corporate America for several years before deciding at the beginning of 2020 to switch to a career she found more meaningful. When the pandemic hit a short time later, she second-guessed her decision, but the crisis also made her feel “more compelled to rise to the occasion.” She completed virtual training. Paige — who spoke on the condition that only her middle name be used — started her first job as a teacher at an under-resourced Dallas-area middle school in January 2021.
In those conversations, it became clear that the pandemic didn’t simply create but heightened problems that existed long before. Parents struggled to improvise childcare in the absence of in-person school, a situation that strained families and exacerbated inequality; some kids had quiet homes and access to Wi-Fi, some did not. Some families could form learning “pods” and afford extra instruction for their children, while most could not.
During the surge, the school went into a kind of war footing in an attempt to control it, canceling electives and letting students leave at 12:45 if their parents allowed. One of Urbach’s students told me that one day he walked through the halls for 45 minutes after the 12:45 bell and didn’t see a single teacher or sub. He alerted one of the school’s social workers, who told him to just go home. None of the students blamed teachers for what was going on.
Now, though, their withdrawal has grown more severe. “I have students post pandemic who will sit and just stare at the screen,” he said. “They’re so disengaged from everything.”Bojack HorsemanTeachers describe swaths of kids nearly anesthetized by technology, socially limited, and often displaying disruptive behavior. It’s not only teaching them that’s hard — it’s reaching them on any level.
A Georgetown analysis of how schools have spent federal COVID relief funds found that about a third devoted money to social-emotional learning, or SEL, an increasingly prevalent concept in education. The idea behind SEL is to promote emotional management and social skills as part of the school day, not separate from academics. Its proponents say it has a measurable impact on classroom behaviors and academic performance.
“I don’t know how many fights I had break out in my class,” said Darby McNally, a former middle school teacher in Atlanta. “Like physical fights, like kids bleeding in my classroom. And not just me, multiple teachers around me as well.” McNally felt she had no backup from her administration, who refused to impose consequences in an effort, McNally surmised, to avoid recording so many disciplinary incidents.
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