Teachers and Students During COVID

Interview with Kathleen Gilbert Switzer

I sat down with Kathleen Gilbert Switzer who has been teaching high school theater at El Dorado High School in Placentia since 1997. She has students in grades 9-12 and she shared with me some of what it’s been like for both teachers and students through the pandemic this past year. 

Melissa: Tell me what your current classroom and student situation is like? 

Kathleen: So, we started the year completely remote and then in October/November we went to hybrid with cohorts [which means] two days a week we had one set of kids and the other two days a week we had a second set of kids and then Wednesdays we were fully remote. But within those two cohorts, kids could still choose to stay fully remote. So we technically had a group of kids in class and a group of kids for online learning and we are teaching simultaneously to both groups of kids. And then about 3 weeks ago we combined cohorts because there were so few kids that returned, that they decided, well, let’s just combine the cohorts. So now I have four days a week where I have all of the kids that are in person, but then I still have the ones that have stayed remote online.  

M: What percentage would you say came back and what percentage would you say stayed home? 

K: For me, it’s interesting, it depends on the class.  My musical theater class, which are the most involved anyway, I only had five stay home. And of those five, the majority of those have someone in their family that is severely immunocompromised or their parents work in healthcare and are constantly exposed. So their parents didn’t feel super good about sending them back. And then in my advanced acting class I have about 60% back, but then my beginning theater class and film appreciation class it’s way lower. A lot of the seniors are staying remote. I’m not sure why. 

M: You teach theater, which is very interactive and hands-on, how did that transition go through the course of the year? 

K: Oh yeah, it’s been weird. So, first of all, I don’t know if you’ve ever sat in on someone trying to teach a Zoom class, but the kids are like silent. They don’t talk. They have the ability to private chat, and occasionally they will. If you are doing a lecture and you are asking, “Hey, what do you think about this?” it’s just crickets. And at the beginning of the year, the kids didn’t have to have their cameras on and we still can’t really make them have their cameras on, so sometimes you’re like it’s crickets and you have no idea if there are actually kids there or not. So, it’s pretty demoralizing. I know this is about the kids and their experience…

M: No, we want to know about everyone’s experience. 

K: It’s been pretty demoralizing as a teacher. I think a lot of us are really struggling with that aspect of it because you know, we got into this profession to make connections and it’s so hard. So, for me I thought when we went back to part-time where some of the kids would be in person, I was so excited because, “oh finally, there is going to be noise, I’m going to hear noise again.” My room is usually so loud. First day of class, kids come in, sit down, and: silent. And I was like: “Oh no, no (laughing) this can’t happen.” Because I’m being torn, now I have to teach online and in person at the same time, and I have to try and manage two groups, and I’m still getting that feeling of nobody is talking. And it took a long time, but they finally loosened up a little bit, but it’s still really weird. There’s days when they walk in and they are SILENT and I think something that has been lost through this whole thing is that kids have forgotten how to communicate. 

M: Maybe it’s just the shock of it all. Because it sounds like as soon as you could get a chance to go back, you were ready! But they are a little more like: what now? 

K: Yeah, it’s taken a long time. Because in a theater class, so much of that class that first year is about making a safe space for them and allowing them to take a risk and feel like they can be vulnerable. And when you have kids who have never seen each other before how can you expect them to be vulnerable? You can’t. 

M: How do you create that kind of environment online? I took highschool theater. It’s highly interactive. Does it have to become more of a literature class where you are just reading plays together? 

K: I haven’t treated it that way. And it probably would have been easier for me to do that. But I’ve treated it like no, this is still going to be a performance class. And we’ve definitely done a little less performing. So instead [this year]… we all read Antigone and what we did was I divided them and the kids online are working together and the kids that are in class work together and they are paired with a scene partner and the online kids were given a scene and the kids in class were given a scene and we literally did the entire play with the exception of a couple of choruses. So it’s been hard, but finally with this, we’d been doing this all year and really the performances were mediocre, and then with the Greek theater of all things, they had the most energy and the most emotion, and I was like: this is weird. Greek theater, really? This brings you excitement? And so they ended up seeing the scenes in order as if we were watching the whole play. So they were able to see what the whole play is like. 

M: Well so now that you’ve done this in person and only and some hybrid were there any clear advantages to teaching online? 

K: So, there is in the sense that you know, we all now, or most of us use Google classroom where we can actually post all of our assignments. And it’s really helped me to understand technology a lot better. If I never have to direct another Zoom play I will be totally happy with that. But, being able to create a lecture and post it in a classroom so that if a kid is absent they can go watch it is helpful. It’s been good. And I definitely have added new units that I didn’t do before or changed some things around. I think most educators will tell you that no matter how many years they’ve been teaching, that this year feels like the first year. 

M: It sounds like it is hard to create community in the classroom now, but do you feel like having this whole experience together brought you and the kids or the kids themselves closer in any way? 

K: When this whole thing started I kept saying this is a cosmic pause. The world is telling us that we need to slow down. And I really took that to heart. You know I didn’t expect it to be a one and a half year slow down or whatever it’s been now. I think it’s been good for me in the sense that if it wasn’t there before, they now know that I am somebody who wants them to succeed in any way possible, will bend over backwards to help them get there, cares about their emotional growth and emotional well being, and especially their emotional well being because that’s been a huge issue this year. Being somebody that they can come to and say: I need to talk to you about something. I’m struggling in this way. Knowing that they feel safe talking to me. 

M: In your discipline have you seen any students’ performance change for the better? Like in the sense that maybe they were better able to tap into some emotions because of the nature of theater and because they feel safe with you? 

K: For me I think I have seen some backwards steps and I think mostly it comes back to this idea of vulnerability. Even though you know these kids love being on stage and they love the limelight, when they are looking at themselves online they get really uncomfortable. 

M: Was it immediately obvious to you which kids were struggling and which kids were not? 

K: For sure there were some where it was immediately obvious. You have kids that are normally super engaged that aren’t even turning their camera on or that don’t respond in the chat. And they could be making a burrito for all I know. I did see some of that happening. You hear people talk so much about learning loss, and I don’t think learning loss is the big issue. I think the bigger issue is loss of executive functioning skills. Like we have so many kids that are just unable to manage time, handle getting assignments done. Those soft skills that so many classes teach, and especially a class like theater that teaches time management and working in groups. A lot of the struggles I’m seeing are with kids who already had problems with those kinds of issues to begin with. And what’s been taken away is that one on one connection where I see you every day and I can check in on you. And you can hide behind a blank screen. And I can’t check in on you. 

M: Well, sure you’ve taken them out of that structured environment that school provides, which is holding their hands through a lot of that is gone now. But it’s got to be hard enough to monitor all the students in the class when they are right in front of you day to day, much less when they are in tiny little boxes on a computer screen. 

K: A big sort of mantra across the board in the school district is “Give them grace, give them grace”...give the teachers grace, give the kids grace and of course, we are all trying to do that. But there comes a point when you have to ask: How much grace is too much grace? At what point am I actually not serving this child because I am aiding and abetting bad habits? 

M: And so you’d say that the hybrid teaching has been a lot more difficult than fully in classroom or all online? 

K: Absolutely it is. It is a nightmare. You feel like you are never giving enough attention to either group. It used to be that I felt like I was talking more to these kids (she’s focused totally on the screen in front of her) and now, especially in my musical theater class and there are only 5 kids Zooming in I feel like I’m constantly doing this (raising her hands to talk to the imaginary classroom outside of the computer screen) then remembering the Zoomers and saying: You are still loved...I’m so worried. And it has to be so hard. They have the distraction at home of just being on their computer. So easy to just open up another tab and start doing something else. And then if your teacher never looks at you...So, it’s exhausting. I don’t know of a single teacher that would say doing hybrid is better than doing all one way or the other. For anyone. 

M: I feel for both the teachers and the students. I think of myself at high school age and how much I needed routine and how easily I was thrown if I got off of it. And with the students, at least they just show up and are along for the ride, but as the teachers, you are having to invent HOW to do all of this. That just sounds pretty intense for all parties involved. 

K: It just feels very much like there is not a win-win. I don’t know what we could have done to appease everyone. But I will say one of the things I’ve been thinking a lot about lately is that I feel like the kids that are struggling the most the ones with parents who have been very focused on: Look at all the things my kid is missing out on. I think about how I have a 14 year old at home and he was in the middle of 2 shows that were about to open and we were supposed to go to NY over Spring Break. And he lost all of that in 1 day. But he took it in stride because his parents took it in stride. And because his parents weren’t focused on what he was missing out on. And I feel like the kids that are struggling the most seem to be the kids whose parents whose attitudes are: My kid is missing out on everything. We forget as parents how much our kids look up to us and if you say: Look this is what it is, let’s work on making a solution and let’s not focus on all the things we lost, but let’s look at what we’ve gained, because I also think we’ve gained a lot. Yes, absolutely we’ve lost things. It’s been rough for everyone. Everyone has lost things. So let’s focus on what we’ve gained. 

M: How do you think this experience will end up changing things permanently? 

K: My HOPE is that it reminds us to look at the big picture. That we don’t know the struggles that everyone is going through. Particularly with this pandemic. We’ve had students at our school that have lost family members, parents even. And we cannot possibly know what everyone we encounter is going through in life. So being able to remind ourselves that the human experience is a difficult one and that we are not all ever on the same plane when it comes to what we are going through...To be able to remember that as we deal with people, I think, would be lovely. 

M: That’s a good hope. 

K: I think I had a lot of hopes about the bringing us together aspect. When this first happened and teachers had to pivot and move to online, it was like everyone in the world was saying how wonderful teachers were and oh my goodness you are having to do so much work. And then, when it was decided that we weren’t going back to the classroom because they weren’t going to put teachers in the classroom until it’s safe. There was a period of 2-3 months in the fall where I felt like we were all just being vilified left and right. People were saying if I didn’t want to go back to the classroom it’s because I didn’t care about my kids and I should just quit. There was all this political nonsense causing it. Everyday I thought: I’ve been doing this 25 years, I’ve given countless hours, including evenings and weekends and family time. And I was like: This is not how I want to feel.

M: I hope you can at least try not to take it too personally, because it’s not about you. It’s just a lot of displaced anger about things not being what people think they are supposed to be in peoples’ minds. And it’s terrible to take out those feelings on anyone else, but it’s what people are doing. People are angry at the government about everything, they are mad at teachers because their kids aren’t in school, they are mad at doctors for telling them to get vaccines. 

K: Yeah, it’s true. And I got a good reminder of that this week because it’s Teacher Appreciation Week and normally that week goes by pretty uneventfully. But my Actor’s Repertory class opened up the door when the bell rang and all my kids were yelling “Happy Teacher Appreciation Week!” And they’d written me notes and they had a card and I just started crying. And it was just one of those moments to remind me: This is why I do what I do. That they DO appreciate me and have been in some way changed by my instruction. It was a good reminder.