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How four first-year teachers coped in a strange year of education during COVID-19.
Being a first-year teacher is hard enough, but no college education class or textbook can teach budding instructors how to survive their initial year in the classroom during a world-wide pandemic. Here are four local new teachers who did their best to survive and thrive this past year and who look forward to year two.
Brooke McNeill: Lord Botetourt High School
Brooke McNeill was a college student anticipating her student teaching when Botetourt County Public Schools contacted her and asked if she was available to teach History Advanced Placement 11 and World History II at Lord Botetourt. What’s more, the opening was a sudden one that occurred after the school year started.
Further complicating matters was the fact that the 27-year-old McNeill and her husband would have to immediately find childcare for their 20-month and four-month-old youngsters.
“Coming in late was very difficult,” McNeill says. “I was replacing a very popular teacher who the students were expecting to have and obviously I had never taught before. But the school’s history department was awesome about helping me, especially Michael Martin and Eric Rader. They were always dropping by and asking how they could help me with any problems I was having.”
McNeill says one of the highlights of the year came in her junior history class where she devised a lesson called “Meeting of the Minds” about the Civil War.
“The kids got to be real life people from that era,” says the Daleville resident. “For example, one boy portrayed Abe Lincoln. The student really got into character and did an amazing job explaining why the Union had to stay together and why the Emancipation Proclamation had to happen - giving morality to the North’s cause.
“Class discussions were always exciting and fun, and my students were at an age where they really started thinking seriously about history. One of the best lessons was when we discussed Christopher Columbus and learned the consequences of the Europeans coming here. The students didn’t know how cruel Columbus was to the natives and how the Europeans brought smallpox and measles and basically caused a pandemic wiping out huge percentages of Native American populations.
Will McNeill be teaching 20 years from now?
“I plan and hope to,” she says. “But who knows what school will look like going forward after the pandemic? What will be the new normal?”
Emily Girard: Fishwick Middle School
Emily Girard’s first year was spent teaching Algebra I and sixth-grade math and science at Roanoke City’s Fishwick Middle School. The 24-year-old Botetourt County resident believes she was fortunate to have two excellent mentors: fellow sixth-grade teacher Stephanie Picard, who shared lesson plans with her, and Teresa Martin, who gave tips on how to manage the school year and a classroom.
One of Girard’s high points concerned her lesson on “Rotation versus Revolution.”
“I knew my sixth-graders had studied the American Revolution in their history class, so I used that prior knowledge when we discussed how the planets move around the sun,” she says. “We talked about how a revolution in history is a ‘really big deal’ in their words. They were then able to understand that the earth’s revolution around the sun is a much bigger deal than the earth’s rotation each day.”
A common theme among all four of the first-year teachers was the challenge of instructing remote learners. When Roanoke City went all-virtual, Girard and Picard devised a lesson to meet the needs of their remote math students.
“We made these coin-like chips and moved them around the screen to show the kids how to add and subtract positive and negative numbers,” Girard says. “The students then created their own video to show me they had learned the skills. Some even role-played as if they were the teacher as they explained.”
Of course, the reliance on technology was not without snafus.
“On the first day of school, I somehow created two screens where some of the students could see me and some couldn’t,” Girard says. “But they were so patient with me that it made me just want to help them all I could. I definitely plan to be teaching 20 years from now.”
Devon Watty: West Salem Elementary
Spend any time talking to Salem City School’s Devon Watty, a 22-year-old third-grade teacher at West Salem, and it’s clear that this is an individual who clearly enjoys the classroom.
“Every day when I saw my students smiling as they come toward my room, that got me excited and motivated,” says the Roanoke resident. “On the wall outside my classroom, I posted options on how the students could choose how I greet them. They could decide whether they got an air hug, a rock-paper-scissors, a thumbs up, a wave, or three or four other ways. I also liked to welcome them by name as they entered the room.”
Watty says that one of his most satisfying lesson plans was when he taught about the water cycle. He gave each student a blank sheet of blue, brown, and green paper, and the third-graders had to devise their own lesson plan for a class demonstration.
“One of the best presentations was from a kid that made two mountains and a valley with a river flowing through it,” he says. “The lesson was a fantastic way for the kids to show their creative side, but also that they understood the water cycle. It also was a good learning experience for them to teach their peers.”
Watty says that another very memorable lesson came when he taught multiplication. Each student was given a Unifex cube, and the individual had to create equal groups of numbers by manipulating the cubes. What was especially rewarding, he says, was that the youngsters began to create their own problems to solve.
The first-year teacher gave a quick answer when asked if he would be teaching 20 years from now: “Absolutely!”
Maria Figaro: Mountain View Elementary
Maria Figaro, a 24-year-old special education teacher at Roanoke County’s Mountain View Elementary, spent her initial year working with second- and third-graders.
“I think the best thing about my year was all the ‘aha moments’ that happened,” the Salem resident says. “One of the best ones came with a boy who was really struggling with learning to tell time with an analog clock. I had him label each number on the clock and write down the minutes around the border of the clock to help him have a visual to refer to. That’s what helped it click in his head that the long hand stood for minutes and the short hand for hours.”
Figaro feels that her most creative lesson was when she and third-grade teacher Joyce Rodriguez had their students debate whether they should be paid or not for doing chores at home.
“Both sides became very passionate about their positions, and we had this great back and forth discussion,” Figaro says.
Another highlight came when Figaro pulled a third-grader from teacher Cindy Myers class to work one-on-one on what syllables are and how students can break a word into its individual syllables.
“One boy just couldn’t grasp the concept,” she says. “So, I had him put his hand under his chin and told him that whenever he talked and his chin hit his hand, that counted as one syllable. It was amazing to see the look on his face when he got the idea. I had him do a worksheet on syllables afterwards, and he only missed one!”
Will she be teaching 20 years from now?
“Honestly, yes,” Figaro says. “I’ve always had a passion for special education students. I have a sister who has special needs and that was always my motivation to become a special education teacher.”
It would appear that the future of education is in good hands with young teachers like these in the Roanoke area.
Rookie Administrators
Principal Amanda Gibson and Assistant Principal Marcus Crowder of West Salem spent their first year as administrators during the heart of the pandemic. And one of their biggest challenges was how to keep the school’s student body engaged when so many youngsters were remote learners. Their solution was a series of Zoom-styled pep rallies (emceed by the two administrators) designed to create a school culture that valued traditions and comforting rituals where each child would hopefully feel connected and safe regardless of whether they were attending several days weekly or were totally virtual.
“For example, we had our cardinal school mascot perform ‘We Are Family,’ and our guidance counselor do a video on mindfulness,” Gibson says. “We also had activities where the kids could dance to music while at home and learn sign language. A second-grade teacher also gave a pep talk as part of a pep rally.”
Crowder adds that perhaps something good came from the pandemic, regardless of whether it continues or a “return to normal” occurs this autumn.
“I think our school’s staff and students gained a new appreciation of the importance of community, conversation, and connectivity with each other,” he says. “That appreciation, I believe, will carry over into the coming year.”
The story above is from our July/August 2021 issue. For more stories, subscribe today or view our FREE digital edition. Thank you for supporting local journalism!