The Worst Thing About Teaching Online
(previously published by Harness Magazine)
Here is the thing about teaching online. Yes, it’s hard. Yes, it means I can go to work in sweatpants. Yes, I spend the majority of my day calling and texting parents who can’t figure out how to turn their tablet on.
None of this is the worst thing, though, The worst thing is watching a kid cry because they can’t turn their worksheet in on Google Classroom because of some vague tech issue, or because the ran out of time to finish their math work, or hell: because they just don’t understand what’s going on. Kids cry, you know? No matter how small or trivial the cause, if a kid wants to cry, they will.
I’ve dealt with crying kids before. I was a babysitter and nanny all through high school and college, for a variety of different age groups and temperaments. I know how to handle kids, no matter how stormy their disposition might be at the current moment. But, like everything else these days, it’s all different now. Now I watch kids sob and wail and wipe snot all over their little faces, and I….do nothing. Oh, I smile, I say things like “It’s okay, buddy, it’s okay! We don’t need to get upset over something like this! Nobody’s mad at you!” I even get closer to the camera, as if we’re not staring at each other through computer screens.
Because that’s what makes it all so different. We’re not really together. When a kid cries, I can’t put a hand on their shoulder or hug them or hold their hand. I can’t really comfort them, not in the ways that I know how.
So yeah, teaching right now is hard. I’ve had to become an IT guy and a translator and a data analyst, along with the whole teaching thing. I’ve cried so much my face has dried out from all the tear-wiping. I’ve closed my computer at the end of the day and immediately screamed into my pillow because I’m so frustrated I don’t know what to do with myself.
None of that compares, though, to seeing the pixelated image of a sobbing first grader on my screen, and knowing that there’s nothing I can do about it.
