When home becomes the classroom

Tuesday morning spent at the Carpenter residence offered a glimpse into one family adjusting to a new, albeit temporary, normal of public school being held at home.

The dining room table has been commandeered by Edgerton Elementary fifth-grade teacher and parent of three, Amber Carpenter. It was covered with two neat stacks of chapter books, postcards waiting to be sent to her students, markers, pens, a calendar, class schedule and document camera where the week’s math worksheet is centered underneath.

Behind a laptop stand, Amber stood, explaining the week’s assignments and catching up with five of her 28 students during a daily hour-long live video session through Google Meet, a conferencing app. On the screen of her laptop, the students appeared in different window panes, including herself. It is almost reminiscent of the opening sequence to “The Brady Bunch” except the panes are slightly larger and each background is unique to the room students decide to connect to from their home.

Behind Amber were two handmade posters on the wall. A large rainbow is pictured on one of the posters that reads, “You can’t have a rainbow without the rain.” The other colorful poster reads, “Keep it up. You rock!”

“I’m trying to keep it like a classroom,” she said. Yet the usual boundaries between school and home have dissolved. They are now one in the same, a unique situation to public school teachers and students.

Not far from where she stood, the Carpenter’s dog chewed on a toy. The faint sound of clothes rotating in a dryer could be heard from the laundry room.

While Amber attended to some routine matters and told them about a writing contest, her 8-year-old daughter Lola hopped onto one of the dining room chairs, out of the camera’s view.

“Mommy, I’m all done,” she said excitedly.

“It’s Lola’s daily check,” Amber said, smiling to students and reaching out to hold her daughter’s hand before transitioning back to the math assignment. Lola headed to the pantry for an afternoon snack.

THE NEW environment of teaching and learning from home is an adjustment, but also has proven to be an opportunity for students to share or introduce their pets, family members or belongings.

With a lot of flexibility in how school operates now and how students are held accountable, teachers have navigated that path to what works during an unprecedented time. One student asked how report cards would be sent.

“Well, so remember all report cards are digital anyway right? You’re still going to get a report card. Every single thing you do for me will be accounted for in the report card,” Amber explained.

Montana schools have been closed since March 16 as part of Gov. Steve Bullock’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Bullock’s initial announcement of the school closures came late Sunday, March 15, which sent school staff scrambling to plan for the week. This was followed by spring break on March 23-27. Finally, staff and students are settling into new routines.

Unless things change either at building, district or state levels, for now, Amber has broken up school days with small-group sessions. On Fridays, the whole class meets online.

School rules still apply in most matter such as technology. Amber said students could rejoin a Google Meet session on their own to socialize.

“Do remember you’re under the School District 5 umbrella,” she advised, reiterating a version of the school’s behavior focus areas, “Be respectful, be responsible and be safe.”

Classroom etiquette of raising hands is still important, and when a student raises their hand online, a message box pops up to notifying the teacher. Except for the occasional reminder to unmute their microphones when they talk, this group of students appear comfortable using the different programs to learn remotely. Still, Amber made sure if students could see or access materials.

“I’m going to switch my camera to my document camera,” she said as a math worksheet appeared on the screen. “I’m not sure if you guys saw my video this morning explaining it. Most of you guys don’t need my explanation, but I’m going to show you really quick in case you haven’t pulled it off the internet. All right, someone unmute and tell me if you can see that.”

Amber said she was glad she started implementing technology or programs being used now, awhile ago. She said other teachers, however, may be starting from the beginning.

WHEN THE session is over, students answered questions about how remote learning is going. The small group of five gave a resounding “yes,” to being asked if they missed physically attending school — even if some of them get to wear pajamas to class online.

Fifth-grader Keegan West misses the social aspect of going to school.

“I miss going to school, seeing my friends and seeing the teachers,” West said.

Missing out on that social aspect has been compounded by playground closures and stay-at-home directives.

“We were playing baseball for awhile, but now we stay indoors,” West said.

Social connections are important to learning, which is why many schools in the valley are trying to maintain a semblance of it online. To liven the mood in a stressful time, Amber played an April Fool’s joke on students with funny math word problems that Caleb O’Connell and classmate Brodyn DeShaw couldn’t explain without laughing.

“How did I not figure it out right away?” DeShaw said, raising his hands in the air. “It was hilarious.”

Staying motivated to learn or complete work can be a tough one for students when their routines and schedules have been upended. Each of them break up the day a little differently.

“I spend a couple hours learning, then hanging out with family,” O’Connell said.

“I try to do work from 9 to 1:30,” fifth-grader Eli Barney added.

“My mom tries to keep me on a normal school schedule,” West said.

“Our family does all the work at once,” fifth-grader Burke Woolen said.

This week Amber plans to return to Edgerton to get some materials from her classroom and plan. The last time everyone was in school was Friday, March 13, and things were left behind, even students’ backpacks, with full expectation school would be in session as usual the following Monday.

As a mother of children in various grades — 13-year-old Owen and 11-year-old Marlo, a seventh- and sixth-grader respectively, at Kalispell Middle School, and Lola, a second-grader at Edgerton — Amber said it can be challenging to keep tabs on different grade-level expectations.

“It’s not easy even for me and I’m a teacher,” Amber said. “You have to trust in the kids.”

She empathizes with parents who may find themselves struggling to balance a new role of co-teacher and worried if they are doing enough, or if their child is learning enough. This balance may be more intense if those parents are also working.

“It has to be enough,” Amber said about the limitations to what can be accomplished under such extraordinary circumstances. “Whatever you can do is the right amount. That’s just my opinion though. I know there’s lots of people that don’t feel like that.

“The important thing right now is connection,” she said.

Sharing bandwidth in the Carpenter home has proved to be somewhat of an issue when her children and husband are all home using it at once for work and school.

While Amber logged onto her meeting with administrators, upstairs, Marlo was drawing rock layers on her laptop for her science class.

“Luckily they’re not assigning too much, but then you also have a lot of free time,” Marlo said, but nowhere to go.

She said her mom has helped out by giving her siblings a checklist, which helps give routine to their day such as chores, calling relatives, or playing piano. Their usual free-time activities consist of playing in the yard, ping-pong, swinging or bicycling.

For a class like physical education, Marlo said her teacher, Kirstyn Haugenoe, sends out daily videos showing exercises students can do at home.

Band teacher Hank Handford had to get creative.

“So for band, he wants us to do porch concerts every day; they’re optional, but you can do them at 2 o’clock or whenever you like. The idea of it is just to bring joy to people and also to see if you can hear anyone else,” said Marlo, a flute player.

“And then he sends out a weekly video. This week is a play-along. He’s going to play and then we get to play along with him,” she continued. “He doesn’t get to know what we sound like, but we write a report to him about how we think we did.

Just as Amber’s students miss school, so does Marlo. It’s something she agreed you don’t realize how much you miss it until it’s gone.

“I’m a people-person. I’m missing being around people,” she said.

Reporter Hilary Matheson may be reached at 758-4431 or hmatheson@dailyinterlake.com.