Surviving Virtual Schooling
How can a simple email keep you sane in the midst of virtual schooling? I’ve been supporting customers via email as part of my career for the past decade. It’s a hard skill, but it’s extremely effective when done well, and it may be exactly what’s needed right now.
“Freeeeedooooom!!!” That was how my wife, Emily, answered when I asked her about kids returning to school this year. When our youngest got accepted into the Pre-K lottery, that meant that all of our kids were going to be in school for the first time since we started a family a decade ago. And then Covid happened. We’ve been doing 100% virtual schooling, and the freedom we once hoped for seems a long way off.
At the end of the second week of virtual school, Emily was at her limit. The pressures of just getting through the school day with our two boys, who are in pre-K and 1st grade, was getting to be unbearable. How can you expect 4- and 6- year-olds to hang on a zoom for 3 hours straight? It feels like there’s so much pressure to get the kids to show up and “perform” that there’s no energy left for anything else at the end of the day.
I suggested sending an email. Just a simple email to the teacher sharing a few quick bullet points of what’s working and what’s not working. Leave emotion out of it and thank the teacher for the job they’re doing. That’s it.
And you know what? It worked.
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash
Why email works
At first blush, virtual school can look like a bunch of kids joining a “virtual classroom” on the other side of a screen with its own rules and systems which make it function. But that’s only half the story. In addition—and perhaps more so when you have young children—the virtual classroom joins the home of each student, and each home has its own rules and systems which make it function. Virtual school can feel like it wants to consume limitless resources (and sure, it’s bad), but it doesn’t need to consume 100% of your energy. Sending an email can help with that.
A good email sets boundaries. Teachers and principals and superintendents are all under pressure to get results, but it’s still not clear how they’re going to get results in a virtual system that’s so fundamentally different from the brick-and-mortar system they’re used to. Perhaps you’ve noticed that some of the ways they’ve tried to get results aren’t quite working. Maybe they’re even a bit stressful. That’s where a simple email can help. A list of observations will not only give the teacher much-needed information about your child, it can also free you from the pressure of feeling like you have to completely empty yourself in the service of the virtual classroom.
The nature of email is that it’s written down, so it forces you to get clarity about your boundaries. It’s one thing to vent to the other adult in the room about how bad virtual classes are. It’s another thing to write down what you’re going to do about it. The first email will be the hardest, but each one after that will get a little bit easier.
What to include in the email
This is the basic format:
Keep it short
Say what’s working
Say what’s not working
Say what you’re going to try next
Be grateful
That’s it. Again, try to keep emotion out of it. Emily reported a huge emotional burden being lifted just by sending the email, so there’s no need to put the emotion in the email.
Here’s an email Emily sent to a teacher a few weeks back, which I’ve adapted for this newsletter:
I am reaching out to share some observations from today in regard to my son’s participation on the Zoom calls.
Today, he willingly participated in the Zoom at 8:30 for the Pledge, announcements and the beginning of class.
During the morning Zoom session, I noticed him become visibly flustered and frustrated and so I decided to go ahead and turn his video off. He worked on a separate screen from the Zoom call and was able to deeply focus on his class assignments.
I will have him join the Zoom calls every day at 8:30am. If he becomes flustered and overwhelmed by the Zoom call, I plan to turn off his video and have him follow along to the best of his ability on a separate screen. I also intend to monitor his assignments and have him work to complete them each day.
Thank you so much for the work you’re doing to teach our kids in this challenging environment. Please let me know if you have any suggestions.
The response from the teacher was positive. For Emily, this was a huge weight off her shoulders. Sending the email empowered her to work within her boundaries, rather than try to fit into a system that wasn’t working.
Clarifying boundaries helps
As you set boundaries with how virtual school is going to work in your home, it’s reasonable to expect that boundaries get clarified on the other end as well. That’s okay. You can commit to trying new suggestions while still being true to yourself. If it doesn’t work out, include that in another email tomorrow. The act of establishing regular communication will itself clarify boundaries and free you from the boundless pressures of an unclear system.
Dealing with the realities of Covid has stressed us in countless different ways. If virtual school has recently been added to the list, try sending a quick email to clarify boundaries. You may be surprised at how much it helps.
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