It’s not easy.
It’s not easy to be a teacher who is preparing to teach any subject this year, let alone Science.
It’s not easy to realize that the district I work for is on the path to begin the year distance learning for kids who are already experiencing the Knowlege Gap from past years.
It’s not easy to read policy that says things like, “we must enforce social distancing in the classroom, our halls and our cafeterias”, when children need to socialize and have been impeded from doing so for, what must seem to them, an eternity.
It’s not easy to think about all those families who ‘s work schedules, living conditions, education levels, language barriers, economic status, metal health and a myriad of other factors, interfere with the capability of a student to be able to have the learning environment that is necessary for them to learn and thrive in a classroom that is confined to the 11×6 inch screen of a chromebook and possibly spotty wi-fi.
However, despite these difficulties and so many more that I have not mentioned, we are getting on with the process of planning for uncertainty, how’s that for an oxymoron?
In our middle school district science meeting this week, we hashed over all the standards and lessons we have in our curriculum (Amplify Science, for those of you who are curious) for 7th and 8th grade. In our grade level teams we then pared down to the most minimum the lessons that we are going to try to teach and how much time on each, making clear that all of the four schools in our district are going to stick with the same schedule since we have quite a bit of transfer back and forth between schools during the year.
In Amplify, there are many mini lessons that rehash the concepts so we had an easier time when we focused on what is called the big ideas of the Progress Builds. We had to cut the two engineering units for both grade levels since they require quite a bit of hands on and guidance from the teacher in person. With optimistic estimations, we should be able to at least give a cursory teaching of the 6 main concept areas in each level.
I say optimistic in the last paragraph, because of all the difficulties we will be facing. Did I mention that we have at best 4 hours that teachers are expected to teach lessons in recorded sessions each week and at worst, only 2?
Needless to say, preparations are being made for this uncharted territory as best we can.
Classroom Musings 