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Hey everyone today is Monday October 19th 2020. Here are some reminders for the upcoming weeks! Spirit week starts on October 26 wear your Spirit Gear! The Veterans Day Assembly is November 4. The Eckstein food drive starts October 22 and ends on November 12th. You can drop off canned food during these dates from 10am to 5:30pm near the near the book pickup area. Check out inside Eckstein for more info and Check the ASB Schoology page it’s all there.  

It is National Disability Awareness month. It’s important to reflect on what it means to be able to access things. When we say access, we mean how easy or challenging it is to enter some space or use some material. Access is important for learning. In fact, access is what we are talking about today so let’s just get right to it. How are you doing with remote learning? Is it working well for you? Is it a just okay? Are you struggling? Are you able to access learning with little to no additional energy? Does it require a lot of energy for you to access learning these days? 

Our system of remote learning provides us a real great opportunity to consider the access point called learning style. There are many learning styles. Learning styles are all about how much energy you need to spend when learning. 

If learning is easiest for you when you read something then being asked to read something for learning will not require a great deal of extra energy for you to do it. If you learn easiest from moving your body, then learning when asked to move your body will not require additional energy to do so. 

If you are a music/rhythmic learner then you will not spend additional energy managing yourself when you are being asked to learn through music or rhythm. 

Some people learn easiest from reading. Some people learn easiest from listening to others talk. As you’ve probably noticed, there’s not a lot of opportunity for students to learn in ways that doesn’t involve accessing school through a computer. 

If this works well for you, then great! You may be feeling comfortable and at ease during remote learning. There’s nothing to be ashamed about, you should feel good about what’s happening. 

However, if this isn’t working well for you, you shouldn’t take it personally. Here’s why. This style of remote learning really works well for a particular type of learner. Mostly an auditory or visual processor. If you are a student who learns in this way the odds are in your favor. And we should all consider what this means.

Sometimes if we don’t stop and think about access to learning in this way, we may miss some very important information. In fact, that's what privilege is. Privilege means not needing to think about the access of things. Privilege is all about just being able to access whatever it is you want, using very little energy or effort to need to change yourself to do so. 

For example, if this style of learning is very easy for you and it “comes naturally” then that is a real privilege right now. That means you do not need to spend much energy or effort in changing yourself to fit how learning is happening.

And there’s nothing wrong with you if this is true. Don’t think you’re bad or guilty because it works for you. This also doesn’t mean you're not working hard. You may be working very hard, so this is not trying to take anything away from you. 

Right, just know that if it isn’t working for someone else, that’s not inherently because they are bad or weak or lazy or whatever. Just as you are not at fault for things working in your favor, others are not at fault when it doesn’t work in their favor. They may be needing to use more energy than you need to use, just to access the material. 

And this brings us to our guest teacher interview! We’ve got Ms. Levine and Ms. Haakanson on the line here, (Hi Ms. Levine Hi Ms. Haakanson) Ms. Levine teaches 6th grade science and Ms. Haakanson teaches 7th and 8th grade science and we’re going to ask her some questions about how school is going from their perspective. 

Question 1

Is it harder to teach during Covid or not? And why?

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Question 2

What new or different rights do you think students have in remote learning? 

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Question 3

What new or different responsibilities do you think teachers have to ensure those rights are protected.

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Question 4

What are 6th graders going through right now? Do you see a difference between 6th grade online and 6th grade in physical school.

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Question 5

Do you believe students have a variety of ways to be successful right now in remote learning? If so what are they? If not, what does the school need to do about that?

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Question 6

Are we acknowledging/protecting neural diversity? 

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Thanks for joining us Ms. Levine and Ms. Haakanson. It’s always nice to hear from other folks. Hey other teachers, students, or families, do you want to join us in our podcast? We’d love to have you, just send an email to Mr. Manzo and he’ll do our booking. 

So, here’s a takeaway for this week. Think about how much energy you need to spend to access learning these days. Would you say it’s more than you’re used to? Would you say it’s less? Use your self-awareness to ask yourself what you are thinking about remote learning. Ask yourself how you feel in your body about remote learning. Ask yourself about how you want to express yourself in remote learning. And ask yourself how you can express yourself in ways that help you and do not negatively impact others. 

Using self-awareness to think about access is a great way to ensure that you understand your rights and that you understand your responsibility in helping others have their rights also. Okay, that’s it for today, check the ASB Schoology Page for our upcoming activities, and if you haven’t joined ASB yet reach out to Ms. Sterling to join. Until next week, may your thoughts and feelings be with you. 

And good night Fabio, wherever you are.