lakes Elementary School, explains the first three months of working during the pandemic were a complete shock. From March 2020 to June 2020, her job consisted of learning how to use google classroom and posting activities, instead of being live with the kids.
“Third Grade teachers and their classes don’t use any technology, so this was all completely new to both the teachers and students. Half of my day was talking to parents and telling them how to get onto google classroom and what to do,” said Winand burying her head in her hands.
In the beginning, Winand only checked the assignments the kids handed in and returned them with comments, “When we started there was zero contact with the teacher and the kids, they were learning from a computer. I could tell some of the kids were starting to burn out, and I knew half of them would have been doing so much better if it was in person,” Winand explained while drinking her fourth cup of coffee of the day.
Besides all the technical difficulties, Winand explains that social distancing is impossible when you teach kids. She thinks teachers should have been included in the first group of vaccinations if they were obligated to work in person.
“When you teach kids there is no way to social distance. They need help tying their shoes, unpacking their backpack, it just isn’t possible. I emailed Governor Murphy multiple times. Our schools didn’t have ventilation and because of covid, we had to keep our windows open during the winter. The students that came in were sitting there in coats, hats, blankets, gloves, etc. It was a nightmare.”
Once Winand and her classes went live via google meet in September 2020, it was ten times harder. Half of the kids were physically in the classroom and the other half were live streaming from their homes. Winand’s job was teaching both of these kids at the same time, while their parents were right next to them.
“It’s so hard because you’re trying to keep the kids in a happy spirit but inside you’re dying because you’re still scared about covid and have no idea how to teach both groups at once. The love, the joy, and the happy faces that I have to put on for the kids are fake, but no good teacher would let their kids see that,” Winand explains, sighing.
On the bright side, Winand mentions that support from her fellow teachers and principal was amazing. All the teachers helped each other, looked out for each other, and shared any tips or tricks they had. Now, she’s faster and quicker with technology, and she thanks her students for being so patient with her, and overall amazing students during a global pandemic.
Tatum Peacock, a senior at High Point University applauds her teachers for being so patient, understanding, and flexible during such hard times, “Besides teachers allowing us to hand things in late/miss class because we had COVID, they cared about our mental health and checked in to make sure we were okay. If anyone needed more time because they were having a hard time, that was always allowed as long as you let your teacher know,” she said.
Peacock feels as though school and life itself would have been a lot harder if her teachers weren’t so amazing during the pandemic, “Between being stuck inside and moving to a new format online, I would have panicked if my teachers weren’t so helpful. The year was stressful enough, and luckily most teachers understood that.”
Lauren Peacock 