By Lora Bartlett (UCSC Education Department)
Contributions from Building Belonging Fellow: Lila Harte
July 19, 2021
Suddenly distant from their students, teachers were on their own to make school happen.
A week before spring semester 2020, as COVID-19 gripped the nation, researcher and college professor Lora Bartlett was told to take her 300-student undergraduate education course online. She had no idea how to do that. Like millions of K-12 teachers, she was “suddenly distant” from her students and from her colleagues. Her twin daughters likewise found themselves finishing high school at the dining room table, with their teachers doing all they could to be present even while remote.
The experience spurred Bartlett along with three colleagues to conduct an in-depth study of public school teachers’ work during the pandemic. Bartlett draws on the study, “Suddenly Distant,” for these four essays. The series depicts how teachers coped during an unprecedented disruption to education. But it also explores what those 16 months mean for the future of teaching.
This research was supported by Building Belonging Undergraduate Fellowships from the Institute for Social Transformation at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
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