“Return to Normalcy?” by Dennis J. Belen-Morales

Will we ever shake hands again? What will become of movie theaters and music concerts? What will happen to restaurants and air travel? Will we ever return to life as we once knew it? Yes, I believe we will eventually return to normal life, but it will be a “new normal.”

COVID-19 has turned our world upside down. Health care professionals are working longer ­­­and more exhausting hours, our streets are empty, and our children are being homeschooled alongside their parents who are working from home. Millions of American businesses and lives have been put on pause and everyone wants to know what life will look like when this pandemic comes to an end. The most recent American pandemic on this scale happened just over 100 years ago during the ‘Spanish” Flu of 1918. Some theorists estimate that the Covid-19 pandemic may surpass the human and economic toll of that time, despite the advancements we have made in science, medicine and technology. In retrospect, the Great Depression of the 1930s, World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War all seemed more manageable than this invisible new coronavirus, which stalks and kills us with little to no explanation. We find ourselves travelling through a dark tunnel in time with only the dim light of hope to guide us towards an uncertain future.  

           

I am a graduating senior at Hofstra University, majoring in History and Social Studies Education with a minor in Latin American and Caribbean Studies. One of my last graduation requirements was student teaching and I was assigned to Turtle Hook Middle School. It was a jolt to me to be suddenly informed that I would be unable to continue student teaching. As was the case for most students at Hofstra and across the country, I was forced out of my in-person university studies and had to quickly adjust to a virtual remote teaching and learning format for the remainder of the semester after spring break. I had been scheduled to transition to student teaching in Uniondale High School after the middle school experience.  

The situation placed me amongst the twenty percent of Hofstra’s student teachers who suddenly needed to change their field placement. Home for me is the South Bronx, the poorest congressional district in the country. Fortunately, I got the opportunity to transfer to my High School alma mater, Alfred E. Smith Career and Technical Education High School to complete my student teaching. My cooperating teacher happened to be my former social studies teacher and Hofstra alumnus, Dr. Pablo Muriel. I had to quickly learn how to navigate the technology related to remote learning as both a teacher and as a student.

The transition to remote learning and remote teaching has proven to be a rather difficult task. It is strenuous not having the same resources that I am accustomed to at the Hofstra campus, and to have to reach out to my students virtually. Class discussions have been replaced with massive amounts of work and reading assignments, in hope that they can replace human interaction. I believe there is no substitute for human interaction. Having a professor and a teacher face-to-face with their class, presenting the material and interacting with their students, allows for making connections in a more authentic way.

As a student teacher looking to find my pedagogical voice, I keep my eyes open for every teachable moment possible. I plan lessons for my students with the intention to teach them the economic, political, and social aspects of the topic for each day. In the case of COVID-19, I made sure to discuss with them the passing of the stimulus package, the role of the federal, state and local governments, and how their decisions directly impact our community, in the South Bronx and beyond. Student teaching is not an easy task, and my professor and mentor at Hofstra, Dr. Alan Singer, always says “When you graduate, you become a certified beginner for the next 3-5 years.”

Remote learning has also proven to be a challenge for the students I work with at the vocational Alfred E. Smith Career and Technical Education High School; for many of them, it’s an insurmountable challenge. To witness how some of them, weeks into the remote learning new normal, do not have laptops or internet access at home is painful. Attempting to have students involved in their schoolwork on a daily basis and from so many settings and distracting circumstances is twice as much work.

To bridge the digital divide of our students, my cooperating teaching Dr. Pablo Muriel and I have developed a website that allows them to do homework from their mobile device. This, however, does not replace the external motivation and accountability teachers provide in face-to-face interactions that enhance student engagement and support students with the inability to focus. The pandemic we are currently living through has drastically changed the lives of millions around the world, including our children, and the post-pandemic classroom will necessarily be a reflection on the role of education in a time of crisis, social inequalities and the availability of educational resources.

Dennis J. Belen-Morales is a student in the NOAH Program and a Student Fellow of the Center for “Race,” Culture and Social Justice at Hofstra University. Dr. Jonathan Lightfoot and Dr. Benita Sampedro contributed to this piece.