Teaching Online During the Pandemic

By: Esther Kane

During the height of the pandemic, I had the opportunity to help some teachers in their Zoom classes. Let me tell you, these teachers put in so much work to make sure their students still learned a lot despite all the obstacles they faced. They especially struggled to keep students engaged with the class from home. Students encountered many distractions from learning at home, such as other family members, the temptation of TV and video games, connectivity problems, and general weariness from staring at a computer screen all day long and taking care of their family. I myself got a taste of what they went through when I would help students in breakout rooms. Sometimes when I called upon a student, I would wait for what felt like an eternity hoping the student was still there behind the screen. I couldn’t even imagine how it would feel looking after thirty students at once, every day. Zoom fatigue was brutal on the younger students, and teachers did everything they could to keep their students engaged. I remember one teacher would play math rap videos and encourage students to get up and dance to them. Other teachers would play online games or funny videos. 

Teachers would try their best to stay upbeat when they were with the students, but when it was just me and them they would express how exhausted they were and how bad they felt for not providing more for their students. They were concerned with keeping up with California teaching standards, which they felt became more and more demanding. I believe teachers definitely should have been provided with more support from their districts. This could’ve been achieved with more funding during those tough times. The state must provide more permanent funding to better support our amazing, hard-working teachers.