How Can I Do This?

“How can I do this?” I have uttered this a few times since online school began, and I can tell you, expression is everything. I have muttered it with a tone of defeat and expressed it with one of optimistic problem solving. Try it. You will see what I mean.

The first week, I learned something with each lesson that challenged my sense of humor and resilience.

• One student arrived to class promptly on time. We got to know each other while waiting for the rest of her classmates, who inexplicably ended up in a completely different Teams site. Learning: Make sure everyone gets the right link.
• While moving through a PowerPoint of Q Is for Duck by Mary Elting and Michael Folsom, I was surprised when one student seemed to know what was coming before anyone else did. He admitted he’d already scrolled through the whole presentation on his screen. Learning: Click on “Prevent participants from moving through a shared presentation on their own.”
• Wonder: Why am I getting muted and kicked out of my own meeting? Learning: Make students attendees instead of presenters.

Technology has added a whole new complicated layer to a job that is already challenging. Content we know and love must be tweaked somehow to make it work virtually or in classrooms where social distancing guidelines are in place.

When I ask, “How can I do this?” with a tone of optimistic problem solving, I step onto a path that diverges starkly from the one uttered with a tone of defeat.

How can I learn about student book preferences? Solution: Make it a game. “Stand up if you like funny books.” (Everyone but one!? Who doesn’t like funny books?) “Stand up if you like scary books.” Repeat with superheroes, graphic novels, nonfiction, fiction, dinosaurs, cooking, sad books, and so on. One quick game provided an opportunity for movement and a quick inventory of the reading tastes of a new group of students.  

Daily read-aloud time is nonnegotiable for me. How can I make it as meaningful and engaging on the screen as it is when we are hunkered together? Solution: Transfer each page to a PPT slide. The words and pictures will be big enough for everyone to see while enjoying the read-aloud.

What feels so insurmountable to you right now that if you say, “How can I do this?” with an air of determination, it might create cracks where the light of possibilities can shine through? It’s my goal to let these possibilities flourish, so that when I close the computer at the end of the day, I can say, “I did it.”