Future Teacher

You can’t talk about how measures surrounding the coronavirus have impacted education and not talk about schools. Of course, being a quarter of a century old, the pool of young people I know still attending elementary or even high school is pretty limited.

But I do know some people who are training to be teachers. In some ways, they were impacted twice as much. Not only did they witness the measures taken at school first hand, their own training was marked by them.

Writing about the situation at schools is a bit tricky since it is hard to generalize. Mainly because every country handled it differently, and this interview only specifically addresses the situation in Germany. Secondly, this interview was conducted with someone in the beginning stages of their practical training – someone who completed or was supposed to complete their training during this time could have had a vastly different experience.

For those not from Germany, a quick – and really simplified – summary of what the (typical) path to become a teacher looks like here: After graduating high school, you go to university, study the subjects you will teach alongside classes on how to teach. Throughout your time at university, you intern at schools occasionally. But the main practical training starts after you obtain your degree. That’s when you go to work at a school for a little less than two years during which you start teaching your own classes. During those months, you have to prepare for in-class visitations. With those, your performance as a teacher is evaluated.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

Anyway, one of those teachers in training is Henning, who started his practical training in May. More specifically, he is training to be an elementary school teacher. He spoke to me about what school looked like during different stages of coronavirus-measures and how he dealt with the constant changes.

When did you start your practical training and what was it like in the beginning?

May 6 was my first day at school. They had emergency care at that time. The school is in a district in which many doctors live. Those are the parents of the children. Consequently, the school offered emergency daycare, which I helped with for some time.

How do you teach when the children are not physically present?

Basically, all the children were always given assignments. A weekly schedule. There were different ones. For example, for the third grade, there was a polar bear plan and a penguin plan. One is for faster-learning children, the other for slightly slower ones. The plans consisted of different subjects and everyone followed their plan.

How did emergency daycare work and who was allowed to be a part of it?

In emergency daycare, there was always a teacher and - I think - a maximum of 9 children. There was a teacher who could help with assignments. The other children at home also had to complete them. These students were supervised while they completed them, and from 11:30 on they were in full daycare. They could be taken care of until 4 p.m. at the latest, if the parents were essential workers.

In the beginning it was strictly for essential workers’ kids, and parents had to certify that they had such a job. Then it became a bit more relaxed, because it became clear that some parents' profession might not be essential, but that they had already taken two weeks off to somehow supervise their child.

What did teaching look like as measures became more relaxed?

From May 18 until June 2 the 4th graders returned. It was announced that grades for which it was important should come back first. That meant all graduating classes, including 4th graders. At the same time, emergency care continued. I usually followed my mentor around.

From June 2 until June 22, all grades returned and were divided up. I think on Monday there were only 4th graders, on Tuesday and Thursday 1st and 2nd graders, and Wednesday and Friday were for 3rd and 4th graders. All classes were divided into group A and B, because they couldn’t have all students in one classroom.

You always stayed with one group, one infection group, and that stayed together.

How could you get the children to follow social distancing rules?

I don't know if it’s maybe easier at this school in particular. A lot of them are kids of doctors or professors... they really knew a lot about the coronavirus.

During recess, they got bats and balls – games you could play while distanced. When the teacher came to someone, they both wore masks. And also during recess, if possible with a mask. If they were playing a socially distanced game, they were allowed to take it off sometimes, because if you walk around with a mask all day long, it is also exhausting and difficult to concentrate.

When the 4th graders were back, we also talked a bit about new terms like homeschooling and quarantine, and they could explain everything. I think that helped a lot.

How did you deal with the everchanging situation?

I didn't find it all that bad, but others who started with me might see that differently. The impact on the education sector has been drastic.

Of course, there is uncertainty all the time. How am I supposed to prepare for class visitations? Everyone always talks about cooperative forms of learning, teams, and group work. But how, if they are not allowed to sit together?

We are already working on what good teaching looks like currently. Within the corona conditions there is just a lot of uncertainty. Nobody really knew what, how, where. I almost found that relieving. Usually, there's like a thousand criteria. But if nobody knows anything, then nobody can expect me to know.

How prepared do you feel for the new school year?

I haven’t prepared a lot yet, so naturally, I don’t feel super prepared yet. But there is still a lot I can do.

There is just one thing… Looking ahead to the new school year, I already know that I will get two 1st grades in gym, for example. Sure, I have seen a bit of gym classes during internships before, but I didn't get into it at all this time around. I haven’t been observing gym class because there were no gym classes. And now I am supposed to teach two groups of 1st graders. Now, over summer break, I have to think about how I’m going to do this. That makes me a bit nervous.

What have you learned that you wouldn't have learned under other circumstances?

I think that people have noticed how difficult it is to replace school. Sometimes you read those ‘utopia-articles’ about what the school of tomorrow could look like and how everything could be done digitally. But I think that many people have also noticed how important social and personal contact between teacher and students is.

Then there are many things that you could have imagined before, but that have become really apparent now, such as: How much support do the children have at home and do they have internet access or not? Or what about technical equipment at home? How privileged are you? Things like that have a huge impact on school performance.

This interview was condensed and edited for clarity.