This summer, NewsHour EXTRA kicked off a weekly Summer Teacher Zoom Series of teacher chats to talk through issues of uncertainty, concern and hope for teachers across the country. Zoom meetings featured guest speakers along with our host, teacher
Sari Beth Rosenberg
and educators, lots and lots of educators.
We focused on COVID quite a bit (see a few of the Zooms below) and decided to launch a monthly teacher COVID check-in over Zoom. Some meetings were not recorded for privacy reasons, however, clips from debriefs with hosts and guests after the meeting were recorded, including this Zoom about how teachers were feeling about the start of the 2020-2021 school year.
How are teachers feeling with school reopening imminent? (August 12, 2020)
On August 12, we again turned to the topic of school reopening. This session featured guest teacher Nicholas Ferroni and psychiatrist Dr. Gary Rosenberg. Teachers expressed deep concern about their own safety and worked through how to best communicate concerns to school families, education authorities and the public.
In this first clip, Ferroni characterizes the ways teachers he's spoken to describe their confusion about being supported for their work in the spring and chastised as selfish for their concerns over the fall.
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And in this clip from the debrief, Dr. Rosenberg talks about the ways teachers can manage the stress surrounding reopening and the uncertainty woven in to every decision they must make this fall.
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Health and physical education in the age of COVID-19 (August 5, 2020)
One of our most-attended sessions of the summer took place on August 5 and covered the critical role of physical education and health in times of COVID-19. The chat featured guests
historian and educator Dr. Natalia Mehlman Petrzela and P.E. teacher Andrea Vargas. In the clip below, Vargas describes some of the work she's doing in figuring out ways to provide physical education via remote learning.
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You can watch
the full Zoom chat here
!
What will safe school reopening look like? (July 15, 2020)
For our second Zoom Series chat, which took place July 15, we invited STEM/Engineering teacher Doug Scott to talk about things teachers can do to make potential in-class learning safer for teachers, students and staff alike. Teachers were concerned about safety as well as confusing and inconsistent messaging from state and local education authorities.
In this clip, host Sari Beth Rosenberg explains that teacher fears and concerns existed outside politics, with little mention of national policy and great concern about the gritty details of each school district's and each individual school's reopening plans.
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Teaching under quarantine: Why self-care matters (July 8, 2020)
Our first Zoom Series chat on July 8 featured teacher Juan Campos and psychiatrist Dr. Gary Rosenberg and covered health and mental wellness concerns for teachers in the age of quarantine. Teachers were concerned about making space and time for self-care when there was so much extra attention and care needed by their students.
In this clip, teacher Juan Campos describes the importance for teachers to form their own support networks and practice self-care if they want to be able to support their students in difficult times.
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If you would like to contribute to Educator Voice, please send your idea to Victoria Pasquantonio at vpasquantonio@newshour.org. For teaching resources on Election 2020, sign up here . Read more of Sari Beth Rosenberg’s “Teaching in the Age of Coronavirus” blog series here .
If you would like to contribute to Educator Voice, please send your idea to Victoria Pasquantonio at vpasquantonio@newshour.org. For teaching resources on Election 2020, sign up here . Read more of Sari Beth Rosenberg’s “Teaching in the Age of Coronavirus” blog series here .