Sarah Ebeling | Managing Editor
Teachers, both new and veterans, have been thrown a curve ball this year. And it isn’t one they were taught how to handle when they were getting their degrees.
This year’s COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way that teachers teach. Hands-on learning has gone by the wayside as schools across the state closed in mid March.
But, as teachers have spent the last few weeks creating a new normal for their students, they have come up with different methods to help their students learn.
Humboldt fifth grade teacher Jaime Kommes said when they jumped into distance learning, she needed to be able to teach her students and keep them engaged.
And so, after thinking of different options and knowing that any whiteboard she bought wouldn’t do the trick, the second year teacher took to her bathroom.
With two math sessions a week and a class meeting every week, Kommes said the idea came to her from social media and it is working great. After testing a washable marker in her shower, Kommes set up her virtual classroom, complete with computer, laundry basket and table, and got to work.
“If helping a student means sitting in my bathtub for an hour, I am going to do it,” she said about her teaching method.
“The most awkward was telling my principal that I taught a math class in my bathtub,” Kommes laughed.
She noted her students are doing great in a situation that no one was prepared for and that that her kids laughed about working from the bathroom.
“I can help a student and they will think I am bananas or they will laugh when we are back in the class in two weeks,” said Kommes about when she started distance learning in her bathroom. Although she didn’t think know at the time it would last throughout the remainder of the school year, Kommes said the hardest part of all of this has been not being able to say goodbye to her kids.
“And not being able to check in with them,” she said.
Kommes said that although she sends a welcome video to her students every morning, she isn’t able to see them.
“I always preach I want them to learn math and ELA (English Language Arts), but at the end of the day I want them to be a kind human and not being able to see if they are ok, mentally, with all of this, has been the worst,” said Kommes.
She noted that through this entire new normal, parents are starting to realize that students are the teachers’ kids.
“I have 100 kids and care for them as if they were my own so this is just as hard on us being away from them,” Kommes said.
She noted that this experience has shown her how independent and grown up her students have become.
“Many are doing this on their own and taking the initiative to what they learn, having to be super responsible and independent,” Kommes said.
Although this year feels unfinished to Kommes and many others, she said teachers are going above and beyond to help students so they can all get through this. She noted that the principals have been awesome throughout this too.
“These are our kiddos,” said Kommes proudly about her class, who will be done with schoolwork for the year on Friday, May 8.