How Are You Feeling About Not Being in School Right Now?

Photo by Jeffrey Hamilton on Unsplash

Like many of you, I keep asking myself how this is real life. How am I in the middle of a global pandemic? Everything is so different than it was a couple of weeks ago. The way I grocery shop for my family, the meals I cook, the resources I use to work out, the way I parent, the means I utilize to communicate with my friends and family, and especially the way I teach.

Overnight, educators were asked to teach in a completely different way than we studied, trained, and practiced. This is hard for us, but guess who it is more difficult for? Our students. Our students come to school for so much more than the academic side. This drives me crazy, but it's the truth. They come for: inspiration, a creative outlet, friends, physical activity, role models, accountability, a challenge, food, and safety. As much as some of them complain about being at school, they miss it and us.

One of the routines I wanted to keep in place during "distance learning" is our practice of daily restorative circles. After reading the article, "A Trauma-Informed Approach to Teaching Through Coronavirus" written by The Teaching Tolerance Staff, I asked my students during one of our Zoom meetings, "How are you feeling about not being in school right now?" The answers they replied with brought tears to my eyes. My students expressed anxiety over "not being ready for 7th grade". They fear not returning to school this year. Many communicated sadness over not being able to promote at the end of the year, not seeing their friends that would be going to a different middle school, not being able to say goodbye to their favorite elementary school teachers, and many expressed boredom. My favorite comment was from a student that shares his displeasure of all things school-related as loudly and often as possible said, "Mrs. Merry, I will never complain about school again, I promise." As funny as I found that comment to be, I also heard so much uncertainty and anxiety in his voice.

As adults, we have a vast amount of uncertainty surrounding our current situation. If adults have doubts and anxieties, we can assume that our children and students are even more unsure, scared, and anxious. Children have little control over their daily lives. When you add to that fact that everything they know is turned upside down, you're going to be dealing with children under a considerable amount of stress. Overnight, they have to learn a new way of learning, and "distance learning" doesn't have any of the aspects most of them come to school for: friends, role models, inspiration, physical activity, food, or safety.

"Educators can expect that many students' sense of safety will be compromised right now. None of us have ever seen a time like this when institutions that provide safety and structure are closed, and the news talks about death rates and hospital bed shortages." - Teaching Tolerance

Big Question: How do we teach (or attempt to teach) while students are dealing with the trauma and uncertainties of COVID 19? The article "A Trauma-Informed Approach to Teaching Through Coronavirus" suggests that educators take the following steps to help students recover:

1. Sense of safety- Students cannot learn if they do not feel safe and cared for. Reaching out to students and families to provide a sense of safety. This can be as simple as sending out a mass message through Google Classroom, Dojo, or Remind and ask students and/or parents how everyone is doing?
2. Connect with students- When we give our families and students a trusted person to connect with, it goes a long way. They know that someone cares about their well-being. An idea is to ask students what they are doing for fun at home. Their answers can give you an idea of what they have access to at home. If their resources are limited, offer some free-fun ideas: virtual trips fields, plan a scavenger hunt or nature walk for them to participate in, links to online resources (authors reading their books, art lessons, physical activities).
3. Give hope- Hope provides the essential and motivating message for a better future. Something we can do to foster hope is to encourage students to get fresh air whenever possible. Maybe challenge students to a step contest or "Best selfie in nature" contest.
4. Promote/teach self-regulation- Self-regulation helps students learn tools that they can use when they are feeling anxious or stressed out. One way we can help is to encourage students to share how they are feeling on a scale from 1-10. Ask them to reflect on why they might be feeling that way and ideas to practice mindfulness. Some mindfulness exercises the article shared, which I've never heard of, are smelling a flower and describing how the flower smells aloud or completing four-corner breathing. Four-corner breathing is described as "simply inhaling deeply and exhaling deeply four times. Students can complete this breathing exercise by standing up and taking one to inhale and exhale breath while facing each of the four corners in a room."
5. Practice gratitude- Being grateful reminds us that even when things go wrong, there are still plenty of things to be thankful for. Practicing gratitude also teaches us how to love and respect ourselves, which enables us to love and respect others. Next week, I plan on having my students complete an appreciation or gratitude circle. I will give my students a classmate and a list of appreciation/ gratitude ideas and have them add their thoughts to our Google Classroom page for  everyone to see.

Please share any strategies and ideas that you’ve been using to ease the minds of your students during this difficult time.

Stay safe everyone,

Jenni Merry