The Bridge

Mr. Gifford is a 7th grade life science and 8th grade physical science teacher at an urban middle school in California. His students started asking him questions about a new virus at the beginning of 2020. Because he knew very little about the virus himself, he decided to incorporate research about the topic into his instruction.

One of the things I really value about my class is that students will bring in these science-related questions. Sometimes it’s highly silly questions, like “What would happen if two bees stung each other?” And other times it’s “Hey, I’m hearing about this virus in China, what’s up with that?” And at the beginning, I remember sort of saying, “Well, I don’t know.” I actually learned about COVID-19 from a student who brought it in as a question. And so, in the spirit of scientific inquiry, we did some research. Let’s go to evidence-based sources, including the WHO, the CDC, local health agencies, and let’s see what we can find out.

By March, he and his students were shifting to distance learning because of COVID. Once online, Mr. Gifford made the choice to shift his focus to COVID-based instruction as opposed to his normal course curriculum. He believed that the once-in-a-lifetime pandemic was extremely relevant to his students’ lives and a unique opportunity for him to lead his students through the scientific processes of research.

Our classes would center around looking at the number of [COVID] cases, sort of an introduction to virology and the immune system and how that works. . . . It became this big case study of what scientific inquiry looks like and for students to be able to see that scientists don’t have all of the answers already, but how are we working using the tools that we have to answer questions. And that quickly became a big part of class was how to build better critical thinking tools.

In addition to looking at the relevant foundational topics of COVID, Mr. Gifford engaged students in discussions about how the pandemic was affecting certain communities more than others and how they could lead the charge in keeping their own community safe.

Let’s center the experiences of the folks who are going to be impacted by this first and worst. And then always the conversation would come back to, “What can we do to help? What can we do to keep ourselves and our community safe?” We built plans around that that tried to balance our physical and mental and social and community health. We made our own masks at home back in the early days when we were being told to make cloth masks because there was still a supply chain shortage of N95s at the time.

Mr. Gifford also chose to focus heavily on COVID because he recognized that students were struggling to cope with the uncertainty of the pandemic. He noted that students came to him for answers that were, at the time, still unknown.

This was a time that was highly uncertain for all of us, but I think especially so for young people who are still developing patterns of resilience and how to cope with the unknown. And students coming to me as not a scientific authority in the main world, but their scientific authority, and having to sit with the answer “I don’t know any more than you. All I can do is look for the best available evidence.” That’s hard for students to hear.

As the pandemic persisted into the 2020–21 school year, online instruction shifted to hybrid instruction, with small groups of students coming to school for instruction on select days of the week. COVID was still a major topic in both of Mr. Gifford’s 7th and 8th grade classes at that time because students still had a lot of questions. However, he noticed that students’ questions changed. While earlier questions focused on what the virus was and where it came from, their questions later became focused on COVID vaccines.

The big question then was vaccines and the development of vaccines, the safety and effectiveness of vaccines. And so we spent a lot of time looking at both the scientific processes by which a vaccine is developed and then also health and safety and the regulatory process.

Mr. Gifford explained that his goal was to give students a safe space to ask the questions they had. In a time when everything students heard was focused on the pandemic, he sought to give students accurate information to alleviate their anxiety.

I wanted to give them a safe environment in which to ask questions because this is the defining event of their times. It’s something they hear about all the time. And being able to process what’s going on with a trusted adult who they know will steer them in the direction of reliable evidence, that is good for them not just as learners, but for attending to those emotional needs. COVID was a really anxiety-inducing experience for a lot of us. And I think being able to talk with an adult who’s going to give them good information, it ratchets down some of that pressure.

In the 2021–22 school year, Mr. Gifford’s school was finally able to return to in-person instruction for all students. As student concerns about COVID calmed, Mr. Gifford no longer felt the need to incorporate the topic in his instruction to such a great extent. However, he did continue to weave COVID into his science curriculum in places where it naturally fit.

As time has gone on, we have been stepping back from COVID a little bit, letting school just be school and not being in kind of crisis mode. I still want to, as a science teacher, be communicating the best available evidence and empowering students to seek that for themselves. We still are talking about COVID, but it might be less than before. Or now that I’ve had more time to integrate it into the curriculum, it might feel like less of a, “Hey, we’re pausing the regular class to talk about this,” and instead we use the window of this experience to teach us something about this thing in science that we’re already learning.

Reflecting on his instruction during the pandemic, Mr. Gifford noted that the support he received from his administration was key in his decision to address COVID. Specifically, his administrators allowed him the freedom to step back from his normal curriculum and address this very timely, important, and relevant scientific topic.

I felt very supported in terms of what I needed to do in my curriculum, how I needed to take a step back. And at the end of day, for an 8th grade student in the spring of 2020, is it more important that they know the history of atomic structure, or is it more important that they know how to better safeguard their family and community health during a global pandemic? My administration was really supportive in that flexibility that they gave me.

Mr. Gifford also reflected on the fact that he was able to successfully incorporate COVID into his instruction because he focused on information that was relevant to what students cared about.

I would say I served first as a messenger and a listener, deeply paying attention to what students cared about related to the pandemic, what’s on their mind, what are they hearing. . . . And whether that was spending a lot of time looking at masking or vaccines or translating that information coming from the CDC or the WHO or actively responding to misinformation.

As a result of his COVID-focused instruction, Mr. Gifford was able to serve as a bridge between his students and the scientific community allowing them to find and evaluate scientific information on COVID in a safe and unjudging environment. Further, by providing his students with accurate information, he was also able to have an impact on their parents and families, providing an opening for students and families to have conversations about what they were experiencing.

During the pandemic, I had a very critical role as a bridge to young people between the scientific community and their understanding of what was going on in the world. And this was surprising—it’s not just a bridge to young people, it’s a bridge to their families as well. It’s young people saying, “Oh, I had a conversation with my parents last night about wearing masks in the grocery store,” or “We had a conversation about the development of the vaccine,” or “My dad was really worried about side effects from the vaccine, but we talked about this thing that we explored in class, and now they’re less worried.”