I woke from a fitful sleep with a twisted gut. I was not looking forward to another week of teaching online after the holidays and feared the emptiness of the silent, lonely virtual space. I really wasn’t sure how this class of grade 9 students would be with “doing school” now that we are in another Stage 2 COVID protocol in Ontario. In person, in the afternoon, in groups, they had been noisy and lively and difficult to motivate beyond small group social interactions. Sometimes, I had to move from group to group to repeat the same instructions over and over because the whole class could not focus on instructions at once. But they were learning. The space was alive with energy, vitality, and this diverse group had both challenged and inspired me to look at new ways of assessing learning.

At the beginning of the semester, one student told me that I’d never make him read – in fact, he leaned forward staring intently at me until I moved closer to hear these definitive words. This forceful declaration was made on the same day that he shared his diagnosis of autism and oppositional defiance disorder with the whole class. I remember smiling, thanking him for sharing and saying, “we all have something that we are working on.” Within a few weeks, he realized that I was still providing reading time at the beginning of class, so he gave up on just sitting and started reading Jurassic Park. During our daily walk breaks we talked about it and I learned so much about his knowledge of dinosaurs, how he read and questioned the accuracy of the story. Once back in the classroom, I quickly documented the evidence and within weeks he was reading the second in the series, smiling at his own accomplishments. I marvelled with him at his success and we calculated how fast he was reading then compared this to the audio book. (He loves math so any opportunity to interconnect the disciplines helps keep him motivated.)

So on this first day after the winter break, this first day of more virtual learning for a group desperate for the vitality of the physical world, I wasn’t sure who would appear in the Google Meet. I opened our virtual space early and surprisingly a few faces appeared, turning on cameras to show me their pets or share news from the holidays. A baby crested gecko caught the attention and I heard the coos of many, a Bernese drooled in one square, a freshly groomed white miniature Poodle appeared in another, and these early moments of show and tell felt as warm and inviting as anything in person. I thought, “Huh. It’s really not that bad.”

Then, my reluctant reader mentioned above, turned on his camera and lifted a book to the screen. “Hey miss! Look what I got for Christmas. It’s another Michael Creighton book.” One piece of evidence that I had not been able to elicit either in person or through a podcast was reading fluency. I had the sense that he was a careful reader and critical thinker from our book-talk-walks, but I hadn’t heard him read aloud. An opportunity opened and I showed enthusiasm, interest, and a need to know more. “Wow. That book looks so interesting and I might want to read it. Can you read my the summary or review on the back of the book?” Without pause he did, carefully and precisely pronouncing each word, using voice inflection and emphasis for effect with all the skill of a masterful audiobook advertisement.

I checked off that skill on his evidence record and reminded myself, yet again, this is not so bad.

This week I’m teaching from my physical classroom at the school, but online. I’m standing alone in this open space of empty desks. It’s just me in here. And, my brain knows that everyone else is out there, virtually, but there is physical space separating us making me feel…well, lonely.

Then something serendipitous happened today. But, I’ll need to back up a bit.

I started my post-secondary education in the field of science. My first love of reading was a book classified as science fiction and I was always mesmerized by the natural world. The earth was the source of my creative play during the summer as I hid in trees, wove placemats and baskets from willow boughs, and built frog cities near the Humber River.

And then I discovered language and story pulled me back from the seemingly detached and clinical world of academic science. I fell in love with poetry and words that connected the emotional and sensory experience of the world.

Now, I teach English, but science calls me back, over and over. Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer may be the most important book of my lifetime because it showed me the damage and fragmentation which colonized academia created and then spread to the world.

What I didn’t realize then, but do now, is that I can love and be both – English and science. I don’t have to love or be one or the other. Esther Perel speaks of this paradox noting that “Love rests on two pillars: surrender and autonomy. Our need for togetherness exists alongside our need for separateness. One does not exist without the other.” 

In my planning for the analysis unit in grade 12 English on Sunday night, I happened across this beautiful persuasive animated poem. I decided to share the brilliance and beauty with my students.

“Singularity (after Stephen Hawking)” by Marie Howe

I hoped the poem would resonate, posted it on Twitter, and then got this message from a colleague, a science teacher who just happens to be a former student now grown and working at the same high school where I teach:

Sabrina and I had been talking about writing an interdisciplinary science and English class just a few days before this post. Our conversations and thinking merged offline and then united online, this braiding and winding of thinking and communicating as if moving together as one. I can’t explain why this lifted my spirits so much other than this – the feeling of minds flowing along similar waves makes the world feel more united, singular, and a little less lonely.