Teachers reflect on how the pandemic affected education

Since COVID-19 first emerged in the spring of 2020, the nation's educators and their students have been among the hardest hit by the pandemic. But, as it has for so many, the pandemic is offering lessons that even teachers are learning from.

In the past two years, technology and access to the internet have become more important than ever, and when public schools were forced into distance learning during the 2019-20 school year, they were absolutely essential.

Kent Brown, the technology coordinator and a math teacher at New Rockford-Sheyenne School, detailed the complications that educators and students experienced when public schools first began shutting down in 2020.

"Especially during those first few weeks, I was on the computer all day long with the kids, then working until supper to get things ready for the next day, and then back on until ten or eleven at night," Brown explained. "... So the biggest thing for me was the extra time that it took to get things prepared.

"That part got better, but then it was a struggle getting the younger kids to connect," Brown added. "Older kids were responsible and dialed up every day, and we were able to continue on as if nothing ever happened. ... It was the younger kids, just getting them to connect and doing make-up work if they didn't. Several students fell way behind."

Students falling behind became commonplace throughout the country, and our local schools were no exception. The abrupt transition to online learning was especially hard on special education students, as high school special education teacher Allison Haley explained.

"The hardest part of teaching during the pandemic was the lack of one-to-one in-person contact with the kids," she said. "... The second part was establishing a schedule that didn't burn them out being online. ... the schedule was hard to establish and we had to figure out that they couldn't stay focused on a computer as long as they could in person, so there was a lot of readjusting."

"Burn out" was a common theme that came up in conversations with local educators. Kent Brown described 2020 as his "worst year of teaching, by far," and added that "it could have been my last."

Brown discussed the struggle of working with modified schedules where half the kids would come in every other day, made worse by having to pick up additional classes when NR-S math teacher Mark Johnson committed suicide six weeks before the school year started.

"I had to pick up additional math classes after going down to just one math teacher ... So I did a zero-hour class and taught all day with no prep, in addition to all those schedule changes," Brown recalled. "That's why I call it my worst year of teaching ever. I got really burnt out and sick the last two weeks of school, and lost 22 pounds in those two weeks. My body just gave up on me."

Unfortunately, Brown's story is not unique. According to a survey conducted by the National Education Association during the COVID-19 pandemic, K-12 public school educators were the most likely to report higher levels of burnout, stress and anxiety.

Nevertheless, Brown kept his focus on his students and decided to return to NR-S in 2021. "I didn't want to end it that way," Brown said. "I still enjoy the classroom and I still enjoy the students, I would miss that immensely."

Meanwhile, Carrington Athletic Director Karla Michaelson detailed the impact the pandemic had on student athletes.

"It was very difficult for the seniors to not be able to finish out their high school careers," said Michaelson. "The 2020 graduates didn't get to compete in their final year of eligibility. For the 2020-2021 athletes, it was a time of appreciation because they were able to compete and not have their sports shut down."

Across the board, the pandemic impacted every aspect of education, for both students and educators. However, it's not all been negative. Educators are now taking lessons learned from the pandemic to make learning easier and more accessible, especially as isolated cases continue to plague local communities.

Haley expressed how impressed she was by the way technology was keeping her and her students together.

"I was amazed at how we zoomed and utilized the technology, and we are actually using that more now than we did before the pandemic," Haley said. "For example, we have some transient people that are now able to just Zoom into our meetings and we never would have thought of that before."

Michaelson added, "A big lesson for all of us is that we should never take anything for granted. I believe we all became more flexible, compassionate, and resilient to the needs of our students."

Our local educators have braved some of the toughest years most of us will ever experience, and did so for the sake of their students. The pandemic isn't over yet, however, and many teachers are still working through sporadic COVID-19 infections among their students, family and themselves. Be sure to thank an educator whenever you get the chance, they've earned it.