The B-Side of Teaching During COVID

Along with so many other teachers, I found I needed to remake myself during the worldwide pandemic. Teaching art virtually to elementary age students was one of the hardest things I have had to do in my teaching career. During COVID, my work life was turned upside down and I was expected to adjust, adapt and provide instruction in a way I never imagined I would have to.

Why did I feel like I needed PTSD therapy at the end of school year 2020-21? Why was the life sucked out of me daily while teaching art to grade schoolers? Why did I feel utterly inadequate, inept and ineffectual after 22 years of teaching? Oh because, I taught art every day to 600 kids, aged five through 10, remotely for an entire school year!

Oh because, I taught art to 600 kids, aged 5 through 10, remotely for an entire school year!

Lucy Dallman

Entering the teaching year 2020-21, which I have come to call, the Shit Show Cluster Fuck, (SSCF 20-21 for short), I realized I was going to have to up my tech game. The “specials teachers,” [i.e. art, music, PE, digital media (the title given to 21st century librarians)], found out mid-August 2020 that we would be teaching virtually on Google Classroom all year.

Instead of groups of 20-25 students visiting our classrooms for 45 minutes for hands-on creative experiences, our class sizes would rise to 40-50 students for 20 minutes twice a week of online lessons. Talk about a schedule change – I had to wrap my head around teaching an art lesson in 20 minutes without any shared materials, using whatever kids had at home.

First Things First

I knew I had to get supplies to my kids, all 600 of them. I cajoled my principal and begged our PTA for extra funds. I knew my typical pre-COVID budget of $4 per student would not go far. Both the Principal and the PTA were willing to work with me. I was confident I could figure out the supply dilemma. I was not as confident in the delivery of instruction completely on-line.

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Let me step back a bit and explain my antiquated tech solutions prior to the pandemic.

At my school, the art and music rooms were designed as an addition in the 1980’s. The original building is a 1920’s red-brick two-story colonial structure that has been added to over the years. The art wing design is less then optimal. Art and music share one room, with an accordion wall separating the two teaching spaces.

Students must walk through the music room to get to the art room. Whatever one teacher is presenting, the other class is privy to. My art students constantly sing along with the music class. On days when I walked into the music room before school started and I spied the music teacher arranging the drums, I knew it was going to be an Ibuprofen kind of day.

Mr. Van Duzor is my teaching partner. We started teaching in the art department at the same time. The music teacher position was his third teaching gig at the age of 29, my eldest son’s age. I moved over to teaching art, at age 52, after 18 years teaching a variety of different subjects, everything from third grade to special ed to gifted to ESL. Mr. Van Duzor grew up with technology. I, for my part, avoided technology.

Pre-COVID my tech problems were solved by projecting my voice-loudly: “Mr. Van Duzor, can you come here for a moment?” He quickly understood what that call meant.

He kindly and graciously popped his head between the wall, “What can I do for you Mrs. Dallman?” My millennial cohort was able to solve whatever tech issue I had in two minutes, but all of that changed once we had to teach virtually. Because he had small children at home, he was able to teach from home. Me, being an empty-nester, was required to teach from the school building.

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Back to SSCF 20-21 and the B-side of Teaching

After a particularly challenging morning at work, I was running out on my lunch hour to fetch dinner supplies, when a phrase lambasted me on my way to our local grocery store:

“Dig Deep, dig deep that’s what we have to do”

That phrase played on repeat until I reached the parking lot. No tune. Just the words. Playing over and over in my head. As I turned the key to shut the car off, the melody hit me. I knew I had to start writing. Unfortunately, the only paper I had was the grocery list, so the chorus and first verse of “the song in my head” were added to the list.

Chorus:
Dig Deep, dig deep that’s what we have to do.
Life’s about the moment we have to seize it me and you.
We all have anvils hanging on our heart.
Open heart for others is a great place to start
Verse:
We like to live our lives, believin’ we’re in control.
Thinking day to day creates a status quo.
Our lives are not our own friend, best to jump and hold on tight.
The adventure’s always worth it if you can let go of the fight.

I lost myself in the creative process. I never made it into the grocery store and was almost late getting back to school for my afternoon of teaching. No dinner supplies, but I captured the start of a song.

I Do Have a Limited Musical Background (And a Secret Desire to Be a Rock Star*)

I will come clean: I can sing. I sang in choirs all through school. l was awarded the leads in my high school musicals. However, I am not proficient at reading music. I can do it, but I never actually learned any of my parts by plucking notes. I faked my way through reading music. I learned my musical parts by listening intently, imitating the musical or choral director, and eventually memorizing songs by ear. I faked it till I learned it.

Racing back to school to teach an afternoon of online Google Classroom ART to my students, I had half a song playing in my head. That was my teaching life during SSCF 20-21.

COVID Upended Everything I Thought I Knew

Before COVID, my job was very physical. I rarely sat down. I ran on a loop preparing the art room for 600 kids a week, organizing supplies, teaching classes and running from table to table helping young artists create, then cleaning it all up.

In 20-21, I taught to a computer screen with quarter inch boxes staring back at me. Some of those squares held attentive children, some squares were black with a name in a corner, occasionally there was a square on my computer with a child jumping on their bed or playing with their pets while I tried to impart some art wisdom.

Not only did we teachers have to learn new technology to be able to deliver instruction, but we also had to learn to practice patience and calm when the tech platforms did not work. The first couple of months, if the technology didn’t work or there were glitches (which seemed to occur daily if not hourly some days), I panicked. Heart pounding, sweat beading on my forehead, eyes popping until I could figure out how to fix the problem.

Heart pounding, sweat beading on my forehead, eyes popping until I could figure out how to fix the problem.

Lucy Dallman

In a non-pandemic art teaching year, I had hands-on experiences every day with kids and their art. We created together and then shared the work we had created; visually, tactilely, emotionally and verbally. For the last 5 -10 minutes of pre-COVID art class, my students and I would come together and talk about the process, emotion and visual aspects of what they created. During online art class students held-up their artwork so that we could see each piece on our computers. For 9 months I never saw a student’s work of art in person.

By November of 2020, I made a conscious decision not to add any new technology to my teaching regime. I had mastered presenting lessons through video and live demonstrations, and I was able to trouble shoot on my own- without panic or hysteria. Students were engaged and I was receiving positive feedback from parents that their kids were enjoying art this year. But still I had that nagging tune inside me.

Figuring Things Out with Music In My Head

After figuring out the technology, I had to plan how and what supplies to get my students. In August I found cheap sketch books for every student. I slapped a blank white 6×9-inch sticker on the front of each sketchbook and organized pick-up arrangements for each class either by parents or delivered by our social worker. The first art lesson was a self-portrait which kids drew and colored on the front of their sketchbooks: Draw yourself as an art superhero–because that is what we are this year.

The percolating half song was hanging out in the back of my head while I was packaging individual art supplies, planning out the next week’s lessons and researching the next artist we would study. When I needed a break and needed to recharge, I pulled out my notebook of half-baked songs and tried to move each story forward, despite the fact that I didn’t know how to write the notes of the tune I was trying to create. Lucky for me, I worked closely with someone who did.

Now instead of asking Mr. Van Duzon for tech help, I was bugging him for music help.

During lunch, I played the voice recordings of my songs to him, and he transposed what I created into musical chords. He listened to the parts of the melody I had recorded on my phone and wrote out the notes I had sung. This allowed me the luxury of the structure I needed to be able to finish the songs. We collaborated on editing the lyrics and refining the music to create a finished song. To date we have created 15 songs. We have both said that creating our songs was a highlight and a saving grace to the SSCF 2020-21.

Looking back on the year and the stress in our workplace, I now realize the creative process of singing and working on song writing, which happened during my breaks, was what got me through a tough emotional time. I often state that, “Music saved my ass this year.”

More Figuring

Fall 2020 art classes were all about drawing. I presented different contemporary and historical artists through books and videos followed by drawing lessons based on or inspired by these works. One of my students’ favorite units was the drawing assignment based on Frida Kahlo’s self-portraits. We studied her life, viewed her paintings, and I led draw-a-longs of different animals, flora and fauna backgrounds which led up to the culminating project. Each student created a drawing of an animal head of their choice with a human neck and shoulders with a Frida inspired background.

In a non-COVID year, I move from drawing to painting in November. I had to figure out how to do this in the year of virtual.

I was able to get each student a simple watercolor paint set. In the “before time stood still” era, I was able to make my art budget stretch because students shared supplies. During the SSCF I had to come up with a new plan.

The cheapest way to buy any art supplies is in large quantities. I bought in bulk and spent my non-teaching time sorting paints, brushes and paper to pack supplies in individual baggies. That was November. In January, my students got baggies filled with origami paper, card stock, construction and collage papers which enabled us to have a 3D art unit. We ended the year with weaving supplies; individually measured and cut yarn, string, cardboard looms and a plastic needle. I was my own Amazon fulfilment center.

Luckily, we have a supportive PTA and a relatively wealthy parent community. I can only imagine Virtual Art Class without the ability to get students supplies would be exponentially more of a challenge. Sadly, this is yet another example of the school experience which brings the “haves” and “have nots” into focus.

Adjusting Again to In-Person Learning But With Big Changes

By April our students were back fulltime in the classroom. With social distancing needs, both the art and music rooms became part of the lunchroom and break rooms for staff. We moved to art and music on a cart.

Instead of students coming to the art and music rooms for classes, Mr. Van Duzor and I went into classrooms to deliver instruction. We had no place to go between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. It is disconcerting to not have a place to go between classes. We ended up in the hallway outside of our room. We did get creative and found a place to practice our music: The boiler-room.

For me there always seems to be a song lyric lurking behind adversity. Amidst the mismatched, discarded often broken furniture, the rattle of the washer and dryer, the order of bleached rags waiting to be washed and the ever-present hum of the HVAC system, “The Arts Department” – the name for our singing duo – CREATED. We practiced our original songs in the 100+ year-old basement of the school. It became the joke amongst staff that we would be “caught singing.”

We found out that teachers would congregate in one of the bathrooms which was directly over the boiler room to listen to us. Singing with my friend and colleague was the highlight of my day. I got lost in trying to figure out harmonies for our new songs. Thirty minutes of singing over our lunch hour carried me through the rest of my workday.

In May 2021 at the end of SSCF 20-21, the art and music departments were told that we would continue “on the cart” teaching in school year 2021-22. I know I am lucky. I still have a job. I am not a front-line, health-care worker. My job does not involve heartache and pain. I do not have to adapt to a lower or non-existent paycheck and for that I am most grateful. But I kept hoping all summer of 2021 that COVID would become manageable, and the arts would get their rooms back.

Alas it was not to be. Music and art are still on a cart. Which I daily have to psyche myself to teach from. As one first grader aptly questioned me as I was rolling my cart by his class, “Do you have to carry all your stuff with you?”

“Sure do,” was my reply.

“That must be really tiring!” the little six-year-old exclaimed. Out of the mouths of babes.

Glimmer of Hope, Fades

School year 2021-22 started with a glimmer of hope. At the end of July before we returned to our classrooms, teachers were told they did not need to wear masks if they were fully vaccinated. That decision was rescinded when the Delta Variant started to surge.

We are all in school now teaching in masks to kids in masks which I try not to be bitter about. My hearing and cognitive comprehension seem to have diminished greatly since COVID.

I am constantly asking kids to repeat themselves, “What was that honey?” “Can you repeat that one more time, my friend?”

I am blaming this on the masks. Which may or may not be reasonable. I am now 57 years young. I am, one of the “old teachers” now.

Another surprise in teaching this year is the 10 a.m. bad breath smell which seems to linger in my mask all day, regardless of the mints I suck, or the mask breaks I take. I know these are small annoyances which arise from very first-world problems. I am sure I will eventually overcome these small annoyances. I keep telling myself it is just another Zen practice opportunity.

Song Writing Redux

I have continued writing songs. The ideas are not flying at me at such a prolific rate as they were last year, but a few are passing my way. I keep bugging Mr. Van Duzor, telling him that we must make an album of our songs. Not that I have any idea of how to do that? But then last year at this time I had no idea how to teach solely from a computer. I am hoping the acronym for school year 2021-2022 is SAVE- Super Amazing Very Exceptional- I know my music (at least in my mind) will be that.

I really cannot explain how or why I am writing original songs. Was it due to the great stress of having to do my job in a completely different way that my subconscious knew I needed a new miraculous coping mechanism? Would I have been blessed with this songwriting adventure if COVID-19 hadn’t wreaked havoc on my work life? I do know that I am ever so grateful for my work colleague and friend.

In times of stress throughout my life, I have been blessed with supportive friends. That was certainly the case with my teaching partner in the year of “The Vid.” He could have easily chosen to tell the Crazy Bat next door, “Figure all this out yourself. I have enough to do. I don’t need to carry you.”

But he didn’t. He chose to be kind, generous and patient. I like to think he was rewarded with a lyricist who will help showcase his amazing music skills. But that may just be my delusional bravado speaking here.

Silver Linings

These past 18 months I have experienced amazing joy amidst the chaos. If you would have told me I would be creating songs prior to 2020, I would have laughed heartily for an exceptionally long time. I would have told you, “Impossible. I have a shallow and cursory understanding of the structure and composition of songs- how could I possibly write one?”

I sing in the shower. I sing along with familiar tunes. I have even created a parody or two. But an actual song; lyrics, a melody, telling a story in verse–nah, that isn’t a part of my creative repertoire. I am a visual artist. I work with my hands using paint, paper and fibers. I use my voice to instruct – not to create.

When the miraculous musical muses decided to show-up in my life, I guess I was open to accepting their graces. For me, most artistic endeavors start with a small something that, bugs me, poking me to explore a bit, an idea to chase. I can either choose to follow the thread of an idea or ignore it.

In 2020, these sparks fired continuously. I have more technology skills then I ever thought I would need due to COVID teaching. I can lead a group on a Google Meets, present video and content, and of course I know how to control the mute button. I am hoping at some point in the not so distant future “The Arts Department” has an album the world can listen to, art and music are back in rooms where the creative process can flow organically and I can go back to my ever so effective technology fool-proof solution – back in my room with my friend behind the curtain, “Mr. Van Duzor? Can you help me with this tech issue?”

*Don’t miss Lucy’s other essays, especially the one about her 55th birthday party when she got to live out her rock star dreams! And … NEWS FLASH: Check out our She’s The Moment interview with Lucy…a new album of Lucy and Mr. Van Duzor’s original music is due out soon!

Check out Lucy’s new children’s book, Little Girls, Little Girls which comes with links to one of her original songs. Purchase at The Book Store of Glen Ellyn.