They are all wearing masks,
but they are collaborating.
They are sitting, six feet apart,
but they are united.
They are focused, eyes fixed on their screens
and leaning over their desks. They look intense.
Dialed-in.
Fixated.
Immersed.
Engaged.
Locked-in.
Driven.
I have challenged them to create a presentation about cities--cities of Southwest Asia. Some people, we discussed, call it the middle east. These are cities whose names are challenging to pronounce and many of them are cities they didn’t even know existed.
I have given them twenty minutes to create the presentation.
Twenty minutes to think about the audience, the clarity, the images, the words.
They have twenty minutes to collaborate, to share their work, to ask questions of each other, to edit, to provide feedback.
Sure, they have created powerpoints before.
But never at the same time.
Never sitting six feet apart.
Never with masks.
Never on a Monday morning.
As their teacher watches their every move.
I listen to the noise of their connections...
“Okay, I will start the Google doc and share it with everyone.”
“I just created the slides, so everyone pick a country and write your name next to it on the first slide.”
“Everybody write down the city you are doing.”
“Should we all use the same type of slide?”
“Yes...we need parallel structure.”
“Okay, everyone I made my slide--”
“Now you have to do research. We need to get images of the flags.”
“Is anyone doing Jerusalem?”
“I am.”
“Okay. I will do Kuwait City.”
“How do you make the box thing?”
“Oh, I’ll come show you.”
“Do we just need two facts about each city?”
“Where are we supposed to put the pictures?”
“Let’s do it in the blue area.”
“So, just bullet points?”
“Yes. The city, the country, and an image of the city and the country’s flag.”
“Can I listen to music while I work?”
“I watched a video about a guy who listened to music and got, like, a lot of homework done.”
“So we are just doing image, flag, and two facts, right?”
“So, how many facts?...just two?”
“Just check the requirements page.”
[8 minutes in and now nobody is talking…]
“Time check. How are we doing?”
“When does the class end? 9:25?”
“We have 11 minutes left.”
“Can someone reshare the document with me?”
“I got you, I got you.”
“Can we have more than one picture?”
“Can we do more than two bullet points?”
“Wait, there are 22 slides, but only 14 of us...some of us will have to do more if we finish early.”
“Okay, I got you.”
“Can someone do Medina?”
“Let’s make a list of the remaining ones.”
“Okay, time check…”
“This looks awesome everyone.”
“One minute…”
“Okay, who’s got San’aa?”
“Riyadh is almost done.”
“Make sure you put where the country is.”
“This worked out better than I thought.”
I am wearing a mask as my students close their laptops.
I am wearing a mask as they rush out of the room to recess.
I am wearing a mask, and beneath it I am smiling.
