Are you up to the test? Teaching in covid-19.

When COVID-19 hit New Zealand hard we went into a nation-wide lockdown to get it under control. This forced many workplaces to be working online in the comforts of our own homes. However, teaching is a demanding job in person, let alone having to teach remotely.  

Jillian Rabbitt is a primary school teacher in the Waikato as well as a mother of three, so when covid hit New Zealand and we had to go into lockdown not only did she have her class to teach remotely, she also had her children to teach. Her three children all vary in ages her oldest daughter is in tertiary education, her son, the second born is in high school and her youngest daughter is in intermediate, her class of 30 students are in a year three and four class which is between the ages of seven and nine.

Jillian had to balance her class and her children, she explains her challenges and blessings from the lockdown.  

Nathan Lawrence a High School student in the Waikato and the middle child of Jillian Rabbitt. Nathan explains the challenges and benefits of having his mum teach him as well as being taught online by his school teacher.

Jillian’s perspective.

Jillian had a lot to handle when New Zealand went into lockdown with having to balance her 30 students as well as her 3 children.

The way Jillian usually sets out her year is based on the relationships that she builds with her students however in the year of 2020 she only had a term and a half to do this before we went into a nation-wide lockdown. During lockdown there was minimal engagement from her students as there were other life lessons that were happening behind the scenes with the parents like baking and gardening, the students also got to benefit from the fact that both parents are home for an extended time, although since returning back to face-to-face teaching Jillian is able to rebuild those lost relationships although it is a challenging process, as a class, they are finally seeing celebrations that the students should have already reached this year.

Alongside the class, Jillian had to teach her children which was a challenge in itself as they are different ages to her class. Her younger two children needed her help to be taught remotely, while her eldest child was able to coach her own way through. Having to teach the younger two meant she had to balance the fact that they both had online work while only having one device for both of them. She was able to balance this by having the youngest Abbie on the laptop in the morning while her son Nathan is doing hard copy work in the kitchen and then the two children would swap.

This allowed Jillian to be able to get her class set up for the day, as she will have the morning to send emails out to her class for those who were able to access the online work although there was some who did not have access who were then doing hardcopy work. One challenge Jillian had to face with teaching Nathan was that she needed to learn what he is learning before she went and taught it to Nathan. However, when it came to teaching Abbie they were able to pull resources that Jillian already had from previous years of teaching and teaching resources that were made available from the government.

Nathan’s Perspective

Nathan Lawrence, a high school student, was pushed online by covid during his year 12.

He found the lockdown unhelpful and boring when it came to school as he is an active student, he would much rather be playing sports in physical education than being stuck behind a computer doing theory so his experience during online learning had more of a negative side.

For online learning, his school set up google classrooms which his teachers would regularly post his work too however Nathan found it hard to keep himself focused on his work as forms of entertainment was readily accessible to him and he felt that they were a better fit to be doing.

Nathan found having his mum teach him embarrassing as it was his mum that was teaching him. He found this to be a challenge as he is in year 12 at high school and his mum is only trained to teach up to year 10 however he found it useful to have his mum around as she was able to stop him from getting distracted and was able to help him to the best of her ability.