Mike
“We couldn’t go to work, you know, but it was just all of a sudden. We didn’t get time to ramp up into this new world, it was just immediate that things changed. Everything became more… it took more work to accomplish things. Everything had to be more intentional and planned. On a normal day when I had a question, I just went and talked to whoever I needed to talk to, so it was pretty immediate and quick. We had our 20-second conversation, got the answer, and moved on. Now, after sending an email or playing phone tag, you get a 10-second conversation 20 minutes or 2 hours or 2 days in the making. The pace of getting things accomplished is slowed down now. The pace of things coming at you didn’t slow down, but the ability to get them checked off the to-do list greatly slowed down, so I felt more like I was drowning than ever before.
“Strictly from an educational sampling, I see hope in finding new uses for incorporating technology. I’m hopeful that some of the pretty short, quick meetings will remain virtual so that I’m able to stay on campus more and not have to leave to go to a meeting that can just as easily be done online. I’m not sure everybody’s on board fast enough, but I do think there’s at least a revelation, or -- I’m not sure of the right word -- an acknowledgement of a need to help each other and to look out for other people. You know, for example, the wearing of masks. Now, there’s a lot of talk about, “I don’t wear the mask for me, it’s not about protecting and helping myself from getting COVID. It’s about making sure I’m not passing it along to someone else unknowingly.” So I guess maybe we’re trying to make Americans a little less selfish. Right now, we’re talking more about what’s best for the whole, instead of just what’s best for me. I think that’s there in at least some of these conversations.
“And I think that this then ties in with the social justice movements as well. It’s not coincidental. There’s been generally more support for things like Black Lives Matter than there has been with past efforts to get that going, and I think part of that is because people were already a little more attuned to not being so selfish and to looking at helping others through a COVID mindset. Do I need to help people who might be sick or not have toilet paper? Do I also then want to help people who have suffered oppression and prejudice? Yeah, absolutely.
“I do also think there has been some increase in appreciation for teachers, now that every parent is an at-home teacher. I hope that continues after this. I think that there will certainly be more recognition that there’s not just one-size-fits-all and that we need more options for students, more options for teachers. Right now, we’ve looked at what we had to do and we immediately realized we’ve got to be flexible, because we suddenly have kids being breadwinners for the home. Yeah, so I hope we continue finding those ways to be flexible and finding ways to provide options. But at the same time, that can’t all happen just on the backs of the teachers.
“I haven’t talked to enough people to consider a consensus about what’s going to happen overall. Last week the governor indicated that everyone would be going to school, and the official HEB statement says yes, but it provides an online option. It immediately forced us to have to create some type of online option for people, even though the governor may say we can fully open. The education commissioner last week said it will be safe to go to school in August, so what more could you possibly need than for the education commissioner to declare it?”
Quotes edited for clarity.
Although in two different roles, both Mike Harris and Miekka Thye have been looking for new ways to engage with and support students remotely during the pandemic. View Miekka’s page for more on how she has adapted her work as a speech-language pathologist to be safe without coming to a halt.
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