The Good Kind of Emotional Contagion?
I'm not sure if the term "emotional contagion" sounds worse than it really is. Maybe. Maybe not.
Maybe not, if you, like me, taught on Zoom this year.
I've heard people say that they had their best teaching years on Zoom.
I kind of wonder about that. Just a *little* bit. (Is that terrible to say? Maybe?)
Because the pandemic wasn't really that good for a lot of students. Not to say all students, because some students are naturally, innately resilient, and got through and even flourished. Some with anxiety disorders, such as social anxiety, found virtual school, and even "Zoom school," much more accommodating than its f2f equivalent.
But other students fell apart, as teacher Marisa Howe noted in a WBUR survey:
For those strong students who suddenly found themselves "crumbling," this NYT op-ed by Adam Grant points to a phenomenon called "collective effervescence" as both the cause and cure of such deterioration. Cause, because the pandemic took away our ability to gather together and experience "collective" joy--and cure, because bringing that ability back will ostensibly help those suffering kids bounce back again.
I've seen it in my own child, who started off the pandemic a smiling extrovert, still happy and resilient through her f2f school's transition to Zoom, and then somehow rounding this past year off in June as a second-grader enrolled in a pandemic-necessitated virtual school, in tears of frustration.
On paper, it looked like she was doing well in her virtual school--but doing "well" on paper is not the same as thriving IRL. She acutely missed her old school, her friends, her first-grade teacher, the playground, the field trips--pretty much everything, but mostly the people and the collective, in-person, shared experience that those people created together. Or, simply put, she missed being a kid at school.
Things had to change. They will change. So, no more virtual school next year.
No more "new normal," as teachers and parents in the WBUR survey echoed.
In the meantime--and as soon as I confirmed my second vaccine dose in April--I rushed to enroll my daughter in swim lessons, one of the "safer" sports, according to my panicky research. It was a bit of a double-edged choice: Swimming = safer at pool and beach, eventually; swimming = lower COVID-19 risk (other low-risk sports: golf, tennis, bicycling). Or make that triple-edged sword: Swimming = emotional and mental well-being.
For my daughter, swimming with two or three kids, four days a week was enough of a positive "emotional contagion" to see her once again flourish. The more she swam, the fewer the tears, until there were pretty much no more tears at all.
Six weeks later, we went on our first vacation. And for the first time, she could jump in, swim across the pool on her own, and swim back again. When we got home, she kept on swimming, and started practicing with a team three days a week. On most days, there are lots of kids (and many a teenager), swimming lap after lap. It's serious, but there's a group energy between the kids that I think Adam Grant would call "collective effervescence"--or that "specific kind of joy we've been missing":
What "specific kind of joy(s)" did you miss most this year? (Or still miss?)
Teachers, parents: Could you relate with what Marisa Howe said?
Let me know in the comments--I'd love to hear your thoughts. đź’ś
I'm so glad you've found an activity that is giving your daughter joy and connecting her to others.
ReplyDeleteI'm missing the joy of travel. It's that simple. I'm an introvert. My whole family is. It's sort of been a relief to be free of social obligations (that sounds awful, I know -- I promise I like people, but I get my fill at work all day). However, I've not had the freedom to go off to new spots in the midst of the uncertainty. A few weeks before the pandemic changed it all I spent a Saturday wandering all around Tel Aviv on my own. It was pure joy for me!
My introvert family got off easy this year. My daughter (6th grade) loved being in DA (and her school did it really well with no concurrent classes). She wants DA again, and is sad to return to school. I was surprised because she always liked going to school, but this year she thrived on reading novels, doing creative things, swinging and running outside (alone or with the dog) and doing her coursework. She had ballet daily, and I let her do that in person, so she had some human contact.
As a teacher, however, I could feel the sense that so many around me were (are) suffering, and tried to be sensitive to it. I tried to be available (but oh how the zooms wear me out).
I long to travel again. Alone. And just wander through a city to see what it has to offer.
Love this post!
ReplyDeleteI read this article after it came in one of my newsfeeds. Interesting that swimming helped your daughter feel connected. My oldest was a competitive swimmer and he talked about his relationship with the tiles on the pool floor. He knew them intimately, singing songs to them as he swam, and never really got that “team” feeling. Shifting to playing soccer was a learning curve for him.
I spent A LOT of time providing Zoom training for new volunteers and their faces all looked the same. Some facial expressions deteriorated faster than others over the course of 3-4 weeks but overall, the college students suffered the most. I would open every session with the same question – how are you doing? How is school? Are you getting outside? I felt like their mom but some needed just one individual to ask them if they were ok and it made all the difference.
The older trainees weren’t spending as much time on Zoom as the students. In fact, they liked Zoom as it provided connections to their grandchildren.
Over the past year, I have often thought about how I and my children would have survived with 15-, 12- and 5-year-old boys during a pandemic. The thoughts are troubling. So glad your daughter (and you) have turned the corner.