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| Photo courtesy of Pridham's Studio |
“Hard to believe it’s already the middle of May,” says Dorian Dorn when I reach him at home in Wallace, on the north shore of Nova Scotia. “I just don’t know where the time has gone. Every day seems to be the same because we don’t go anywhere but in that, it’s all new, too. It’s a very weird place to be.”
Dorian is a teaching administrator, which means he’s the principal of Wallace Consolidated Elementary School (WCES) and he spends part of the morning teaching the P-3 class. The school in Wallace is small – three full-time staff members teaching Primary to Grade Six – but this is what makes the school so special to Dorian.
“Being a small school, we’re big on relationships, and connecting to the kiddos. The staff and the students, you become like a family because you get to know them so well. We’ve essentially been out of school for two months; it’s almost like summer has gone by,” he says. “So we’re missing the relationships and the connections we had with the kids as a family.”
According to Dorian, the pandemic and resulting state of emergency turned education completely on its head. Perhaps the biggest change/adjustment/challenge has been the unavoidable shift from five-hours of instruction time in a six-hour day at school, to one hour of online learning each day.
When the school year ends on June 5th, staff and students in Nova Scotia will have had nine weeks of online learning and learning at home.
“Teachers have continued their planning,” Dorian says, “but it’s pared down to find out what is the best use of their time and what can they provide for students that families can support them with, and what we can support them with when we’re not face-to-face.”
That paring down perhaps reminded everyone in education what really matters most: in-person interaction. Dorian says people get into teaching because they love kids, and he believes this time apart, in isolation, adapting to new ways of communicating, is actually “reinvigorating”.
While the sudden move to total technology put some teachers out of their comfort zone, “they’ve been really creative in exploring and doing their own professional development, and looking at different ways they can do things,” says Dorian, praising those teachers who had to ‘hit the ground running’ and learn online platforms quickly.
Dorian expects the increased use of technology will benefit his small school.
“It’s going to be great for collaboration between teachers. At bigger schools, if you have four Grade Three teachers, you can all get together [in person] and plan and collaborate. For us, as a small school, we have two full-time teachers plus myself then everyone else comes in to do music, French, and gym, then leaves. So digital collaboration will allow teachers to meet virtually and discuss planning, student achievement and professional development.”
He also believes it will keep pushing teachers out of their comfort zone.
“I’m as guilty as anybody for finding what works and sticking with it. Finding new ways to engage the kiddos is really important.”
I asked him how, on a scale of one to ten (ten being normal school life), he thinks he and his colleagues are doing?
“Seven to eight,” he says after a moment of consideration. “There are the challenges of internet connectivity but there’s also problem-solving and being creative. Staff everywhere are meeting all those challenges and dealing with them head-on.”
When he thinks about the positive stories he’s heard, along with the frustrations and confusion, Dorian concludes that those happen on a daily basis during a normal school day, and a lot of what happens is beyond anyone’s control (like how the weather affects internet connectivity on the north shore).
“As teachers and administrators, we got to slow down and really focus on well-being and taking all that tertiary stuff out. Not that it’s not important but in these times, it’s more important to make sure everyone is well and safe and happy before we worry about all the other stuff.”
This resonates especially with Dorian, an educator for ten years, because this is the school and community in which he grew up so he feels particularly protective of and connected to both.
“This was my elementary school, and now I’m living at home and working at the same school I attended,” he says. “It’s a different perspective [being a teacher/principal] but it’s my elementary school and I feel very invested in it. I loved going there, and I love going there every day; I always feel like I’m home. I think that fosters the family feeling with the kiddos. They know me and I know them. On a good day, we all get along very well, and the staff works really hard all year to build that.”
He admits what he misses most is chatting with the students, parents, and staff before and after school.
“We’re so fortunate to be in a community that supports the school and we support the community.” He laughs. “I love being here and hopefully I’ll stay here for years to come.”
~ by Sara Jewell
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