How My Covid Job Changed My Attitude Toward Learning
Part of me was happy when the world shut down. The Covid-19 Pandemic had shut down in-person classes at my college. Two weeks off turned into two months, then four, then six. Even then, I don’t think any of us thought it would be roughly two years before we saw the inside of a school again.
During a global mandated quarantine, you find hobbies, or at least you try to find hobbies. Some people took up guitar, others knitted. We did this not just for the long hours, but as an emotional distraction, anything to fill the silence. I was 19. I texted with friends about their canceled concerts and upcoming trips. I listened to my mom on the phone, as she heard nothing but more and more bad news. Days drifted from one to the next, and my only reason for going outside was the nanny gig I had five days a week.
I first met the mom at the Starbucks downtown after she found me on Nanny.com. We talked outside while her two daughters, one three, the other five, took turns running around a chair, laughing hysterically. The restaurant I had been working at closed down when the news hit, and I knew I should be looking for a new source of funds sooner rather than later. The only experience I’d ever had working with kids was when I’d babysat my little cousin or looked after my little brother, and that didn’t amount to much. Nonetheless, I had a job and that was more than countless others could say at the time.
I pull into their driveway, and lug a giant bag over my shoulder, the same one I bring everyday. Within it are markers, colored paper, watercolor paint, and just about every other craft material you could find at your local Michaels Art Supply Store. As I open the front door and walk inside, I hear the high shrill screaming before I see them. Two little girls in nightgowns run towards me at full speed. The younger one, slips and falls on the wooden floor, but gets right back up and continues. The oldest, makes it to me first, and I pick her up before dropping my bag to the floor. At that point, I’d been nannying them for a few weeks, yet each time I arrive at the front door, it’s as though I’d been gone for years.
The girls and I often talked about the pandemic. Their understanding of it amounting to being unable to see friends, go to school or playdates, and being trapped at home. I think of how I was at their age, and if something like this were to have happened. As time goes on, I begin to notice their symptoms of Cabin Fever. Everyone was going through their own form of claustrophobic irritability, but it got me thinking about how it differed for kids. People, with emotions just as valid as adults, trapped indoors, all the while still being introduced to the world.
Their mom tells me that the eldest daughter’s school finally set up online learning for a few hours a day, and she would need help with the zoom classes. Right away, the nightmare ahead presents itself. I think of how I would be able to entertain an imaginative three-year-old while tutoring an ecstatic five-year-old. In between that, cooking meals, cleaning, and finally putting them to bed. My mind flashes to that morning, me curled up in bed, half-sleeping half-listening to my online college class with one eye open. How I could hope to inspire a desire for learning in another person when it had drained from me so long ago was beyond me.
The crying happened early on. Trying to navigate online classes was difficult enough for a college student, and for a five year old, sitting in front of a screen, given difficult assignments and deadlines, it was like a prison sentence. One half of my body played puppets with the youngest, while the other helped her older sister learn the spellings of “cat” and “dog” as she cried. Despite their best efforts, teachers were restricted in their ability to help. The eldest’s performance in school began to decline and her frustration grew. After several weeks, the youngests preschool went back in-person for a few hours a day, and I was able to help her sister one-on-one with her classes. This was the beginning of what would dramatically change my outlook on not just learning, but life.
The eldest’s online classes were the same each day: Reading and Writing, Math, PE, then Art, so she and I made the spare bedroom into her own personal office. While she did group assignments, I sat on the floor making the kind of posters you would see in a classroom (the abc’s, days of the week, the different seasons, counting to a hundred, etc). We littered the walls with these posters, and it only took over from there. Instead of following the set assignments during her art class (for example, drawing a standard tree and painting it the appropriate colors inside the lines), she and I created our own trees, painting them any color she wished. We made a banner which covered an entire wall, and filled it with pictures and words of things she loved about herself and her family. I hung party streamers from the ceiling and she organized her desk with her dog’s toys, nick-nacks from her room, and a framed picture of her and her dad at the daddy/daughter dance. We made the space her own, and I saw an improvement in her work.
I downloaded an app on my phone that was a collection of sounds, similar to the small soundboard I had as a kid in the early 2000’s with real buttons and a speaker. For every right answer, I played the sound of applause or a “ding!” For every wrong one, I played a “boo!” or a “womp, womp, womp”. Either way, she laughed, and it kept her excited to move onto the next question. We played games during her breaks and did yoga together during the hour set aside for PE. The more time went on, the more I noticed a hunger in her to learn. It wasn’t that she didn’t have an interest in school, the problem was the toll that online classes was having on her. I saw the other kids in her zoom class, heads in their hands, sitting at their kitchen tables alone, knowing that there is no reward waiting for them after the class but more time locked in their houses.
The youngest got home around 3pm everyday when her older sister’s classes finished. I never heard the car come up the driveway or the front door open, but I always knew she was home because of the sound of rapid footsteps and panting that would emerge right before the guest room door flew open and she stood there waiting for a hug and a “Hello! How was preschool today?” from me. After classes finished each day, the three of us spent as much time outside in their yard as possible, making potions and pushing them on their swing set while I taught them songs I learned at camp as a kid. We talked about the plants in their yard and how things grew. They asked what the clouds were and why it rained. We called these our “ecosystem talks” and their questions only got better. Before I answered any of their questions, I first returned it to them saying “well, what do you think?” I realized the learning didn’t need to stop just when class did.
When I first met them, they were terrified of bugs, especially spiders. Anytime we’d come across some while outside they would scream and run away. I began to bring a clear glass outside with me, placing it over a bug or spider if we ever came across one. Slowly but surely, they walked closer and closer to the glass, looking at the insect with a mixture of fear and curiosity. Eventually, they were able to stand near the glass and ask questions, such as “Where do they live? Do they have a family? What do they do for fun?”
They realized that not all bugs have food to bring home to their families, so we started making meals for them. These meals usually consisted of mud, twigs and small rocks. Satisfaction filled their faces, knowing that they had helped provide for another life, one that might have been in need. Together, we found purpose in the day to day. Making meals for the animals became a daily occurrence. The meals were always gone the next day and the girls jumped with excitement, knowing something had come along and taken it back home to their families. I never revealed that I went around the yard and collected the meals before I left for the night.
Once, two neighborhood boys came over while we were outside. They were all friends and started to play, but there came a moment when they all ran off in different directions. What does one do when four children run off in different directions all at once? One ran toward the busy street, the other toward a thorn bush, another toward the tool shed, and the last making her way under the porch that is littered with snakes and rocks. “I have a surprise!” I yell, and they all come running back to me. The only problem was, I had no surprise. It is moments like these when a person has to think on their feet. I take off my lace cardigan and tell them about its magical powers. I explain that only the most well behaved children are worthy of its capabilities. I place the cadigan over the youngest’s shoulders and her eyes open wide. For the rest of the day, they play together on the playground, looking at me wondering when they might be bestowed the powerful garment.
When I first took the job, I did so for money. Nothing could have prepared me for the connection I would make with these kids and how they would impact my life. They taught me more than I taught them. Their hunger to learn and understand the world around them ignited a spark in me that I thought had died out a long time ago. A spark that led me to apply to better schools I never dreamed of getting into, and actually getting accepted. What would have been an empty time of online classes and isolation turned into a fruitful lesson on what makes people excited to get out into the world. Covid affected all of us, but it affected kids the most. The fact that they were able to stay positive despite the masks and mandates took me aback.
Around 8pm, we read stories in bed and talked about the day and their plans for tomorrow. They had become very introspective over the months and their intuitiveness shocked me. Eventually, they would tire out and I sang (the only time I was ever thankful for, or in need of, my ten years in school choir) until their breathing evened out, and I could sneak down to the living room and read a book until their parents got home. Everytime we said goodnight, I hoped I had taught them something that day that would stick with them over the years. While many people are trying to put Covid behind them and forget, I can’t. There were countless challenges and hardships placed upon ordinary people, but for me, it was a time of change and realization.
After taking care of them for about a year and a half in-person classes came back in session. The lessons they taught me remain, and I hope it is the same for them. Covid taught me that it’s not hardship that stops someone, but losing motivation to get over that hardship. Life is about attitude, and 2020 was a year that made ours collectively plummet. Yet, we made it.
Originally, I wondered how I was going to inspire a desire for learning in another person, little did I know it was them who would do so to me.
