'No Time To Say Goodbye' How The Coronavirus Is Changing Learning

MOUNT PLEASANT, WI — Every morning during the week, Gifford Elementary School second grade teacher Terri Russo sits down at the island in her kitchen, opens the hood on her laptop and types out a question for her students to answer.

Ordinarily, Russo would greet each of the 28 seven and eight year olds in her care with a handshake, hello or high-five as they filed through the door of her classroom each morning. Today, that doorway is a different type.

The coronavirus pandemic means teachers like Russo are rewriting the book on how to be a classroom teacher. As schools close and distance learning programs continue into their second month, families with access to technology are seeing laptops and keyboards replacing doors, desks and chalkboards.

No Time To Say Goodbye

When the coronavirus pandemic forced all Wisconsin schools to close on March 13, officials initially thought they could reopen by April 6.

The way teachers needed to teach, and students needed to learn, changed in 48 hours.

"It just came out of nowhere, I felt like I didn't get to say goodbye. We just had no warning, and it was a very emotional thing," she said. "You have that feeling every year, but it just felt like it was grabbed away from you."

As the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths in Wisconsin continued to rise, state officials shut school systems down for the remainder of the spring semester.

Keeping Relationships Going

Russo said this year's class is one of the best she's had in her 30 years of teaching. A big part of that has to do with the school's push to focus on social-emotional health.

The class has worked together to practice mindfulness, learn how to articulate and express feelings, and focus on problem-solving to overcome the bumps and hiccups that accompany a second-grader's journey through life.

"Maintaining my relationship with the children - that goes above anything else in the curriculum. It's so important to me, and always has been," she said.

When one parent told Russo she couldn't get her child to read, Russo created a Bingo calendar that motivated the otherwise stubborn student to pick up books on their own.

Russo said she has several students who take daily journaling to heart. Some students type out a sentence or two, but some have deepened their relationship with Russo. "I have three children who go back-and-forth with me in paragraphs," she said. "They tell me how they're doing."

One of Russo's favorite projects is her "flat teacher" project. Russo printed out 28 pictures of herself, cut them out, laminated them and put them in packets that were mailed to each of the students. Her students have instructions to have their photo taken with their "flat teacher" at varying points of the day. "One of the girls sent a picture back of her hugging me," she said. "Another boy sent back a photo of me in a pile of Pokemon cards."

Her days are no longer governed by bells and bus schedules, and are more in tune with the rhythms of everyday life during the coronavirus pandemic.

"I'm basically checking in and out with my kids throughout the day," she said. "I don't have set hours but I am on call pretty much all day through Google Classroom, Facebook and the Remind App."

Time Is Valuable

When Russo and six fellow Gifford teachers began meeting online to figure out new modes of teaching, it started with the realization that Gifford's seven-hour school day has been pared down to about two hours of home instruction.

The team works together to pull together resources and work materials to send home or post online.

"It's hard because you don't want to overwhelm parents. They're still working and I have a lot of them in the medical field," she said. "They can only do so much. It there if they want it, and it's there if they need it. Some parents want more material."

While there are the staples: reading, math and social studies, there are other second-grade strategies that Russo has found enjoyment in providing. "I think second grade is the best to teach," she said.

She set up a private Facebook group for her class where she does a read-aloud. Russo video records herself reading a book for her students to watch at home. The reading is accompanied by a reading assignment.

For art, she draws inspiration from Peter A. Reynolds' book "Ish" — the story of a child who drew what made them happy, regardless of whether they got the drawing exactly right.

Russo will have students pick up a pen, pencil or a set of markers to an object in their own style. "It's not about being perfect, it's about being an artist," she said.

Future Perfect

Russo started teaching half-day morning kindergarten in 1989, and could have taught kindergarten to the parents of her current second graders.

She's become an experienced educator and an expert at educating children — and sometimes parents.

Yet like the rest of the U.S., Russo is finding her way through the coronavirus pandemic. She hopes the pandemic passes over summer, in time for school to resume in fall in a more recognizable form — though she admits she wishes she had more time with this year's class.

"I'm a little worried about the fall. [The district] has a lot to figure out," she said. "I wish we could start with the kids we had last year."