The Plague Diaries: Teaching

Teaching under the pandemic continues to challenge.  I don't feel a good connection with my students. Because we meet in video conference, there are no "extra" conversations, the casual encounters where you talk about what's going on outside of class. There's no, "I heard you got cast in the play," or "You play the violin, I see," or "You came from Traverse City? That must have been a beautiful place to grow up."  No one lingers in the classroom to talk about anything, no one drops by between classes, no one stops you in the hallway.  When class ends, POOF!  Everyone vanishes, and I'm alone in my home office.

During class, I've learned to talk to the camera so I don't seem to be staring downward on the screen, but it feels like I'm in a recording studio, not in a classroom.

And the time, time, time . . .

It takes so much time to teach.  I've been teaching for more than 25 years, and I have all the lesson plans and activities and assignments from those 25 years.  After all this time, I've learned what works and what doesn't.  (This is why I get persnickety when someone else tries to tell me what "best practices" are.)  When a particular unit comes up, I have a long, long list of things I can do to teach the associated concepts, and I modify them slightly based on what my current students are like.  The most tedious part about lesson planning is running copies.

But now?  Most of my lessons won't work in Zoom.  Large group discussions are almost impossible.  Most of my physical materials (practice sheets, quizzes, annotations, and more) are unfeasible.  This means I have to create everything new.  Make no mistake--I'm very good at it.  I have 25 years of art, science, and instinct to guide me.  But it takes so. Much. TIME. 

Classes are 105 minutes twice a week instead of 60 minutes five times a week, so my lesson plans themselves have to be re-timed. Assignments have to be created or adapted so they'll work in Google Classroom.  Everything has to be uploaded, scheduled, double-checked.  And then, of course, I have to grade it all. 

And every single thing happens in front of a screen.  It's strains my eyes.  It makes me restless.  When I teach, I move around the room a lot.  In Zoom, I have to sit in one place.  All, Freaking. Day.  By 3:00, I'm brain dead.

There are a few advantages.  I don't have many discipline issues.  In a regular class, I spend a great deal of time quieting the class so everyone can learn.  My most common comment is, "Quiet, now!"  Now?  My most common comment is, "Cameras on, please." There are no side conversations and very few interruptions.  I have one student who likes to spin his chair during class, and I have to admonish him.  "You're distracting the class and need to stop now. Thank you."  I have no commute.  I eat lunch in my own kitchen.  I have a view of the lake.  I have easy access to a bathroom.  (This last is a major issue for all teachers.  A lot of people don't know that teachers spend a lot of time figuring out how and when to take a bathroom break.) 

It's not the best way to teach.  Still, it beats getting COVID-19.

Altering SCOTUS

It's very much part of the Democratic party's plan that, if the Senate hypocritically rams a Trump nominee into RBG's seat after refusing to seat Obama's last nominee on the grounds that it was an election year, the Democrats will eliminate the filibuster and expand the number of seats on the Supreme Court. (Note that both of these ideas require the Democrats to take the White House and the Senate, something a lot of people think they they'll do.) https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/ruth-bader-ginsburg-filibuster-035120638.html

I have long supported both of these ideas, even when the GOP was in power. The filibuster became idiotic the moment the Senate stopped requiring Senators to speak continuously as part of their filibuster. The filibuster used to be a way for a Senator to show commitment to (or against) a new law, and was a way to persuade other Senators to come around to their side of thinking. But now all a Senator has to do is say, "I'm filibustering," and we all just pretend that it's happening, meaning every single law requires 60 votes to go anywhere, as that's what it takes to end a filibuster. It means few laws get passed and little gets done. The filibuster is not good for the country, and must be ended.

The Supreme Court is long outdated as well. Back when it was founded, the USA was a little strip of a country along the eastern seaboard, with a tiny population. Nine justices was plenty to represent everyone. Now the USA has 328 million people and spans a continent. We need far more than nine people to represent that many people spread over such a wide area. I'm thinking we need 23 or 25 SCOTUS justices at least, though I'm guessing that if the Democrats pack the court, we'll have 15 or 17.

And, while I'm at it, I also think SCOTUS justices should serve for 20 years at most. Back when the SCOTUS was created, you were lucky to live past 60. Now it's common for people to live and work well into their 80s, meaning this tiny handful of people can be appointed to the court in one generation, and still be making decisions two or even three generations later, when our society has changed and evolved past earlier thinking.

But I'll take two out of three of the above.