By Noemi Lepe-Vera, Social Science Teacher, Madera South High School

NOEMI LEPE-VERA is currently a Social Science Teacher at Madera South High School. She has been a part of the Madera Unified community for the past 17 years. Like many other teachers, Lepe-Vera has had to learn to adapt to the new way of teaching during the Coronavirus Pandemic. We asked some teachers what it was like to teach during this unprecedented public health emergency.

Being a teacher during the coronavirus pandemic has been the hardest time in my teaching career. I love being with students and not being near them is difficult for my soul but also to be an effective teacher, since I feel I don’t really know my students, their needs, or little ways that I can motivate them to do better. 

Some of the challenges have been not seeing some of them, since they do not want to show themselves during class and the constant distractions that students have in their homes, which prevents them from focusing and finishing their assignments. 

Some highlights are that I have had to be very concise and to the point in order to teach in a more straight forward method. I have been digitizing many things that I had not in the past, which I feel will come in handy after the pandemic. 

My hopes for the future are that parents understand that we need them to be our biggest cheerleaders in order for us (teachers) to be able to help their children. I also hope that we figure out ways to involve our parents more, to help us with improving our educational expectations and results overall.