RE Log Spring 2021

My wife and I have been sheltering in place together. We’ve lost two family members to COVID-19. September was really harsh. I will never forget sitting in living room when my wife walked in and said, ‘My brother just died of COVID.’ Two weeks later, her sister died. We had to deal with the funerals from home. There was no viewing, nothing. That was emotionally hard on both of us. Our prayer life has helped a lot. My wife and I have devotionals every day. We read the Bible and we pray. We’re very grateful to God that we’ve been able to pretty much keep on. Teaching remotely at RE has been unusual, innovative and challenging. We should be behind and the material should be compromised because, supposedly, the remote teaching is not the same thing. But I actually feel that I’ve taught better. I think RE has to do with that. Ransom Everglades tends to be at the top, and the teachers try to be at the top, and the students are at the top, so it just makes for a magical moments where everything works together. I’m so grateful for how supportive RE has been with technology. At the beginning, I wanted to preserve the personal touch of me actually being there. I feel more connected with the students when I’m actually writing and talking, and looking at them at the same time. I learned to use Microsoft OneNote to write notes that students could see during class, but I couldn’t look at OneNote and the students at the same time. So I got an additional camera. It’s much more like a real classroom experience. And then I started recording lectures. One day I just did it out of the blue. The recordings are great for my students – they are very grateful. They say it helps them understand. They can review, pause and rewind if they don’t get something. And I’ve learned by watching the recordings. Now when I teach, I teach slower. I pause more. I have more wait time; I give students time to answer. You have to give them time to think. The virtual environment has also opened up doors for extra help because now there’s no barrier to when you can meet. Once you left school before, office hours were over. Now I find myself answering emails at 9:30 at night. A student will email, ‘Hey I’m having trouble with No. 8.’ Yes, I could let it go, but the teacher in me wants to answer. They are night owls like me; what can I do? I also appreciate the access to their work that the technology offers. I’ve been able to capture why some students don’t do well on the quizzes. You can go into the drive and see everything: you can see people doing everything at the last minute, and the people who are early. I can keep an eye on them, reach out to students who seem to be falling behind. In a lot of ways, I’ve become a better teacher. In many ways, this difficult time has been a blessing in disguise.” Henry Stavisky ’85 Upper School Math & Computer Science Faculty At home 18 Ransom Everglades LOG SPRING 2021