Back on schedule While many students and faculty chose to return to campus Sept. 8, others opted to remain at home for the forseeable future. And although the administration and faculty have meticulously adapted the campus and curriculum, there have been some setbacks along the way. What are these issues, and how can we solve them?
TUNING IN Virtual students have varying levels of participation in their classes: Some directly involve and incorporate online individuals with creative flair, while others leave students as mere spectators in the classroom, isolated from their normal learning environment.
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hile the return to campus has been largely successful, there have been mixed results in the experiences of students who have opted to learn virtually. For Anna Lambert –– a Brookhaven College computer science instructor and mother of four, including seventhgrader Lola Lambert and senior Isabella Lambert at Hockaday, sophomore Oliver Lambert at St. Mark's and Dominic Lambert '17 at Vanderbilt University –– remote education provided unexpected benefits in her children's learning. After months of deliberation over the summer, the Lamberts decided to keep all three of their school-age kids are home. "We did want to hear their input," Anna said, "and we definitely thought it was a difficult decision for Isabella and Lola, because it's Lola's first year [at Hockaday], and she hasn't even been on campus at her new school. So we knew that was going to be difficult. And Isabella, being in her senior year –– that's a big deal to not go to school your senior year." As for Oliver, though, his mother noticed that he seemed to do better online than in-person because of a reduced commute, reduced pressure, and reduced distractions. "It could take an hour and a half in the morning and an hour and a half in the evening," Anna said, "and from the time they leave to the time they're back at the house, that could be three hours extra to do homework or to relax or sleep." Remote learning has also provided a chance for more reserved students like Oliver to learn in a secure
environment, separated from socially overwhelming circumstances. "Being comfortable at home, I've noticed that he opens up a lot more," Anna said. "Something about the setting –– he's speaking up a lot more than he used to. He's not intimidated by the classroom. I can hear him sometimes if he's close by, and I think, 'Is that the same Oliver?' He's so much more confident." But the Lamberts have also noticed great differences in the remote learning systems between St. Mark's and Hockaday. For instance, whereas Hockaday records each class for both remote and in-person students to watch back later, St. Mark's does not. "At least for St. Marks," Anna said, "it's been a little bit more difficult now than it was when everybody was online. It seemed like the teachers were really focused when everyone was virtual, and they really wanted to make sure it worked for everybody. But it's much harder now to focus on two sets of students, especially when one is much smaller than the other." Senior Max Palys, along with eighth grader Lucas Palys, have also opted to stay home for the foreseeable future on account of his internship at Georgetown’s Global Health Center for Science and Security before COVID-19 hit, where he analyzed both infectious diseases and how governments handle them. “The person who is my boss [Dr. Rebecca Katt] is on [Vice President Mike] Pence's Coronavirus Task Force,” Palys said. “She definitely knows what's going on, and I trust her, and she was pulling her hair out when she
realized that people were going back to school. She was like, 'This is not what we should be doing.' That was her expert opinion. As schools opened up, case numbers spiked, something Palys and many others quickly noticed. Combined with the fact that Palys’s father and stepbrother have preexisting conditions, the choice to stay home was clear. “I didn't want to contribute to the spread of an outbreak, especially when there's vulnerable members in the community, such as older teachers or Max Palys my parents,” Palys said. “We need to act in a Senior way that is safe for the whole community. Just because I necessarily might not be susceptible to the virus, that doesn't mean that the people around me are the same way.” And while Palys acknowledges the incredible efforts that faculty and staff have taken to enable a return to campus, there have been several consistent, systematic issues for virtual students that Palys urges the administration to address. “Take my econ class. Econ is very graph based, and there's a lot of times that my teacher wants to draw things on the board, but I can't see them,” Palys said. “In my math class, Mr. Milliet will constantly change the camera, because he has different cameras set up, and he'll change from the PDF to the whiteboard camera to whatever else he needs to do. And he will always wait and make sure that I'm hooked up and that I can see what the students in the classroom are seeing. But if you asked me who's in my calculus class, I could maybe tell you like three kids and
From textbooks to tablets to tripods: Creative changes across every classroom
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ollowing a short transition period, students and faculty resumed oncampus classes on Sept. 8. While every classroom has seen the familiar addition of a tripod camera and daily Teams checkins, all classes have been individually affected by this format and have adapted in their own, unique ways. Sophomore Sharang Vyas decided to stay home for the first quarter of the school year, attending his Acting 1 class with Tony Vintcent Fine Arts Department Chair Marion Glorioso-Kirby through an Ipad which serves as his “body” as he practices his monologue for upcoming fall production of Spoon River Anthology. Despite being a movement-based class, Drama has had a surprising level of interaction for him. “It's much slower from my side, a lot more watching than participating in most classes,” Vyas said, “but some teachers
are doing a good job keeping us involved in everything. They've definitely done a good job on accommodating us. In Drama there's a lot of interaction in comparison to some other classes where we just watch the class go on. Mrs. Glorioso has done a really good job with including online people in pretty much everything.” Classes that rely largely on conversation and communication also struggle to maintain a sense of normalcy. Senior Max Palys, alongside three other students in English instructor Geoffery Stanbury’s AP English Literature and Composition class, struggled in his first few English discussions, as the Teams software used to host discussions was insufficient to handle multiple people speaking at once or quieter voices. “But it has improved with time in English,” Palys said, “because a few other kids in our English class and I had
a conversation with Mr. Stanbury about what we could do better. Now we have the chat bar up on the screen, and we wave when we want to speak, which is unorthodox and strange but definitely gets the job done better.” And while STEM classes are mostly lecture based, even they have been subject to changes. Founders Master Teaching Chair Doug Rummel has changed from lecturing at the front of the class with the whiteboard to leading his lessons in the back room on his tablet to account for the social distancing policies. “On top of that, all of our labs are virtual now,” Rummel said. “For the motion labs, we're using Logger Pro. And the idea is, they take out their cameras, and we just capture the motion. So basically, if you get a cell phone, you effectively can do a large number of the labs. You can pretty much gather all that
data you used to collect with the sensors.” Director of Libraries and Information Services and Upper School Choir Director Tinsley Silcox has has adapted by moving rehearsals outside. The efficacy of a choir specifically mandates, possibly more than any other pursuit, that a group of people be together in a shared space, so when COVID-19 threatened that normalcy, part of the power of that group was lost. "Singing is normal," Silcox said. "It's comforting. How many people could stand up and give a testimony to their religious faith, or stand up and talk about romantic love or loving their parents or loss? It's hard. But if you take 20 people, and you put them in a room and you have music and you express these emotions through music together, it becomes a transformative experience. It's why I've devoted my life to it. Without it, it feels incomplete. A little hollow."
