Teaching first grade students during a pandemic

Highland Park Early Primary School first grade teacher DaNelle Bakke said that since COVID-19 hit, her job has become "challenging, yet so gratifying."

She said she has had to find ways to actively engage students, teach concepts from a screen and organize the students entire learning days. 

"The organization of making sure that the kids have all of the supplies in from of them for a week at a time means that I have to know what we will be doing every minute of that week well ahead of time," Bakke said. "It is a fun challenge, though. When I see the kiddos learning and making progress with parents, grandparents or other significant people in their life right by their side helping them to learn and grow, it very gratifying."   

COVID-19 logistics and emotions

Bakke is working in the classroom right now, but has had times that she had to move to virtual learning. 

"It has been an easy transition," she said. "I have a teaching station all set up and ready in my house so that I can easily transition to remote learning without any pauses."

"Emotionally, it can be tough," Bakke added. "Not from the teaching perspective, from the perspective of the turmoil of the different ideas of how we should be currently learning."

Teachers have been faced with negativity from the community and many ideas of how schooling can be done better, all while working long hours and trying to make schooling work given the situation the schools are in, she said. 

Teachers are willing to make their jobs work wherever they are on a daily basis, Bakke said.

"We were caught off guard in the spring, but now I think that we are all ready to teach from wherever we need to. We have learned to be adaptable," she said.

She sees a lot of teachers that are tired and want things to be normal but safe for students and families, she said.

"This has been hard, emotionally, on many," Bakke said.   

The students wear masks and social distance without complaint, Bakke said. 

"The students are little troopers," she said. "They do not seem to mind all of this. They just see it as a part of the day for now."

Bakke said she does not hear misinformation about COVID-19 from her students, and she credits this to the students being so young.

Holidays and safety measures

Bakke said that she is concerned with how the holidays are going to affect case numbers and quarantined students.

"I think that a normal routine is important for these little ones, however, I am afraid that with the holiday gatherings we are going to see cases rise, and the normal routines will be even harder to achieve," she said. 

Bakke said that she urges parents to keep students home if they are sick to stop the spread right away, so that everyone can continue to come to school. 

"As teachers, we all know how fast little ones spread germs, no matter what we do to try and keep that at bay," she said.

A day in the life 

Bakke spends her mornings online with her students, creating live learning videos and checking work and giving feedback as it is turned in. During afternoon hours, she gets the next days lesson plans set up so that she is ready to start class at 8:30 the next morning. 

"At the beginning, we were all getting adjusted. It seems to flow a lot easier now," she said.

Bakke also said having a new roster of students starting second semester was new to her this year. With the option to switch from in-person learning to fully remote and visa versa she had new faces among her class.

The stress of COVID-19 

Bakke said she does experience more stress since COVID-19 started. She also experiences anxiety from not knowing what is coming next with reopening and potential school closures she said.

​ "Some days it is pretty off the charts. I have an amazing group of parents and kids that I am working with this year, so that is easy," she said.

There are new opportunities to work on projects in subjects such as science, art and music, she said. The extra help from student's parents and caregivers to make these projects happen has created time for things she may not have had time for before, she said. 

Going back to full-time school also creates unrest for Bakke. 

"Honestly, I feel that if we go back full time, we will be continually in and out of remote learning," she said. "When the classrooms are packed, there will be increased amounts of germs going around which will potentially lead to quarantines. The kids being sick and quarantined may not even be the biggest problem. Keeping the buildings staffed with enough healthy adults could potentially be the downfall."