It is with pleasure that I take overas MCATA newsletter editor, and I am honoured to serve on the MCATA executive. I thank Stacey Wu for her long-time service in this role and for her mentorship as I step into it.
What a time to be a math teacher! Under normal circumstances, the challenges are hard enough. We attempt to teach complicated and abstract mathematical concepts in large classes while students deal with a host of social, familial or personal stressors. This fall, the conditions for learning became even more difficult to navigate as we began the school year with COVID-19 at the forefront of our thinking.
Our students, or most of them, returned to our physical classrooms in September, nervous but ready to learn and excited to be with us. They were willing to don masks, follow arrows, wipe desks, stay in their seats and remain in their cohorts if it meant they could be in a classroom setting with their peers. They soaked up the IRL learning. With hardly an exception, they told me they were relieved to be back in school.
As the term continued, conditions became more challenging. Students regularly missed classes due to COVID-like symptoms, sick siblings or anxious parents. Then we had our first COVID-19 case, resulting in the isolation of four teachers and nearly 100 students, then a second case and a third. Substitute teachers were scarce, and many teachers used theirprep periods to cover colleagues’ classes. Before long, Grades 7–12 students transitioned to online learning for the final three weeks of school before the Christmas break. The situation was similar for schools throughout Alberta. Disruption to learning is an understatement.
In the midst of these disruptions, colleagues in my math department, and in my entire school, rose to the challenge, never foregoing their empathy, professionalism and passion. I observed teachers teach all day in masks, prep engaging classes while maintaining an online presence for students at home, teach their at-school classes via Zoom only one day after being quarantined at home, bring clean clothing and snacks for students in need, counsel students through grief, build a sense of school community amid the restricted atmosphere, and, as always, comfort anxious students and support their colleagues, all while maintaining a refreshing sense of humour. On November 30, I observed teachers transition to online teaching (joining other colleagues who had been teaching online all term) with no gap in learning, no less commitment to their practice. In the midst of all of these challenges, mathematical concepts were taught, passion for the subject was conveyed and curricular outcomes were assessed. I’m inspired, and I’m certain my observations represent teachers across this province.
I have never been prouder to be a math teacher and a member of MCATA, the body of math teachers in Alberta.
Dale Block
