COVID-19 Check In

Well, the past few months have been super chaotic. As both a student and a teacher candidate, I wanted to take some time and reflect on the experiences I've had during the pandemic.

As a student...

This semester has been very difficult for me. Luckily, I have taken some online classes before and during the pandemic, so I had a feel for the setup I was going into this semester. While taking a class on Zoom was something totally new for me, I did not personally struggle with the transition. I have found that some classes are easy to have online, and could always have been online, and for others it is much more beneficial to be in a classroom setting in order to get the most out of the class. The biggest struggle I will say I have faced this semester is staying motivated. Most semesters, we get a long weekend, and some other random days off. While most people see these days as days for college students to just sleep, we actually use it as a day to catch up and mentally have a break. This semester we had no time to waste, so all of those days were taken away. This has taken a toll on all of us mentally, as we have had no break. One thing piles onto all the other things we have to do, and as soon as we finish one assignment, we have three more to do. This nonstop cycle has put all of us under a lot of stress. On top of this, we all have jobs, friends, and families we wish to spend time with and payments to make. But it almost seems as all of those things are put on the back burner during this semester. We as students used to be able to get together and go to extracurricular activities held by the school. Now, we no longer have these activities available for us, and our new pastime is watching TV and taking naps.

As a teacher candidate...

The timing of this pandemic is both unfortunate and fortunate in my case. I am now a junior in college, and I was supposed to spend this semester in a school, planning and delivering my first lesson to students in either a middle or high school biology classroom. I missed that opportunity. I instead taught my peers, which was fun and gave me some experience with teaching, but not with classroom management or differentiating my lesson.

While this timing was unfortunate, I feel I was very fortunate to be in college at this time for I can now plan for another time like this one where I have to transfer to completely remote education, before having my own classroom. I am also learning more about what works and what doesn't for distance learning from being a student. This time also shows me how valuable being in school is, and that the kids right now are missing so much more than just the learning experience they normally gain from being in school.

As I started with, this time has been crazy, and it doesn't seem to be ending anytime soon. Taking time to reflect, as I did today, helped me see that this pandemic hasn't been all bad. In fact, it has shown us all, in our own ways, what not to take for granted, and what matters to us most.