Tag: Teaching During COVID-19

This CPS Sub Will Be Keeping Her Masks On, And Hopes Others Will, Too

We’re all struggling with heightened anxiety these days. And for subs, the nature of our job is not conducive to relaxation. Simply being a substitute teacher in Chicago Public Schools is not a job for someone who relies on order and predictability. Most of the time you are expected to just jump in and get to work, making sure that 15 or 30 or 50 children somewhere between the ages of 4 and 21 have a relatively successful school day and learn something, and that nobody gets hurt or dies in the process.

Our Kids Need Flexible Learning

Until the pandemic forced us to rethink learning, the structure of school went unchanged for decades. Educators certainly refined their craft, incorporating new tools and knowledge about how students learn, but if Rip Van Winkle fell asleep during math class in 1919 and woke up a hundred years later, he would have no trouble recognizing the rigid structures and routines of the school day. 

Dear Pandemic Homeschooler

Dear Pandemic Homeschooler,  Nobody in your family has done this before. Take a minute and take that in. It is back-to-school time and there are a lot of questions surrounding what that looks like for children. Many parents, after losing faith in their school system, are eager to explore homeschooling. So, they turn to the internet and discover it is…

Navy Pier swing and Ferris wheel

Summertime = Time to Relax While Learning and Having Fun

While summer of 2021 isn’t, thank God, like summer 2020, it still isn’t the “normal” summer that I’m used to.  And, this summer, schools around the country are focused on finding ways to re-engage families and students and addressing learning losses many children have sustained after nearly two school years of remote learning. For me, as a teacher and a…