Page 31 - COVID Consortium Journal - An Edited Collection of Student Art and Writing

I had a partner, like an adult person to work every day after her maternity
talk to. Because you don’t want to put leave ended. “I hate to say that the
that on your nine year old. That would quarantine has helped me sort of
be inappropriate.” develop my parenting, but it has,
because I have more time with him.
This being said, the quarantine Actually, all I can do is be with him,”
does have a brighter side. Rob Eugene she expressed.
is a 6th grade math teacher and father
of a five and ten year old. While his After reaching her breaking
daughters worked on an art project point, Ms. Jensen took a deep breath.
sprawled out by his side, he said, She let her five year old, Cyrus, watch
“One positive aspect is that I’ve gotten a PBS Kids show, and reassured him
to spend a lot more time with my she would be with him in a moment.
family.” He lives in New Jersey, and She put on headphones, turned on
his commute to school, which is in music, and cleaned up the throw up.
Manhattan, is an hour and a half each This would pass, she thought. And, it
way. He used to leave before anyone did. Her husband and her two kids did
else was awake, and got home only an recuperate, and although each day is
hour before his daughters had to go to still full of trials and tribulations,
sleep. she, like each parenting teacher, is
finding her way.

Students may forget that teach-
ers are more than the small icons
posting Google Classroom assign-
ments or the smiling faces on Zoom
meetings or Google Meet office hours,
but it is important to recognize that,
as one teacher put it, “we are all on a
learning curve together.”
Rob Eugene with his daughters. Image Teachers, like everybody else,
by Rob Eugene. are figuring out this new virtual
world, and trying to develop a new
For Ms. Sanders, although the
quarantine is a challenge (“it’s a real rhythm for life. But, as long as
head trip man”), it has allowed her to COVID-19 lasts, the feat of switching
spend more time with her young son, on and off the “mommy” or “daddy”
whereas without the quarantine she hat and the “teacher” hat will be
would have had to leave him to go to oft-repeated.

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