A Forum to Speak their Minds
Mr. Hill is a high school Earth science teacher in the southern portion of New York. In March 2020, he was preparing for a scheduled professional development workday when he got word that he would instead be spending the day coming up with a plan to complete the school year virtually due to COVID.
Oddly enough, Friday, March 13th, we were scheduled to have a superintendent conference day. . . . The Wednesday or Thursday before, they sent us a new email like “All you’re going to be doing on Friday is working on figuring out ways to teach remotely.” Which is something none of us had ever really done before.
As a science teacher, Mr. Hill found virtual instruction particularly challenging because it meant he would no longer be able to provide students with hands-on experiences.
I teach physical science, and . . . if I was in my room, I would typically be modeling something. I would be showing them something, or they could be handling it. So having to go remote and not being able to physically touch a rock and feel its texture or. . . seeing with your eyes, holding with your hands. Not having that definitely was a drawback.
Given the abrupt and difficult switch to online learning, New York chose to cancel Regents exams8 for the year and enact a Do No Harm policy9 to give students a higher chance to pass their courses.
In New York state, we have Regents exams. So, in Earth science there’s a big final that covers the whole year worth of work. Well, the Regents exams were canceled for that year, so students were graded only on how they did during the year. And New York state came up with a Do No Harm policy. Basically, the state didn’t want students to fail because of difficulties learning remotely. We wanted to give them the best chance possible of passing the class, and so we modified our grading policy; it was weighted more towards what was happening from what they did from the beginning of the year versus the end of the year.
Without the pressure of preparing for Regents exams, Mr. Hill had more flexibility in his instruction. Although COVID did not fit in his Earth Science curriculum, he chose to give his students a space to discuss COVID-related topics such as social distancing, masking, and vaccinations.
In the Earth science curriculum . . . there’s nothing specific to do with diseases, pandemics, things like that. But periods were extended, so we did often have time to just talk with each other, decompress, if they wanted to share how they’re doing, their feelings, things that were going on, things like that. And then we would even share our concerns or our issues with the rules that were being handed down as to what we can and can’t do and whether it made sense. “Why do we have to be six feet apart here? Why do I have to wear a mask here? But I go out there and there’s no mask.” And then once a vaccine became available. . . . then “Do we have to have the vaccine? Why? Why not? And is it a true vaccine?” So, it wasn’t part of my curriculum, but if there were people that wanted to talk about it, I had time to talk about it.
The following school year, 2020–21, Mr. Hill’s school opted for a hybrid schedule where approximately half of the students would attend school in-person and the other half would attend class virtually on any given day. Even though he was now interacting with students in person, Mr. Hill opted to continue using online materials in an effort to keep online students engaged and to maintain physical distance between in-person students. However, the arrangement wasn’t ideal, as it meant that he still wasn’t able to provide students with hands-on science experiences.
So even though they were in the room, I still was using a lot of online resources. . . . It was good, but it was not as good as it being there in their hands in front of them with their own two eyes. So it was still a matter of trying to find the best models and examples of them to help explain a concept or to help explain what it is that we’re talking about.
Although his schedule and instruction were still far from typical, Mr. Hill found out that New York opted to reinstate Regents exams for select courses, including Earth science, during the 2020–21 school year. Mr. Hill did his best to prepare his students for this exam. However, he was concerned about students’ ability to perform well given the challenging circumstances. Therefore, he was relieved when, in the end, students were given the opportunity to not count the grade if it would hurt their course average:
I felt that [my science teaching] was pretty good, better than the previous year, but if you were to judge me on my students’ Regents results, you would say differently. But there are so many other things that go behind that Regents exam that I, as a teacher, have no control over. However, they were given the option if they didn’t like how they did . . . they could not count the grade.
Despite the pressure to cover Earth Science content and prepare students for exams, Mr. Hill continued to give his students opportunities to discuss COVID as knowledge of the virus expanded and regulations continued to change.
COVID came up if there were things going on, like we might have heard someone was sick or new regulations that came out. And maybe talk about the regulations, “Why they’re there? Do they make sense?” Of course, to most students, they didn’t make sense. . . . I’m like, “Okay, so life is kind of taking a twist and we’re dealing with this now. But it’s not always going to be like this, so learning can’t stop.”
The 2021–22 school year brought back a measure of normalcy as all students in the district returned to full-time, in-person schooling. However, safety procedures such as social distancing and minimizing shared materials persisted in order to mitigate the spread of the virus. In his science classes, Mr. Hill was able to reinstate hands-on labs on a limited basis while continuing to use some of the online labs from previous years.
This past year, everyone had to be in school. The only time that you weren’t in school is if you tested positive and you had to quarantine, but when you were home, you were expected to be online via Zoom. But otherwise, the school, the building was open. We still had certain restrictions. We tried to keep them a certain distance away from one another. . . . Because I couldn’t really share materials, the labs were either paper labs or they were online labs. But not as many online labs as before. I only chose certain online labs, for example, identifying rocks and minerals. Since they couldn’t handle [the rocks and minerals], I felt doing the online labs where they could still see the picture of them and stuff like that would be more useful.
As with years past, Mr. Hill continued to address student questions about COVID, even though the topic was not related to his required content. He noted that student questions at this time were often related to new practices and policies they were being asked to follow.
It’s not my curriculum per se, but once in a while, a conversation would arise because of a rule the school was enforcing or some regulations that the CDC hands down to the states and then the state health department hands down to the local health departments. Which then makes its way to the school, and I try to explain, if they ask, “Why are we doing this? What is the point of this?”
The 2021–22 school year also saw the reinstatement of Regents exams for all subjects. Mr. Hill noted the transition to being back in person full-time and being held to pre-COVID expectations was difficult for students, some of whom were rushing to complete labs so they could qualify to take the exam.
In New York state, in order to take a science Regents exam, there’s a lab component. And you have to have a certain number of minutes of lab to qualify. . . . I had students coming in, making up labs literally the week before the Regent exams were supposed to happen to qualify to take the Regents. And I’m emailing parents, I’m talking to the students, and it was literally pulling teeth.
Despite working relentlessly to prepare his students, Mr. Hill experienced one of the lowest Regents passing exams in his career. He indicated that this outcome was discouraging, not as a metric of his teaching, but because he knew low scores would present a roadblock for graduating students.
I had one of my lowest passing rates in a long, long, long time. And I tried to do the best that I can for my students. But as a teacher, it’s disheartening to know that. And I think that most of my students did really put forth effort. I felt bad because there’s passing the class, which the student did pass the class, but then there’s Regents credits, which in New York state, in order to graduate, you have to have Regents credit in certain areas to do that. . . . If they don’t pass it, then that kind of puts them a step back from the ultimate goal of graduating.
Even though the pandemic presented a host of challenges, Mr. Hill was proud of the resiliency of his students and their ability to overcome obstacles.
Learning through the pandemic for students definitely helped them see that they can move above difficulties if they actually tried, because they were never forced to do certain things, and here they were forced, and they actually found that they were able to do it.
And despite the lack of alignment between his required content and the topic of COVID, Mr. Hill feels that one of the most influential things he did as a science teacher during the pandemic was to provide his students with a space to express their thoughts, doubts, and concerns.
I gave my students a forum to speak their minds if they wanted to. It actually helped them work on their debating skills because you always say pick a position but support your position. So here it’s not just, “I don’t like this.” It’s “Well, why don’t you like this?” And so it gave them the opportunity to express their feelings. A lot of times when students are quiet, it’s because they feel that they’re not going to be listened to or heard, or people won’t think that what they have to say matters. And I think I’ve opened that up to students to go ahead, share what you want, and let’s talk about it.
8Regents exams are standardized assessments given in New York for core high school subjects (e.g., science and mathematics)
9 The Do No Harm policy was established as a means of ensuring student grades were not negatively impacted as a result of the rapid transition to virtual learning, particularly for students with limited access to devices and/or internet that would allow them to participate in virtual learning. Under this policy, student grades prior to virtual learning were weighted more heavily than their grades during virtual learning.
