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Brian: Brian Lehrer on WNYC and now to your calls. If you are a teacher at any level of any kind, any where, what did you learn by being a teacher during COVID? How are you doing self-care, so deserved this summer and how are you preparing to assess for multitudes of learning loss among your different students in the fall? Angela in Brooklyn, you get the first word you're on WNYC. Thanks so much for calling in.

Angela: Hi Brian, how are you doing? Good morning to everyone. Wow. I'd learned so much. Actually, I have to start writing it down so I wouldn't lose track. One of the things that I learned was that, and it was very interesting because I taught a fully remote class. I also had a hybrid, it was been turned to an all person, so I'm able to compare the two. In terms of the all remote, it was interesting to see how many children refuse to turn their cameras on because they were shy to show their faces, which I thought was really confusing because once you're in the building, everyone gets to see your faces.

It was just trying to find a way to make the children feel more comfortable, to turn the cameras on, and to even delve into why they didn't have the cameras on, because it was a variety of reasons. It wasn't just that they didn't want to, maybe they were embarrassed or ashamed of their background, and just being patient with that. I learned to try and find a variety of ways to reach out to the children. I also-

Brian: Can I ask you about that one and then you can definitely go on? How much did you think keeping their cameras off-- for the kids who did, hampered their learning? I certainly could think of times as a student that I would have liked to not have to be there in person, but I could listen. Maybe it would work for some kids or maybe for students, they have the luxury now of being registered as present in attendance because they did log on, but they weren't really paying attention because they had the luxury not to, because they could turn their cameras off and it really hurt them. What would you say was the range of impact of that?

Angela: It was impactful because it prevented me from connecting with the students. If they had the app-- I had students have their camera on and I could actually see them sleeping or doing something else. You turn the cameras on, you want to see, but it allowed me to bring them back, to redirect them. I tried not to comment about their background, but if I saw someone had a cool periodic t-shirt on and I would make a comment about the t-shirts. A lot of times, it's important to make that one-on-one connection with the children to let them see that you are a person and you can relate to them.

When you can see them and say, "Oh, wow, that's a nice haircut," or a friend of mine would include their little sister or little brother. When you make that connection and they feel more comfortable and they're a little more open to hearing you. Not just hearing the words in terms of the socialization, but hearing your words in terms of the lesson as well. When they disconnect visually, they just are disconnected mentally, as well-- I found for some of them, not all of them.

Brian: Thank you for that. You were going to make another point.

Angela: Also in terms of the parents, another thing that I learned is, the parents need more help and support to be an effective participant and active participant. I also found in terms of my relationship with the parents, having parent-teacher conferences sometimes Zoom, sometimes it wasn't. The parents, when they sit at that desk in front of you, when we have parent-teacher conferences and they can be late, it helps foster a better relationship with the parents when, as opposed to they don't get to meet you, or it's just a phone call or a Zoom. There's a lot to be said about being present with the other people.

The other thing that I learned from the children was that a lot of them-- I would say about 60% or 65% of the children said they preferred in-person because they were distracted. You've had a number of stories on NPR where they interview children and they spoke to the distractions. Although I've had some students who did better than remote learning than they did in-person.

The other thing that I learned was, the students don't want to have technology every day, all day. Prior to COVID, when technology was a little-- at least in my building, because we didn't have enough devices for everyone. It was a little bit of a treat, not when it was something that we did every day. Sometimes when I deviated from using a technology platform to teach my lesson, the children preferred the way that I taught the lesson that was more hands-on and not just sitting in front of a device.

Brian: Angela, I'm going to get some other folks on here. That's also instructive like a much deeper dive than I think people generally get into the details and the nuances of what teaching and learning. You even brought in the parent-teacher conferences was like during this time. Thank you so much and keep calling us, please.

Angela: Thank you for taking my call Brian. Have a good day.

Brian: Let's go next to Suzanne, an 11th grade teacher in Maplewood. Suzanne you're on WNYC. Hello?

Suzanne: Hi, thanks for taking my call. It was certainly a year for the history books, certainly for my journals. I found that the kids-- I taught from home the entire time. I had some kids in classroom and a teacher covering for me. I had some kids in classrooms, some kids from home and I was from home. The one consistent thing through the year was me at my house, in my home classroom. I kept it real for the kids. My assessments were different. I had them do a lot more writing, a lot more discussion. We do breakout rooms. I felt that I could engage them.

I don't know how much learning was really occurred because when I looked at my assessments, I really saw there was a lot deeper thinking in many ways. I would do a lot of "Stop learning, let's take a minute and we would do meditation," or we do longer deeper meditation. The kids could even ask for that. I had students that were-- my home students saying, "Hey, Ms Ryan, I need some meditation time". We drop and, we would do it. I think that helped them.

In terms of learning loss, I don't think there was a lot. Next year going in, I'm not worried about the academic learning loss so much as I am about their emotional social health, because I think that there's a trauma that they don't even realize they experienced this year. I think that next year, I want to spend more time on reflecting back on what we went through. Many of them lost family members, grandparents, family members, closer family members. I do want to spend more time on that. That's where I'm going to head and just going to keep up the high standards. I think I'm going to do more journaling with them because it really did help deal with a really tough time.

Brian: Suzanne, thank you so much for that. I guess for all the coverage of learning loss in an academic sense, the social loss that you're talking about, either social contact with each other, I guess that's coming back now for teens with each other, but how much death and how much serious illness in their families and immediate circles each kid had to deal with and how that's going to affect them going forward. It's going to be so different from kid to kid.

It sounds great to me that you're going to assess that loss also in figuring out how to move forward and that you bring in journaling and meditation and things like that. That's really great. Thank you for your call, Steven, a high school teacher in Bridgeport, you're on WNYC. Hi Steven. Thank you for calling.

Steven: What a pleasure, Brian. I listen to you in the morning all the way to school for a long time. After 40 years, this has been the most difficult year ever for me. I know the students more by their emojis than really if they were right next to me. I don't know if I'd even know them. I think that's so tragic. I think that's just a terrible thing. The kids lost the most in this deal, and I feel very sorry for them. But as far as teaching and educating and Zooming, as they say very difficult.

We had like a hybrid situation where we had half in, half out. You're looking at four different computer screens trying to talk to the kids in the room, trying to get the kids at home, to turn on their cameras. I've saw more Scouts than more crucifixes and ceiling fans and I've ever really wanted to see. For all my colleagues I know, I really can't think of one that found this to be an enjoyable teaching year. I think now we're all just recharging. I've had some pieces in events. I just called up and aid I'm not ready, my battery's not charged yet.

I'm just taking these few weeks to get my act together and get back to normal a little bit. I think show is great always and you guys have been great and very important to my class. We use a lot of stuff from NPR and I appreciate it greatly.

Brian Lehrer: That makes me feel good. Thank you so much for calling in. Jeff in the Bronx Public High School math teacher, Jeff you're on WNYC, thank you for calling.

Jeff: Hi. Thank you for having me, Brian. I taught fully remote mostly the entire year and two things I wanted to say. One is that the phrase learning loss has always rubbed me a little bit the wrong way. I know other teachers close to me. Just

primarily because I taught some students. I teach students often for two, three years in a row so I was fortunate enough to have students from the past two years again this year and the learning they had last year, the things that we learned last year in high school math classes didn't disappear.

It's just that the content we recovering this year, we progressed more slowly. We lost seat time, but from my point of view, my students' continued learning, their learning wasn't lost.

The other thing I've done this year is I spent a lot of time engaging on Twitter with other math teachers. One thing I'm doing now during the summer is I joined a book club for this book I've been reading called Building Thinking Classrooms. The purpose of the book is really just to encourage teachers to be sure that your students are always actively engaged and that their minds are activated and thinking. If they're not passively learning or mimicking or baking or stalling but learning process.

I Joined that book club. We're meeting twice a week for an hour and a half, and that's how I'm enjoying my summer. I'm here outside reading it now. I enjoy talking about it and it's getting me ready for next year. I'm always thinking and always planning again. I'm excited for next year.

Brian Lehrer: It's self-care, but it's not just sitting on the beach. On learning loss, I admit that I hadn't heard that critique before, but now my screener says another teacher told her on the phone, and we have a tweet now also to this point, that the phrase learning loss sets up an unfair and inequitable dynamic placing blame on the student, of course, unintentionally, but it seems to. The term opportunity loss, or opportunity gap is considered more apt in progressive circles because it connotes an nequity in opportunity in our system. Is that where you're coming from on that briefly? 

Jeff: It really is. I would have my students for one hour a day last year in person, sometimes two hours a day, which is a blessing that most teachers aren't afforded, but this year I saw my students every other day for 47 minutes. It's really that there was less of an opportunity for us to cover more content. It's not the student's fault that they won't be able to go into next year understanding the ins and outs of whatever, the three-dimensional geometry. That's not their fault, it's not my fault, it's just the position they were in. They didn't lose their understanding though.

The understanding they had in the previous year, they haven't lost that, they're just moving at a different pace. The thing is most students across the country, across the world are moving at a similar pace. Who's losing if we're all going at the same pace? We're all moving forward together and doing the best that we can.

Brian Lehrer: Jeff, thank you so much. Have a good summer and thank you for calling in. You know what, since I learned something about the phrase learning loss from this conversation, and maybe some more of you who are listeners did, we're going to let Charlotte who teaches in east Harlem have the last word. She wanted to talk about that too, as well as how you're taking care of yourself this summer. Charlotte, we've got about 40 seconds for you and you're the last caller today. Hi there.

Charlotte: Hi Brian. First of all, I'm having a little bit of a moment here because you have gotten through this so much. I was going to say thank you and the team at WNYC and NPR so much. I really just want to say that what I've learned in this time is that it's so important to prioritize self-care because if we, as educators, don't take care of ourself, we can't take care of our students. In terms of learning loss, it's not a learning loss. I think children have learned so much more than we can fathom. They have so much resilience and power that we are going to see in the years to come. I think that what has brought me through this time is just reminding myself in all those days and it feels like what-- are children learning, if they are happy and they have a smile on their face, that's the most important thing.

Brian Lehrer: A beautiful way to end. Charlotte, thank you so much. Thank you teachers for all your calls and all you do.

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