Student:
I feel like in my previous years of school, always having a general discussion about anything like race, gender equality, was always uncomfortable. It was stuffy. It was blocky. There was no orchestrated conversation. It was kind of just like, “Yes, I agree. No, I don’t. Okay. Can we get back to class now?” Where now I feel like kids are like, no, we need to talk about this. And there needs to be lessons about this.

Alec Patton:
This is High Tech High Unboxed. I’m Alec Patton, and this week we’re doing something special. This year our team’s been working with three seventh grade teachers from Cedarbrook Middle School in Cheltenham, Pennsylvania. They’ve been talking to students about what the year was like for them. And each teacher has turned these interviews into a podcast episode. We’re releasing all three of these episodes in the same week, which is a new thing for us, but we’re doing it because though each one stands alone, they also belong together. Today’s episode is by Debra Dibattista, who teaches seventh grade science at Cedarbrook. And as you’ll hear, it uses excerpts from a poem that appeared during the pandemic and made it around the world. I can’t credit the author because I can’t find them, but we put a link to the poem in the show notes. Here’s Deborah’s episode.

Deborah:
I heard that we are in the same boat, but it’s not that. We are in the same storm, but not in the same boat. Your ship can be shipwrecked and not be, or vice versa. For some, a quarantine is optimal. A moment of reflection or reconnection.

Student:
One word I would use to describe the school year … complicated.

Student:
I would use confusing because of everything going on, like Black Lives Matter Movement, and just being in virtual school, it’s definitely been-

Student:
frustrating a bit.

Deborah:
For others, this is a desperate crisis. For others, it is a facing loneliness.

Student:
The hardest has been … not being able to see my friends or not being able to go out as much as we used to when quarantine wasn’t here.

Student:
Sometimes I’ll see my friends in the classroom. I’m like, wow, I really wish I was there.

Student:
I asked my mom “could I come back”? And she thought about it. And she was like, “I think it’s best that you go back in September.”

Student:
My parents made the decision for both me and my brother. At the time, they both felt like there was still too many cases and too many things on the rise about COVID-19, and they didn’t really know how they felt about us going back. So they decided it would just be better if we stayed at home and did all virtual.

Student:
No one wants to be left out, especially not in this time, and especially like how hard it is trying to make friends, like when you’re at home and you’re not seeing a lot of people and everything’s virtual, it can be really hard and be harder for some people more than others.

Student:
I would like more group or partner projects, more socialization between the kids.

Student:
I feel like a lot of the connection is lost. I know personally for me and my friend group, one of my friends, none of us have been able to get in contact with her, and it’s kind of sad. We don’t really know what happened. She’s just not there. And when we’re virtual on our computers and we see the teachers and the students, having a great time, we feel a disconnection. Connection overall is the biggest thing of what’s missing.

Deborah:
So friends, we are not in the same boat.

Student:
We are not in the same boat.

Student:
We are not in the same boat.

Student:
We are not in the same boat.

Deborah:
We are going through a time when our perceptions and needs are completely different.

Student:
Because for me, I’m not sure if it’s for everybody, but at the beginning I wasn’t doing so good. Then towards the ending of the first semester, I started to pick up on my grades. And then when I started to get good keeping up with my grades and checking on my grades and stuff, now I’m doing better. It’s not that hard.

Student:
And it also seems easier because I find that I think I’m more of … not a visual learner, but it helps me just to be there. It helps me stay more focused because when I’m at home, I feel like there’s just a lot of distractions. But at the same time, I am happy to be at home because I do like learning in a virtual model.

Student:
At school, you can see your teacher and get more understanding, some people would say. But at home, after classes, you get to sleep. So it’s like, you have advantages both ways.

Student:
I’ve witnessed throughout some of my classes, people’s computer and internet ranges being very different. While some people have very high quality and they have microphones and clear cameras, some people don’t even have cameras on their computer and they have very bad wifi access.

Speaker 8:
That’s kind of hard with being virtual with technical problems and not being able to see other people if their cameras are off or things like that.

Student:
Also like when your meet is really, really laggy and it’s hard to understand anything that’s going on.

Student:
Well, it has been my wifi connection. It would go on and off. It’d be difficult for me to do my work or to stay on meets. Somehow I’ve been able to manage, which is a really good thing for me.

Student:
So the first thing I would wish for virtual learning to be successful is for everyone to have a stable connection and a working computer to work on, and any other materials they may need.

Student:
Advice I would give teachers is check on your students to see if they’re okay. Schoolwork, because sometimes schoolwork is roughly mentally draining. And some people just want a break from it, or more help. So yeah, just check on your students to see how they’re doing with schoolwork, and how they’re doing mentally.

Student:
Yeah. Having a teacher check-in once in a while, that’s helpful too.

Deborah:
And each one will emerge in his own way from that storm.

Student:
And each one will emerge in his own way from the storm.

Student:
I have been able to find myself during this quarantine. I feel when I was in school, I wasn’t able to really take time for myself and be able to listen to myself. I have been able to do some things that I never thought I could before. So the hobbies that I have found is going outside and just looking out into nature, and just being thankful for everything that has been given to me.

Student:
I am worried about next year for school because a lot of us are virtual and a lot of us haven’t been in classrooms for two years now.

Student:
There is usually a lot of negativity in the school atmosphere. And I just hope once we come back, we’re all more mature and more positive and just willing to do things that we haven’t done before.

Student:
We are going to be a lot more grateful and noticeable for what we have, even though it’s not necessarily all the, “Yes, let’s go learn”. But it’s an appreciation for being able to do basic everyday things. So I think it’s going to make a lot of kids be like, “You know what? I may not really like going to school, but let me do it. Let me get up today. Let me go in and let me give it my all because this could happen to any of us any day as we can see”. It was a global pandemic in a year and a half later, I’m excited to go back to school. It’s crazy.

Deborah:
It is very important to see beyond what is seen at first glance. Not just looking, more than looking, seeing.

Student:
Not just looking, more than looking, seeing.

Student:
Not just looking, more than looking, seeing.

Deborah:
See beyond the political party, beyond the biases, beyond the nose on your face. Do not underestimate the pain of others. If you do not feel it. Do not judge the good life of the other. Do not condemn the bad life of the other. Don’t be a judge.

Student:
Don’t be a judge.

Student:
Don’t be a judge.

Deborah:
Let us not judge the one who lacks as well as a one who exceeds him.

Student:
I feel like in my previous years of school, always having a talk or a general discussion about anything like race, gender equality, was always uncomfortable. It was stuffy. It was blocky. There was no orchestrated conversation. It was kind of just like, “Yes, I agree. No I don’t. Okay. Can we get back to class now”? Where now I feel like kids are like, “No, we need to talk about this”. And there need to be lessons about this. And I feel like that’s something we’ve gained. If you never approach anything, then how are you going to teach about it? How are you going to solve these issues? You can’t, and you never will, so we need to. The world is not the way it used to be. And we’re working on how to be more inclusive, how to make sure that we’re not making anyone uncomfortable.

Student:
And at the same time, keeping it a beautiful environment for everyone so that no one feels uncomfortable. Sanborn encouraged us to talk to each other and see how the other sides are feeling.

Deborah:
So first we were talking about racism mainly towards Asian Americans through this time. They’ve been treated very unfairly because of the virus and people making a joke out of it when it’s like, really not funny. We talked about that and how a girl was being treated unfairly in her school because she was Asian. And we also saw a video from Ms. Lee’s daughter when she was on the news, and how she was talking about how we need to include more Asian American history in our history books. Because I was thinking about it and talking to my brother, and I was like, you know what? I’ve never really learned anything about Asian-American history.

Deborah:
And it needs to be something that is taught about and not just as a tiny side panel and the last few pages of the book, but an actual topic that we test on and that we read about. Honestly, I feel like all the teachers on Seven Sea, if I ever had to say something very important, I could go to any of them, and any of them would come to me with open arms and accept me. But I think that it is an open space and a lot of the people have shared their personal experiences.

Deborah:
Don’t be a judge. Let us not judge the one who lacks as well as the one who exceeds him. We are on different ships looking to survive. Let everyone navigate their route with respect, empathy, and responsibility.

Student:
We are on different ships looking to survive. Let everyone navigate the route with respect, empathy, and responsibility.

Deborah:
I would wish that everyone is at a safe place and they have good food to eat and they feel loved. And they’re surrounded by good people because for some people being at school could be their escape from a bad environment at home because there’s food there and they have their friends and they’re with people and teachers and other workers that care about them. Versus at home, it could be a completely different situation. Hopefully step-by-step, we’re working our way to be better people in this day and age. And also with Corona coming to a close soon, now that 16 and up are approved to get vaccinated, things should be a lot easier. Things should be moving on the right track and slowly but surely, we’re making our way to a better world.

Alec Patton:
High Tech High Unboxed is hosted by me, Alec Patton. This episode was written and edited by Debra Dibattista. Our theme music is by brother Herschel. We have a new issue of our print journal Unbox that just came out. You can check that out along with lots more at hightechhighunboxed.org, all one word. Thanks for listening.