Moments of: The Blog
The View From Here: Class-zoom Confidential
What don’t I love about Classroom Confidential?
A time-honored tradition hosted by SAPA as a companion to their final meeting of the year, it is also one of my favorite events of the year. SAPA gathers to celebrate their year of hard work together and to elect next year’s slate of officers. I get to sit down and spend an hour just talking with my colleagues. We are so busy on a daily basis that this is an extraordinary treat and every time I do it I learn more about our fascinating, eclectic, and brilliant teachers.
We started doing this because parents were hearing so much from their children about their teachers--not just about the excellence of their pedagogy or the scope of their erudition, but who they were in the classroom and how they presented their authentic selves. For the adolescent it is the intersection of their journey of becoming with a teacher’s passion and sense of self that lights the way. It was this that parents wanted to know more about and so we created Classroom Confidential as an opportunity for parents to experience our teachers in a more relaxed way.
In recent years, to add to the pleasure, Classroom Confidential was set up in the GAC. We created a kind of TV set with lounge chairs, plants, and cups filled with…whatever you want. After the SAPA business, Classroom Confidential would begin with that extraordinary sunset on the west horizon, visible from the windows and patio of the GAC. Of course this year, we gathered around our screens, instead, and I wondered if Classroom Confidential on Zoom could in any way resemble that feeling of connection and surprise and joy.
My fears began to dissipate when we started the evening by pulling off a slick “passing of the check” from Big Night Out between Renata Belash, President of SAPA, and myself. We thanked Renata for her extraordinary service to the school in so many ways, and elected new officers for next year.
Instead of being in the GAC, I was sitting in our family Eurovan (which I’ve now named “The East Office”) and were in their “offices” (sometimes a kitchen table or living room couch), where many of them have been doing home school in addition to teaching our students. Yes, it absolutely resembled Classroom Confidentials of the past, and, to answer my own question at the top, there is nothing I do not like about Classroom Confidential.
Even after all these years working with these gifted educators, I learned new things that I didn’t know, and I was struck by their ability to be excited and enthusiastic about their own growth and learning during this time of quarantine. Each one of them offered examples of things they had learned in adapting to distance teaching that they will incorporate into their classroom teaching. Our teachers love teaching and our students, and they are inspired by anything that enables them to grow and become even more skillful in what they do. I know of many school cultures where teachers might not react to a challenging circumstance with that same kind of enthusiasm, creativity, and openness to growth and change.
I could have lingered for quite a bit longer in the conversation. Especially these days, moments of authentic connection and intimacy, even via Zoom, are treasures that break up the odd monotony of sheltering in place at home. If you didn’t have a chance to join us, please take some time to watch it over the weekend. I think you’ll find it heartening and engaging: https://youtu.be/04mlxrMHVyA
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