Teacher Time: Back to School in 2020

Sep 1

Written By Stacey

Well, that did not go as expected.

Even though I gave August a proper greeting, it was not kind to me at all. Honestly, between August and 2020, I just don’t have enough eyes to roll.

Still, Back to School is happening…and while I’m so happy to see the students again (in virtual classrooms), I’m not feeling the most secure about being back on-site during a pandemic. I can’t help it…and with all that’s going on with my own child, I can’t say I don’t feel somewhat irresponsible about going back either. It’s a double-edged sword for educators everywhere, whatever situation they find themselves.

In the meantime, while all educators everywhere are weathering this storm, I attempt to find ways to keep lettering alive. That helps.

I used one of the lettering sketches I made this past summer in my Bitmoji Classroom and included a lettering replay in the first day intro to the virtual art room.

I made this with a basic tutorial. Apparently, I can make a million of these classrooms if I want. I intend to put a door in one for when we go on virtual field trips and a book to include an interactive link to my sketchbook and student-submitted drawings and other artwork. In my actual classroom, I’ve used letter boards in the past to create inspirational messages the kids can see when they come into the room. So, the virtual posters here will get swapped out for inspirational messages (or maybe funny quotes). The students are able to submit quotes if they want to see one in the room as well. I may ask the music teacher to link to a curated playlist they can use to Listen & Draw like we did at the start of the quarantine. A virtual classroom can be anything you want it to be, I guess.

Making new letters? Meh. It’s a slow go right now. I’ve been working on this one above for what feels like a week already. Getting back into teaching, and teaching virtually at that, consumes quite a bit of time. But, any practice is progress, right?

This is the board I intend to use this year for my messages in the classroom. I’m using a projector here to enlarge the image so I can draw it on the board. That projector is the MVP right now. But I still make lots of smudges while I work, so I'm going to have to invest in some cotton swabs and repurpose some cloths to clean them up. I’m a messy artist.