Items

• 2020-05-10

  Validity for an online teacher

  The Pandemic brought validity to my new teaching career while challenging my family structure and stretching my financial resources. I am a middle school teacher and I have taught both virtually and in person for over 4 years when the Pandemic hit. I was lucky enough to be teaching virtually with an accredited online school when the Pandemic hit, so my work life was not disrupted like so many other teachers. However, a strange thing happened when millions of teachers were forced to teach online, my career move to online teacher was validated. So often I had heard other teachers scoff when they found out I moved from teaching in a brick and mortar classroom to teaching in a virtual classroom. Often I would get remarks such as, "that is not real teaching" and how "great it must be to have a super easy teaching gig". I would try and tell them that teaching virtually was actually more challenging than teaching in the classroom. How do I get students to actually work when I am not in front of them? How do I ensure that students are learning and not just searching the internet for the answers? How do I meet my students social/emotional needs when we are all virtual? How do I connect with them? How do I create a virtual classroom that is a a safe space when there is no physical space? What happens when my students computers break or their internet gets shut down? Teaching virtually has challenged me in ways in person teaching could not even come close too. It was all too real when the pandemic hit and schools were forced to all operate virtually. Now they were faced with challenges they were not prepared for, at least I worked for a school that invested in remote teaching for over 20 years. Somehow, almost overnight, I was flooded with questions from former colleagues and acquaintances asking how to handle virtual teaching. Suddenly I became a valued resource and my teaching skills as an online educator were validated. No more was I seen as taking the "easy route" and "not actually teaching", as they enjoyed telling me. Now, I was a teacher who was ahead of the game and had valuable insight and information to give them. I have school aged children of my own, so I really felt for their teachers when they were suddenly and unceremoniously shoved into online teaching without a life vest. This pandemic has been a strange experience of both fear and validity. Finally being recognized by my fellow teachers and the state education board as being a valued, hardworking, educated teacher was not what I expected to come out of the pandemic.