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 university-level course on presenting your ideas through computers for four, BUT that would be an incorrect assumption. While I helped her through some of this chop, it was our seventeen-year-old Aleo who appeared on this particular hill.

One of Alex's core interest is in video production and editing. A little background on what that means. I would say this began about five years ago with him making goofy videos with his friends in middle school. He would sometimes act in them, but he usually found himself behind the camera capturing the antics. And then, with the footage in hand, he would be the one to stitch it together into some consumable format. Over the years, the sophistication of these simple videos quietly took shape. Last year he started offering his services to you-tubers who were looking for people to edit down their multi-hour gaming footage into more watchable packages. Alex would provide the first few jobs free of charge, and if they liked his work, they could figure out some subsequent arrangement.

It took us a little bit to realize that Alex's skill-set nicely dovetailed with his mother's need. Last March, we architected a plan to get Marty through the year between the three of us. Marty defined the end-vision. Alex and I brainstormed on what we would need to bring it to life. We then pooled all of our home's resources to make it happen. This included everything from our GoPro to tripod to editing software to light table to scanner to simple scissors, hi-lighters, and markers. Then Marty got to work. She'd record dozens of hours of footage. Then she and Alex would sit down and go over it. Too dark. Not loud enough. Bad angle on the lab tray. Unclear. Too long. Out of focus. Ironing board in the background. Slowly, they worked through these "bugs," and with each iteration, the product slowly got better and better.

And Marty's students noticed. Parents too. She received multiple notes (not as many as it seems there should be) on how a student appreciated her trying to bring some life to their class time. Parents would sometimes comment that her class seemed to be the only one their child looked forward to. That last bit emulates real life too but is a sign that she and Alex were hitting the mark. In many of these notes, the students would say how many teachers seemed to be doing as little as possible to still have the time be deemed instructional. I'm sympathetic as I know those teachers don't have an in-house Aleo--because there is for sure only one Aleo.

The Marty-Aleo show carried the day and made it through the end of the abbreviated Spring term. And Summer truly came not a minute too soon as Marty was more depleted than I'd ever seen her before. I was genuinely worried for her and/but infinitely thankful for my rock-star son. He fully carried the day when no one else could.

NEXT: Part 3 - Take it from the top