COVID ‘forced education to hit the 21st century.’ Macon teachers say they’re ready
As Bibb County’s public schools prepare to resume next month with online-only instruction in the wake of the four-month break that was the summer of COVID-19, some educators see an opportunity.
Thomas Cote, a fifth-grade teacher at Heritage Elementary School on Macon’s west side, said virtual schooling in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic is a chance to say, “Hey, look what we can do with the technology.”
When school begins countywide on Sept. 8, Cote will be in his classroom alone but will throughout the school day have students focused on him from tablet and computer screens.
“Why not give the kids everything we have?” Cote said. “We have the tools to make education accessible to them even in a time where they can’t come on campus.”
Reaching the 21st century
Cote, who is something of a specialist in the virtual teaching realm, has experience in the technology side of running a classroom and is versed a Microsoft program that affords visual communication over a secure feed that can be monitored by school officials and parents.
“What COVID has done is that it’s forced education to hit the 21st century,” he said. “And the traditional way of teaching has had to change. ... I would say for the last five years, every student that’s coming in to elementary school, they start out with a tablet in their hand. ... You can walk into Walmart right now and I guarantee you’re gonna find a 1-year-old with an iPhone. .... If I put you in a pre-K room with a 4-year-old, you would see them fly on a Kindle.”
Cote said students will get to know their teachers. While some counties have self-guided instruction, students here will have “face-to-face” learning with teachers.
Students, he said, “can see me, they can see my board and we can really just have class normally. We don’t need to have that self-guided process. The teacher will be there, available for them and we can answer questions and have that one-on-one just like we would have in a classroom.”
Quality of teaching
Bibb Superintendent Curtis Jones said he hopes the quality of virtual teaching will be as close as it can to that of in-person instruction.
“After all, people have been teaching online for decades,” Jones said. “I don’t think now is the time to say — and I don’t think colleges want to say — that can’t be done with quality.”
He added, “We are fortunate that we already had cameras and high-quality technology in our classrooms, and I think our teachers are ready to take that and use it to its max. That’s what we’re pushing for.”
With last week’s announcement that Bibb schools would go virtual for the first eight weeks of the fall semester, not much changed for teachers like Cote.
He was going to teach virtual classes anyway to students who had signed up for that course of instruction.
Even so, he said the days won’t be that much different for students were they in school or at home.
“We will take attendance and we will listen to the announcements,” Cote said, adding that he likes to begin his days teaching with a song and a “fun dance.”
Then his students will learn social studies, language arts, math and science before lunch and then he plans to host one-on-one instruction with students, especially those who may need extra help.
Cote said students will be able to control their own cameras, and he said, “We’re gonna see how it works.”
Asked how teachers might deal with students who act up, Cote said teachers can “mute the classroom” and make it where the only person who can talk is the teacher.
If necessary, disruptive behavior can be recorded and shown to parents.
Also, students who need parental help with coursework can show what their teachers have taught and get clarification.
Parents can watch, Cote said, and say, “OK, I see how the teacher did it. Let me explain it to you this way.”
‘Working into the night’
Adrienne Denson, a media specialist at Union Elementary School off Mercer University Drive in west Macon, said teams at schools across the county are “working into the night to make sure we are ready for the ‘what if.’”
She said affordable internet service is available to parents, as are portable “hot spots” for online access.
“Even though we are going virtual,” Denson said, “we still are going to be in contact with our students. ... If we don’t see that you’re logging in, then we’re going to call (parents).”
As Jones, the superintendent put it, “We’ve had this promise of technology for a long time. I think now we have the best opportunity to implement it, because there’s nothing like mother necessity.”