Gr.7/8 Teacher Providing Stability to Students
MANITOUWADGE, ON – As parents and students struggle with Ontario’s “Learn at Home” Phase 2, announced March 31st, officially beginning today, Grade 7/8 students from Our Lady of Lourdes in Manitouwadge continue to benefit from the stability and consistency their teacher, Betty Gillman, provided since the COVID-19 crisis began developing into a pandemic.
Since the beginning of March, when everyone was still in school and evaluating the severity of the situation, Mrs. Gillman noted her students’ increasing anxiety and confusion regarding the information circulating about COVID-19 and had incorporated learning about it into their curriculum.
The class began collecting news about the progression of the pandemic on a bulletin board, they used COVID-19 statistics in their Math assignments and wrote an essay about COVID-19 for Literacy helping them to become better informed (which may have helped reduce their anxiety levels as a consequence). Having followed the pandemic’s progression the students were not very surprised when Mrs. Gillman advised them she believed they were unlikely to return to school following the March Break.
Friday, March 13th, Mrs. Gillman created a Google chat with the class in addition to setting up Google Classroom, with a little help from one of her Grade 8 students, to ensure they had everything ready for a virtual class in case they could not return to school March 23rd.
Mrs. Gillman had advised her students to bring home all their books and school supplies as she suspected school would not resume immediately after the March Break.
All 15 of the students left for their March Break anticipating a necessity for online classes afterwards. Sunday, March 22, a message from Mrs. Gillman on Class Dojo (an app she’d used to communicate regularly with parents since the beginning of the school year) the Grade 7/8 parents inviting her students back to “class” Monday morning at 9:30am on Google Hangouts.
“We will have a chat, have some laughs, I will assign things on Google Classroom and they will get to work. They can chat with me if they have any questions about the work. I’ll have the class check in again at about 11:00 and have some Literacy, I’ll again assign some work – they can ask questions if they want, but work independently. I have one more check in at 11:45 – to see how things are working.”
explained Mrs. Gillman in her message adding that they would adapt as needed to digital learning.
And that has been the students’ regular weekday schedule since March 23rd. Their virtual classroom has also included daily read-alouds and informal discussions, the latter providing a time to connect with each other which one of her Grade 8 students described like this:
“It’s a time to check-in with Mrs. Gillman and with each other. An opportunity to connect with each other and avoid feeling too isolated. It reminds us how much our teacher cares. For me, it has been a life-line during a really stressful time having her reassurance that we’ll get through this together and that she’s confident in our abilities and our resilience.”
Grade 8 Student, Our Lady of Lourdes School
I had the opportunity to speak with Mrs. Gillman about the foresight she had in preparing herself and her students for the unplanned interruptions and was somewhat taken by her humility as she diverted much of the praise to her students while seeming to minimize her own efforts as ‘just doing her job’. The first Monday after the March Break all her students joined her on Google Hangouts and in the weeks that followed she was pleased that 9 of her 15 students were consistently handing in the assignments she was providing. Today, as Phase 2 of Ontario’s Learn More strategy begins with many elementary and secondary school students worried and frustrated about time lost, confused about how to proceed and struggling to connect with educators; Mrs. Gillman and her class had only one slight change to their weekday routines, beginning at 10am instead of 9:30am as they met to continue, as they have for weeks, learning and supporting each other through this uncertain time.
In the weeks ahead there are discussions to be had, particularly in regard to those students due to graduate in June. As the parent of one such Grade 8 student in Mrs. Gillman’s class, I am confident she will help find a way forward to ensure our kids begin Grade 9 next year, well prepared, having fulfilled the curriculum requirements for their Grade while, with the support of a very dedicated (and flexible) teacher, acquiring valuable online and independent learning skills that will benefit them long after the COVID-19 crisis has passed.
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RELATED LINKS
All COVID-19 related articles on ONN
Ontario Ministry of Education website
