I know this is hard to believe, but in several of the team meetings I attended today, some of our strong, motivated, creative teachers worried aloud, bravely (and, often in tears):

I don’t want to let our students and our families down. They are working so hard. They are learning so much. I am afraid that I am not doing enough to serve them, you. I am letting y’all [my team] down.

Hardly anything consoles these wonderful, dedicated teachers.

Fear of not being enough. Wow!

So, friends, I’m here to say that you are enough:
teachers and parents.

I want you to talk back to that fear. Tell it all the things you are doing: video production, planning, feedback, assessment, nurturing children, engaging with and teaching children, meeting with your team, and countless many more activities all directed at the social, emotional, physical, mental, and academic wellness of our learners.

There is evidence that our teachers are teaching and our students are learning. Lots of evidence. Just flip back through the last 30 days of these Learning From Home posts. Look through #TrinityLearns – ’cause we are!

So… what to do when evidence is not enough?

Hmm…

Oh, I know…

This is so me…

Let’s do some math.

My family loves the Marvel movies. There is ongoing debate in my home on the betterness of watching them in order of their release or in chronological order. (I wonder… have you seen these movies?)

Here are some data:

Did you know that Endgame, a 3-hour movie with a cast of 62 and a crew of I-can’t-tell-how-many, was filmed in 153 days?

From Quora: “Endgame has started on the 10th August 2017 and finished on the 11th of January 2018 so it took 155 days in total, 5 thirty one day months end to end.) They probably took Christmas eve and Christmas Day off, so it could actually be 153 days of filming and this probably wasn’t the finished product, with editing and CGI still needed to be added to this massive production.”

So, 153 days at 10 hours/day of filming is 1530 hours of filming for a 3-hour movie, or 510 hours of filming for each hour of the film. And, that does not include editing, processing, scriptwriting, etc. Nor, does it include the planning, location scouting, and scriptwriting. And, these are professional actors and filmmakers.

Let’s say you teach Kindergarten at Trinity. The sum total of minutes of video for today, Monday, April 27 is approximately… no… let’s add it up.

• • Ms. Shaun’s Seesaw directions for Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus was 1:01.
  • Miss Brooke’s Take a Peek into the Week (of Word Work and Sight Words) was 6:53.
  • Miss Becky’s Ten if a Crab Read Aloud was 6:45.
  • Miss Caroline’s Making Animal and Numeral Cards was 16:17.
  • Ms. Burton’s Life Cycle was 9:33.
  • Coach Laura posted a Message From Coach Laura, Animal Toss, and Towel Golf and the total was 3:52.

So, if my math is correct, that’s 44 minutes and 21 seconds worth of teacher produced video just for today.  Can we call it 3/4 of an hour?

If we call it 3/4 of an hour and if our teachers were professional moviemakers, that would be 38.25 days of work to produces just shy of 45 minutes of video.

3 hours of movie in 153 days of filming reduces to
1 hour of video in 51 days.

3/4 of an hour of video would then be 3/4 of 51 days
or 38 1/4 days.

Now, teachers are not professional filmmakers. We are professional educators trained to love, nurture, guide, teach, reteach, and shepherd our students through their learning journeys.

In addition to video production, teachers facilitate morning meetings, small group work for differentiation, book clubs, math small groups, and many other things our students need each day.

Wow! What teachers are doing for our students and with teammates is important, hard, intentional, time-consuming work.

So here are questions to consider:

• Are we focused on learning? Are the lessons and videos we develop intentionally planned and executed?
• Is collaboration our culture? Are we working in intentional, focused ways as teams?

Results guide our decisions.
We are teaching and they are learning.

The math says so, and the evidence says so too.

School does not feel like school right now.

Yet, we are teaching and they are learning, and we are learning, too.

We are professional educators trained and driven to love, nurture, guide, teach, reteach, and shepherd our students through their learning journeys.

Results guide our decisions.

We are teaching and they are learning.
(The math says so.)
The evidence says so.