Amid the coronavirus pandemic, a new reality is happening in homes across the country: teachers having to learn brand new teaching methods all the while keeping an eye on their own children.
In San Jose, Sara Meza’s school is closed for business and empty. Her classroom is now run out of her home, where she isn’t taking her foot off the gas when it comes to making sure her students — and her own children — succeed.
“It’s challenging because this is new,” Meza said.
Meza starts with roll call for her seventh grade geometry students. In no time, she gets into the day’s lesson plan.
“I'm continuing with my lesson plans, my pacing,” she said. “I'm teaching them what I would be teaching them in class. I don’t want to water down the curriculum.”
She’s still teaching geometry, but it’s now through a laptop in a virtual class.
“I had to figure out how to draw the shapes,” she said. “That's different. It's not just typing but being able to draw the specific shape that I want.”
Across the kitchen table in the living room, Sara’s daughter Andrea Padilla, a sixth-grader, works on her own schoolwork.
“Sometimes I don’t understand the questions and sometimes (the teachers) don’t respond right away when you email them so then I usually just ask my mom,” Padilla said.
It’s still unclear exactly when California’s children will be able to return to their usual classrooms.
