An excerpt from Steven Van Zandtâ€s remarks at the Stand With Teachers event, 12/21/20
93% of US students spent at least part of 2020 going to school from behind a screen. No one saw this coming.
On March 12, I visited classrooms at our partner school in California--in retrospect, it was a questionable idea though we all lived! On March 13th, that school closed. They assumed they would reopen in a few weeks, but it didnâ€t happen. They finished their school year remotely.
I donâ€t think any of the teachers at our partner school, or at any school, took a college course called, “teaching in a pandemic.†But consider what they did.
In a matter of weeks, this nationâ€s teachers were broadcasting classes live from their kitchens, living rooms, and even bedrooms. They embraced whatever technology they could get their hands on, and they found a way to maintain connection with their students, even while in quarantine.
If weâ€d asked only that of our nationâ€s teachers, their success would have been extraordinary. But they did so much more.
For instance, at our Orangethorpe Elementary TeachRock Partner School in Fullerton, CA, every student was sent home with an iPad. But many students didnâ€t have wifi and their parents couldnâ€t afford to get it. So principal Dr. Ginger Frady worked with others in her district to petition the local internet provider to give families free service throughout the pandemic. And they got it done. Within a month they had 98% of their students online, and learning.
But Dr. Fradyâ€s team didnâ€t stop there. 88% of their students qualify for free and reduced price lunch. And the families of those students are among the population most likely to lose their jobs during the pandemic. Dr. G realized those families needed help. So, even in April and May while most of us were sheltering at home, she and her colleagues suited up in PPE and launched a grab-and-go lunch station for families. Then, they added socially distanced technology help for families struggling with the iPads. The bi-lingual custodian signed on to help those families who needed their tech help in Spanish.
Dr. Fradyâ€s team is special. As we like to say in the US--heroes!. But they are not unique. Their story is the story of teachers nationwide in 2020.
Teachers spent 2020 helping students cope with one of the biggest national crises in our nationâ€s history. They helped students maintain a sense of structure in a suddenly amorphous time. They invented ways to construct community in the midst of enforced distance. And, most importantly, they helped students process their feelings about the world that seemed to be falling apart around them.
We had to close our buildings, but we could not afford to close the schools we house within them. When we needed them most, teachers stepped in and put our students and their families first. Teachers are the plainclothes superheroes in our midst.
