Big Sad

The post title is semi-misleading because it was actually a pretty solid day. I spent the morning contacting a bunch of my students to do a mental/physical check-in to make sure they were doing okay and to see if I could do anything to help.

Some were fine while others needed help requesting technology and internet access as we move ahead with our digital learning. I learned a lot about some of my students today.

I learned that one was not entirely truthful when they said neither of their parents spoke English. Their father, in fact, spoke English very well. The end result was that the kid and I had a 45 minute phone conversation. :)

I learned that one of my kids was celebrating a birthday and when I told them "Happy Birthday!" when they answered the phone they were super surprised because it was unexpected. I am unexpected.

I played phone tag with one and never caught up but it was funny to keep seeing missed calls back and forth.

I spoke to one mom who gave me her son's number. When I called he wouldn't answer so I texted him to say "I need to talk to you about your grade." and he replied with, "What about it?" so that was a fun time.

I had a great chat with my AP team today and we shared some pretty entertaining memes that had been made featuring one of them. While we were video chatting I texted it in our group chat...and then laughed as they checked it all inconspicuous-like.

Then I spent some time working on video settings with the kids to see how many kids at one time were TOO many and what parameters I should put into place for our first real video chat on Friday.

I also did a few individual chats because it's easier to discuss ideas and work on things when we can sit "across" from each other and talk.

All in all it was a mostly successful day but eating caffeinated chocolate at 7:30 pm was probably a poor choice.

Aubs