Reflections on a Year of Tele-therapy

When we started our jobs in the public schools, we never in a million years imagined we’d become tele-therapists for a whole year. Tele-therapy was never something we gained experience with in graduate school, was never something we ever thought we’d be doing. We love our jobs in the schools! We love seeing our students in person! There was never a thought of anything different. But if this past year has taught us anything, it’s that nothing is predictable, and everything can change in a moment.

When we transitioned home last March, we had to figure out how to make tele-therapy work for our high school students (and ourselves). That meant juggling our young children and puppies, learning online platforms, and transforming paper materials into digital ones. We consider ourselves pretty technologically savvy people, but this was a whole new ballgame for us. Add to that the combination of outreaching and scheduling upwards of 50 students, quarantining with our husbands and children, and a global pandemic. We found ourselves in a real pickle.

But somehow, slowly, we acclimated to our new normal. And over time, our new normal became pretty comfortable. Of course there is nothing like seeing our students in person-  it’s why we love our jobs so much! But as our crazy year comes to a close, we wanted to share some of our reflections, thoughts, and takeaways from a year remote.

What We Liked:

1. Less paper!! No more copies, copy machines, and staples! We loved feeling like we were more environmentally friendly. 
2. Less bodily odors. This one speaks for itself 🙂
3. Easier access to students’ classwork via Google Classroom. We loved how easy it was to see what our students were working on in their classes. In such large high schools, it is hard to keep in touch with all our students’ teachers. However, access to their Google Classrooms made this so much easier!
4. Easier communication methods with students (Google Classroom, Remind, Google Voice). Our students finally became used to checking their emails every day making our lines of communication much more fluid.
5. GOOGLE SLIDES! We could write an entire blog post about how much we love Google Slides!! Our favorite features were that we could individualize slides for every student with simple visuals and we could see them working in real time.
6. Screen sharing was so easy and made for easier access to videos, short films, and visuals.
7. No commuting. Although we missed our morning radio shows, we did NOT miss the traffic!
8. A less expensive, more comfy work wardrobe. And less makeup, thanks to the “fix your appearance” on Zoom!
9. Being home allowed for more flexibility with our kids, puppies, appointments, etc. 
10. We got a snapshot into our student’s personal lives. Oftentimes our students’ parents, siblings, and pets made appearances, allowing us to get to know our students on a more personal level.

What We Didn’t Like:

1. Busy environments at home caused some students to always remain on mute or become distracted. 
2. Some students rarely turned their cameras on and made it hard to establish rapport.
3. Isolated work environment. We are used to our rooms always being full of life, with students and coworkers. Working from home often felt isolating and lonely. 
4. Some students fell off the map and were hard to reach, no matter how often or varied the outreach attempts were.
5. We didn’t REALLY get to meet our Freshmen students. Our rapport has solely been established through a computer screen!
6. Technology issues! Slow wifi, getting kicked out of video sessions, and laggy screen sharing slowed us and our therapy down.
7. Work/home life boundaries were often blurred. We found ourselves working MORE from home, and often students and their families reached out after hours.

What We Learned:

1. We are adaptable! If we can handle the unpredictable changes that this past year brought, we can handle anything! 
2. Online organization systems on Google Drive, Keep, etc. were new and fun to learn.
3. So many new platforms and websites such as Kami, Baamboozle, EdPuzzle, Wheel of Names. We look forward to incorporating these into our sessions in the therapy room.
4. How to create materials and resources for a digital world. We plan to continue using digital resources in the future.
5. New technology tips and tricks from our students.
6. The importance of coworkers. Having each other’s support made this year a lot easier. Knowing we were all going through this year together was so helpful. 

What We’re Looking Forward To:

1. Working with our students around one table, together, in the same room!!
2. Seeing our coworkers every day.
3. Saying hi to all of our students in the hallways.
4. Feeling short again standing next to our students.
5. Seeing how our students’ social skills carry over into the building.
6. No mute option!!

As we prepare to head back into the therapy room next year with a full caseload of in-person students, we will take away so many memories from this year. It was a year full of uncertainty, stress, hard work, and anxiety, but seeing our students every day, albeit on the computer, made it all worth it. We are so excited to see our students in September and to get back to a sense of normalcy. But for now…a well deserved summer break 🙂