We, Too, Landed On Mars

“I feel as if I never ended my junior year due to COVID, so it’s kinda surreal to be almost graduating,” Kiana, a senior, shares with our class during this morning’s warm-up questions: “What’s filling your cup? What’s emptying your cup?” Kiana represents one of the 25% of our student body whose family opted to return to campus for in-person learning.  

How fair or unfair are the rules for the students in this class? [1]

I never realized that many of my students felt this floating wetness of purgatory. Even though I taught Kiana and her classmates synchronously during their last quarter as juniors, even though we had a virtual celebration, I can understand this seemingly glacial-paced osmosis. Where are the landmarks? Where are the milestones between classes, flipping through teacher channels, just grateful there are no ads. I’m also wondering now, if the teachers felt this way as well. Maybe we should have connected—the dots, our fears, each other—earlier. 

How often do you get so focused on class activities that you lose track of time?

When the school opened for in-person learning, we welcomed them with snack bags, disposable masks, and a small bottle of hand sanitizer. We distributed copies of the maps of our campus. It was the first day of high school for many freshmen. It was MARCH. When we greeted and asked which grade-level they were in, some said, “Eighth. No, ninth!” 

I thought they were just being quirky. Students being students. Students who had been isolated at home from breakfast to sunset, until their only parent came home from work. Students who weren’t introduced to other students, who were more familiar with the lines in their ceiling above their bed or with the veins in their arms. Students who were suicidal, but our system only identified as SEL kids: students with social, emotional, learning needs. Maybe we should have connected—the dots, our fears, each other—earlier. 

For this class, how clearly does this teacher present the information that you need to learn?

I’m also thinking of spaces—distanced and farther. I’m thinking of NASA’s rover, Perseverance. In the midst of the pandemic, it launched in July 2020 and landed in February 2021. It, too, was in limbo or perhaps on a predisposed trajectory over seven months. So much can happen in so short a time. From Minnesota to Mars, I’ve  felt like I’m rooted beneath an umbrella in Bradbury’s science-fiction story, “There Will Come Soft Rains,” because I’m teaching through a screen in a universe indifferent to life. I believe even summer and winter may not have remembered passing through.

One of the final units required the seniors to submit a video recording as designated commencement speaker for their graduating class. We analyzed Chadwick Boseman’s speech at Howard University, focusing on human connection, anecdotes, and a message tailored for your audience. I also asked them to recall their friends’ graduation ceremonies, to remember listening to other speeches, especially when and why they tuned out. I wanted the unexpected, fresh content and language. 

Needless to say, I was extremely proud of their send-offs. Their speeches included questioning obsessive goals, like wanting to be on the leaderboard of Duolingo, a language learning app, and strategizing how to outwit their opponents; except TK wasn’t really learning anything in the process. Jacob described his first breakfast experience at IHOP with his family while visiting colleges, and how he had inhaled too quickly; thus a reminder to “slow down and smell the eggs in life.” I was even exposed to a snippet of Japanese noise artist MERZBOW and the industrial electronic song “Woodpecker No.1” as an extended metaphor of “excessive, abrasive, and sometimes charming noises which replicate the feelings of high school’s monotony—the gray static of wasting the best years of our life sitting at home.” The turn in Meera’s speech: the high notes were the connections made, watching another student point to their fav band on someone’s graphic tee, observing the unfolding of friendships. Meera also highly recommended listening to the whole album, so I know at some point soon, I’ll have to do it. I’ve learned to follow wherever they want to lead me. 

How often does this teacher make you explain your answers?

One time, I candidly joked with them, calling them out as having such “weird” ideas—and they LOVED being identified as my “weird class” and thanking me for supporting their “weird” ideas:  suggesting and planning an  ice-cream-buffet social (pre-covid) to bond with the underclassmen cohort. They organized and designed a class newsletter that highlights their field trips, guest speakers, and video-game reviews. They distributed it with all students on campus, the families, and community members. If it weren’t for COVID, this “weird” class would have successfully arranged and fundraised for a class field trip to Kauai for an eco-awareness unit. Definitely, my weirdest class. Weird as in bananas or dippy. Weird as in inexplicable or unconventional. Weird as in spell-binding, unforgettable. 

How often does this teacher take time to make sure you understand the material?

One of my students lost her grandmother to COVID. Even as I type this sentence, I immediately regret it. I’m distancing that connection, the numbers, the moments she’ll remember feeling safe and accepted by this special  person she’d known her whole life.

“So sorry, Ms. I’ve been dealing with my grandmother in the hospital. Is it okay to turn in the work a little late?” And you think about soft rains, the crickets, and the smell of the ground, and you reply,  “Of course. Take all the time you need.” 

How interesting does this teacher make what you are learning in class?

When students started showing up in person, their voices projected against the walls, off the back of the chair, the side of the desk—nothing but net—directly into my eardrums. Were the wrinkles in my forehead migrating together? Maybe I had absorbed the sounds in my body. Maybe I held on to them until I could understand what was happening. I realized I had become hypersensitive to noise after living in a controlled mute and mutant-like universe. I realized their laughter was almost ear-splitting. Their laughter was almost rewarding. 

FOOTNOTE: [1] Panorama Education, Inc. was founded in 2012 with a focus on using student feedback to improve teaching,

engagement, school climate and social-emotional learning. Today, Panorama manages survey programs for over

900 school districts and 8 state agencies, serving 9 million students. www.panoramaed.com/panorama-student-survey