Stories of Summer Camp Education in the Covid-Times (In Portland, OR)

Heyah Everyone!

(Specifically, but by no means exclusively, Heyah Educators!)

I’m here with stories of the early days of education in the covid times. My hope is to provide insights and ideas as many people plan how to do education in the Fall.

TL/DR - This shit is wacky. Try to be empathetic. Good Luck

BACKGROUND:

I work in extracurricular science education in Portland, providing camps, after school programs, workshops… basically just bringing science to kids. In March we shut down when schools shut down. Oregon is in the early-stages of reopening and child care was deemed one essential service to support the reopening of society. Summer camps function technically as child care so we suddenly reopened in May to prepare for the phased reopening in June. We had mere weeks to do months worth of regular season preparation, along with trying to figure out WHAT DOES EDUCATION EVEN LOOK LIKE RIGHT NOW?!

PREPARATION AND SETUP:

We used the state official guidelines to try to set up safely. We organized our classrooms for a ‘stable group’ of ten kids for one week at a time, each seat facing the same direction, every seat six feet apart (but honestly closer because of some four or five foot tables, ya know?). We put directions for each group to go through different doors and directed each ‘stable group’ to different bathrooms. We put ‘pandemic cleaning kits’ in each classroom and distribute the kits to each instructor who would go out into the world to bring science wherever is for whatever reason also open. We communicated to anyone who wanted to host us or learn with us that all staff will remain masked and that common areas, shared materials, and bathrooms will be sanitized throughout the day. We are checking the temperatures of every human who comes through the door with contactless thermometers. We tried our best to set things up with the resources we had and attempted to set a stage for everyone to be as successful as possible when navigating this brave new world. As we reached out to our instructors we discovered reservations about engaging with the public at this time and about 60% decided to not resume working with us, which is super reasonable. This presented a new issue of having to hire new instructors to staff these summer camps. So we begin our journey with a hastily prepared covid-safe (fingers crossed) environment and a pool of mostly new hires. ALSO it is illegal to ‘force’ a child under 12 to wear a facemask, which is super awesome.

IN ACTION:

We have been open to the public since June, allowing parents to drop off their kids for 3 to 8 hours a day while their students attempt engaging in a suddenly alien learning environment. Let's start at the door. First of all, THANK YOU families who have been masked and following safety protocols. We offer a disposable facemask to anyone without and I have encountered so. much. pushback while trying to enforce these honestly minimal safety protocols. When I offered a mask to the son of a maskless family who had all come out of their vehicle, the parents said “Oh, we don’t wear masks” and I said “well, I am giving a mask to everyone who comes in the door.” so his mom got down on level and said “You do NOT have to wear this.” and let him go inside the building. Some parents also insist on putting themselves within the six foot bubbles we are to maintain - often the same parents who are not wearing masks. This all acts to communicate to these children as they enter our building that the safety we are trying to maintain is unimportant. This ripples throughout the day, which inspires other children to not wear their masks and not maintain distancing. Well, maybe we can’t put that on the parents. Children are kinesthetic creatures and seem to have some kind of internal magnets that pull them together when you turn your back. They are not well designed for a life of social distance. Enforcement of policy is based on the enthusiasm of their accompanying adult. That is to say that we put our hopes on the individual instructor to maintain all practices, manage the students so that they too follow the practices, and to disinfect both their surfaces and gear regularly.. It is a lot put on individual educators, many of whom are only working because of some degree of lack of concern of the seriousness of this viral pandemic. That isn’t to say that they are negligent … but not everyone has the same degree of vigilance.

CONCLUSIONS AND IDEAS:

I. Observed ISSUES:

Kids have a hard time with coronavirus safety measures because its work

• They are kinesthetic learners - they move toward each other almost without thinking

• They are tactile learners - they want to touch everything

• They have a limited understanding of personal space

Adults have a hard time enforcing safety measures because its work

• Enormous amount of pressure on individual instructors to maintain safety

• There is a spectrum of feelings about the virus and understanding of viruses

  -Trying to depoliticize mask wearing among adults AND kids is exhausting

• It is a lot of effort to sanitize everything all the time

Promoting a classroom with less sharing requires an investment

• Converting lesson plans and classrooms so that sharing is minimal takes work

  -Not just work but a substantial investment in new materials

• A lot of single use items are going to be consumed

II. Stuff thats WORKED OKAY?

So things are hard... but not impossible. As educators, we can really influence the way kids view this situation. This is really when teachin’ skills are the most important.

• Start with a conversation with students explicitly about the virus. You do not know what they already know. It is likely, just like with any topic, they are coming at you with some degree of bias. They need to understand your point of view if you hope to have them be on board enough to learn stuff.

• Explain your guidelines and have a conversation about why those guidelines are important. You want to develop a sense of shared stakes in this pandemic thing.

• Equip yourself with as many facts about viral transmission as possible. Once you start talking about this with kids you need to back up your reasoning with facts

• Be honest about the uncertainty right now and what you do not know. The children are getting a lot of adults tell them they know what is going on right now. They don’t. None of us do. Honestly communicating that shared uncertainty is important.

If I can answer anything specifically or engage in a dialogue I would love to hear from you. I hope, whatever situation you are in, you are able to navigate this all safely and wisely.

Love to you,

-Zeke Zee Zager

Educator

Submitted July 20, 2020 at 12:58AM by i-am-zeaker-teacher https://ift.tt/3fKOZhz