By Lecturer Cynthia Zwicky in elementary education in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction.

We are filling our feeds with ideas for online learning options and ways for parents to support their children at home during this shutdown. What we are not elevating is how to support the children for whom online learning and unscheduled time at home is a challenge.

This is the time when *maybe* people will realize what a teacher’s job truly is. It’s a teacher who works to understand each child as an individual and structures his/her classroom to support those needs. As a parent, I can admit that I don’t always know what’s best for my child’s learning. I am ever grateful to her teachers who knew.

For every child who will be writing her daily schedule and filling her time with pursuits of curiosity and adventure there will be many more children who will be stuck. Those are the children who relied on a one-on-one check in with their teacher /associate educator /support staff/ bus driver. And this is the hidden curriculum, the invisible job description of everyone who works at a school: to see these children. To know and understand these children. And to teach these children….By any means necessary.

Learn more about the teacher training programs in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction.