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PART 5 - Meanwhile, at home

The above picture was taken on the first day that all three of our kids were back to school, virtually, of course. Our tradition has been to take individual photos with each child on the first day of a new school y...

PART 4 - Saved

It turns out Marty's apprehension about starting a new semester online was wrong—it turned out far worse than she imagined. While many teachers did lots of preparation for day one, everyone knew there would be bumps. Some you could predict. Others you could not. Marty's institution got double-hit by a decision made the previous year before the word co...

PART 3 - Take it from the top

When it was decided that the Fall term would be entirely virtual, Marty began her preparation. After a few days of thought, she made a worrisome discovery. Closing out that Spring term was as successful as it was because she knew her students, and they knew her. Given the seven months of in-class time she had with her kids, she knew who could...

PART 2 - Marty Catches a Break

Marty was running into lots of setbacks and few solutions in the early going of online teaching. Then she finally caught her first break. Many might predict the person to come to her rescue would be her husband. He has worked in the technology industry for twenty-five years, ran an online photo competition for fifteen years, and taught a uni...

PART 1 - The New Norm

Before properly starting the story about Marty's experience of teaching through a pandemic, I need to address a few administrative matters.

I'm not sure if you have ever personally taught in a formal setting or not. I believe that to be a hard-prerequisite to having a qualified opinion about the art of teaching. For me, I "taught" for four y...