The McNicholas Milestone

By Rosie Smith

In the fall of 2020 when it was time to return to the classrooms after missing the final three months of the 2019-2020 academic year, Covid continued to cause academic challenges, not only for the students, but for teachers as well.

In a recent survey, the McNicholas faculty shared their points of view on the direct and indirect challenges they faced after Covid. From Theology to math, teachers shared their experiences and how they educated after Covid.

Math teacher Mrs. Ashley Brothers shared the biggest challenge was “seeing what students were understanding the topic and what students were not. It was hard to see who was understanding and who was struggling because most of the time I was looking at ceiling fans,” she said. She also explained how the changes affected her. “I was also going on maternity leave [when lockdown happened]. My youngest daughter was born April 10, 2020. I had to completely reprepare everything for online instruction for my sub,” she said.

When returning to school, multiple teachers mentioned that some students still chose to learn remotely and were on Teams calls to sufficiently keep a safe distance, due to the social distancing regulation. Because students were also spread out into different rooms, it was frustrating to walk back and forth between classes.

World Languages teacher Ms. Anne Herrmann shared, “I was literally teaching to students who were in 3 different classrooms for the same bell. I was constantly walking from room to room checking on progress and understanding and answering questions face to face. I left work every day mentally and physically exhausted,” she said. Herrmann also added that Covid was emotionally difficult. “Many people were genuinely worried as they had loved ones in the hospital with COVID and some had loved ones who died because of COVID. I did my best to be stoic, especially in front of the students but, inside I was an emotional wreck.”

School librarian Mrs. Chelsea Almer explained that Covid affected the collaborative space the library had been. “It was really something. in order to have spatial distancing in the library, we removed all of the tables and put in individual desks. They were separated by 3 feet all around, and the library looked more like a classroom. It worked out,” she said.

“It was a scary time and, for those of us that were not day-in-day-out classroom teachers, we were offered to take a leave without pay and begin searching for ways to contribute to our school in other ways. I reached out to publishers to see if there were any authors that could stream with our students,” she added.

Theology teacher Mrs. Mary Beth Sandman said when vaccines were available, things began to return to “normal.” “I think it was halfway through the second year of Covid, when vaccines were available, that we began to move back to normal. It was good to move back to normal. I think we did learn that we can be flexible. There were lasting effects of not being in class at certain stages, but everyone was going through it, so all were living the effects together,” she said.

Responses agreed that Covid affected beneficial classroom learning, new approaches, and even challenged the mental stability of teachers and students.

-RS-