My experience student teaching at Liberty Center Schools is one that nobody could have ever anticipated. Since my high school student teaching experience lined up perfectly with the COVID-19 pandemic, I had to completely rethink the way I approached teaching. I worked with my wonderful CMT, Amy Spieth, to devise a plan that would fill the changing requirements of the district, work within my personal teaching philosophy,  and maintain respect and compassion for students and families affected by the virus.

    Art is not the easiest subject to teach online since it is inherently visual. Many challenges arose as I continued to modify and adapt my lessons to fit an online format. Luckily, the school loans Chromebooks to students to make an online format even possible. Knowing that each student will have different resources at home, I chose to make my projects as open-ended as possible by allowing student choice in terms of media. I have always believed that student choice is important in my classroom so students can develop meaningful connections to their projects, but I continued to stretch this concept to meet the needs of students with little resources. I connected projects to many artistic movements, artists, and central themes that teach a wide variety of concepts at respective levels. Busywork is not a part of my teaching philosophy, and I strived to instill a fine arts motivation even in an online format. Students were required to research, plan, and create full projects at home. One of the adaptations I made was the amount of time I gave students to complete the required material. Knowing that some students were essential employees, were caregivers to younger siblings, or may have been dealing with personal issues at home during this, I made sure I gave students extended due dates for projects. I continued communication with students through email as I required weekly check-ins to analyze student progress and to provide feedback.

    The COVID-19 pandemic was an unexpected end to my student teaching experience as I was unable to even see my students. I feel so deeply towards all of my students that I will not even be able to say goodbye to. We have all missed out on important events, but we must remember that our students are missing out on their proms, their art shows, their sports, their graduations-everything they have worked for and looked forward to in their high school career. Over and over they seem to lose, but they continue to pick themselves up. They do their online schooling. They Snapchat with friends. They watch movies as a family and help them clean the kitchen. They keep on going. They are sad and they are strong. The least we can do is give them the gift of acknowledging their losses. We need to be so careful to not play the "Well at least...." game. There is no comparing what they are losing. We can't make up for their losses, but we can love them through it.

    In my endeavors to complete my student teaching experience, I have had to approach this topic more than once. I've had question if my methods are helping them learn or adding to their stress and then continue to reconfigure my strategies and expectations to meet their needs. I instilled a lot of faith in my students during this process, and I was not disappointed. My students proved to me their sense of responsibility, insight, and true togetherness during this plight. I am continuously astounded by their creativity and passion. While this experience hints that I am flexible, versatile, and can solve a variety of problems as a teacher, I think my students work proves that. My students are the real heroes of this story. They deserve this win.