Education Week - October 28, 2020 - 17

A Day in the Life of a Hybrid Teacher
Fatigue, interruptions, and gratitude

"

T

he word of the year is 'pivot' " our middle school
assistant principal told us as we prepared to return
to school this fall. At the time, I expected that
meant being flexible in my lesson plans, being
ready for day-to-day disruptions, and accepting
challenges as they come. Turns out, it also means
pivoting my head back and forth between my
Google Meet screen and the students in my physical classroom.
My school is offering in-person classes for the many parents and students
who opt in. We keep these students in two groups, sending half in person
Monday and Tuesday and the other half Thursday and Friday. Wednesday is
an all-remote day for deep cleaning and community building for teachers and
their advisories. We will soon pivot once again and offer more students the
chance to come in person for four days
instead of two. A handful of families
have already elected to keep their
children fully remote and will likely
continue to do so.
My school tests all students and
staff for the coronavirus once every
two weeks during lunch, which has
been extended from roughly half an
hour to a full hour. The test results are
guiding whether the school accepts
more students in person or requires
even more students to attend virtually.
We have been lucky so far that the
social distancing and masks have been
effective.
I am privileged to work at an
independent school with a more
manageable number of students than
many large public schools. (Our class
sizes are no more than 14 students,
and our grade levels have roughly 50
to 60.) Many
of the schools
By Mary M.
in this country
McConnaha
do not have
McCONNAHA
the resources
is a 7th grade
or funding to
English teacher
implement this
in Montgomery
model of hybrid
County, Md.
teaching safely.
Like so many
other aspects of life, COVID-19 has
shown just how deep the inequities are
in our educational system.
If our school could not afford frequent
testing and packets of cloth masks for
every student, if we did not already
have small class sizes, or even if our
ventilation system was just a few years
older, we could not have welcomed back
so many students. That said, our safety
Nadia Bormotova/iStock/Getty Images Plus
precautions do not mean we're immune
to the seasonal flu, excessive travel, or
becoming lax with social distancing-any of those factors could put the school
back to virtual learning.
My day starts with an app that tells staff and students if we are good to go
or if we need to stay home. The app asks me if I have a fever? Do I have a sore
throat? Am I feeling fatigued? (The teachers in my school smile at that last one;
try being a middle school teacher and not being fatigued.)
I make sure that my mask is on before I get out of my car. Once I'm inside the
school building, I manage to lift one hand out to get a squirt of hand sanitizer
before dropping all the stuff that I'm juggling-my computer bag, lunch bag,
purse, coffee mug, and water bottle-on my desk. I rub my hands together with
the sanitizer and then take my mask off for a half hour of reprieve before the
students enter my classroom.
In my classroom, desks are spaced out six feet apart. In the hallways, stickers
on the floor show students which direction to walk. We remind the students to
"helicopter their arms" to make sure they can't touch anyone else while they
walk, though enforcing this distance is a work in progress. We eat outside every
day under tents, but once it turns too cold to eat outside, individual classes will
eat together in their classroom.

In addition to the spaced-apart desks, the classroom itself is sparse this
year. I am the only one who touches my classroom library. Students drop their
returned book into "book quarantine," and I cycle through a new library box
each day for three days before returning the books to the library. The classroom
white board, which no one at home can see, is blank except for the day's
schedule and a "Welcome Class of 2026" sign.
Before every class, I perform "The Dance of the Google Meets," which
involves practiced, precise clicking and moving my body to quickly "pivot"
between two laptops-a fast and reliable one and the other a brick. I need both
so that I can present one full screen to the students in my classroom, while also
seeing my online students attending from home.
With half my class remote, I have learned to recognize students better by
voice than ever before. Class etiquette and procedures are hard to teach online,

"

Things that
used to take a
moment-filling
out a reading log,
for example
-now take
several minutes.

especially to a class of middle school students. When the students at home
have a question, instead of typing it in the chat or waiting for me to ask if there
are any questions, they just unmute themselves and ask. This might interrupt
silent independent reading, while I am actively in the middle of saying
something, or while a student in the classroom is asking a question.
On that note, the pace that we are working through the curriculum feels
much slower this year than it ever has before. Things that used to take a
moment-filling out a reading log, for example-now take several minutes.
Note-taking takes especially long, as the online students toggle between
devices. I've had students' Wi-Fi cut out in the middle of directions, and
they need everything repeated. A student once forgot to turn the volume on
for an entire class, before asking during the last 10 minutes, "Are you saying
something? Because I've just been independently reading this whole time."
Being a hybrid teacher is exhausting, and I do often wish that I could teach
just one way or the other. But watching so many of my students thrive because
they can be back in person makes up for a lot of that exhaustion. Like everyone
else, I cannot wait for all my students to be back in my room, mask-free, heads
buried together in meaningful group work. Until then, I'm going to teach my
best and do what I can to keep us all safe. 
EDUCATION WEEK | October 28, 2020 | www.edweek.org/go/opinion | 17
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Education Week - October 28, 2020

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