Community Magazine August 2021

26 COMMUNITY MAGAZINE Take a look at the following and see what triggers you. If you were a parent, teacher (and what parent was not a teacher this past year?) or student during the 2020 pandemic, hold on to your hats as you read! Two weeks to stop the spread. Six feet apart. Distance learning. Zoom. Mute. Unmute. Zoom code, passwords, headphones. Not enough tablets and computers to go around. Two of your children’s classes happening at the same time. Short video clips, play, pause. Work from home while being a morah , a chef, and a housekeeper. And on, and on! Suddenly having to figure out remote schooling and then having to do it on the daily was a huge struggle for families across the globe. For me, having young children in school during the pandemic was no small feat. Although they were not responsible for studying or tests, the technical coordination fell on me. I had to put in the zoom code and password at the correct time, wait around for the teacher to allow them in, unmute, turn on the camera, mute for the lesson, unmute when the teacher requested, and that was when there weren’t technical difficulties! At first I thought zoom would be a nice break for the kids to distract them during the day with some learning. However, I soon came to realize it was just another chore I was responsible for. It was all too much. Now we are entering a brand-new school year, so how are parents, teachers, and students in our community preparing for the shift back to what we all hope will be a much more normal year? I interviewed a few community members to find out.  Back to School, Back to Normal! FRIEDA SCHWEKY