This story was written by Piper Russell, a student at Burr and Burton Academy in Manchester, for VTDigger’s new platform for student journalism, the Underground Workshop.
Lauren Kelly is a reading specialist for grades K-3 at Mettawee Community School in West Pawlet, Vermont. On nice days this fall, Kelly and her partner teacher took their seven 5- and 6-year-old students outside. They circled up, 6 feet apart. The kids were relieved to take their masks off. Kelly often guided the students through the yoga poses, tree pose and mountain pose. They would read books about being outside and learning in the natural world. They usually finished with a meditation specifically for young kids.
For teachers of students at all ages, from kindergartners to seniors in high school, the pandemic has put an emphasis on the importance of social and emotional health. Teachers are creating new habits and practices surrounding mental well-being that will continue on beyond the pandemic.
Kelly has been in her current position as a reading specialist for 10 years, and has been teaching for 17. More than ever, Kelly and her school are focusing on making the classroom feel safe and secure.
“I give good love,” she said, “and [the kids] come to me if they need love.”
Kelly works with one fourth-grade girl who is having trouble adapting to these times. The student goes to Kelly on Tuesday mornings and they journal together. Sometimes they write down what they are thankful for, or sometimes they draw pictures. One day they made a collage out of nature magazines.
“It’s just a way for her to come in and feel safe before she transitions into her classroom,” Kelly said.
Kelly and her school are also incorporating more outdoor learning.
Mettawee’s campus adjoins land recently purchased by the Merck Forest and Farmland Center, a nonprofit educational organization in Rupert. Merck is letting the school use the land and Kelly said many teachers have been taking their students hiking there.
“Some kids are bringing little camp chairs,” Kelly said, ” and they’ll hike up to the top of the first field and sit there and maybe read a story, something like that.”
Kelly’s biggest takeaway from pandemic learning is her students’ resilience.
“We’ve all really learned we need to be flexible,” she said, “knowing they really can adjust if we give them space and time to do it.”
Karli Love has been teaching fifth grade at Dorset Elementary School for 9 years. Love is the only fifth-grade teacher at her school, which is difficult because she doesn’t have another person to work with or share ideas and curriculum. Now, she explained, she is able to share and cooperate with other teachers across the district, which she says has never been facilitated before.
This remote collaboration “has oddly made me feel more connected to some of the other teachers in the district that I work with than I have in the past,” she said.
Another positive that Love has gotten from this online learning experience is the new way she can help students individually and tailor the material to each student’s needs.
Love has one boy who was really struggling with online learning. He wasn’t engaging with her remotely, so Love figured out what this student was interested in and gave him readings about that topic.
“Instead of assigning everyone the same book to read and then take a comprehension test, I could really get down to the grain size of privately individualizing kids’ work,” she said.
Building a sense of community is very important for Love. When her class couldn’t meet in person, she made a bitmoji version of herself, printed and cut it out, and sent one to each of her students.
Love told her students to take the cutout of her on an adventure and send her a picture. After, each student wrote a story about their adventure.
“I was like, even though we can’t be together, doesn’t mean we can’t pretend we are,” she said.
High school teachers are also putting an emphasis on mental health.
Cory Herrington has been teaching social studies at Burr and Burton Academy for 17 years.
Herrington is already considered a caring teacher, but the pandemic made him feel like he needs to focus on his connections with his students even more.
“In the past, I was really stressed about getting through curriculum,” he said. “Now I try to be more deliberate in building relationships.”
Now that Herrington doesn’t stress over moving through material as quickly, he has a new perspective of what is most important. Herrington has created a habit of starting class with fun questions –– “What’s your favorite Ben & Jerry’s flavor?” –– with the hope of making his classroom less stressful.
“[I’m] understanding it’s OK sometimes to go slower,” he said, “and understanding, too, we’re all dealing with this in different ways.”
