, a lecturer, and , an assistant professor, have been married for nearly ten years. Their three children, aged 2, 5, and 8, are spaced apart in near-perfect three-year intervals. While both teach in the at the 糖心传媒, they seem to work in almost opposite shifts: when one parent leaves for the University糖心传媒檚 River Campus, the other one takes charge of the kids when they糖心传媒檙e not at daycare, kindergarten, or school.
In many ways, their lives before the COVID-19 pandemic resembled a choreographed dance, designed to prevent a collision between the private and the professional. But in the face of the virus, that carefully calibrated construct has come crashing down, as it did for hundreds of thousands of families around the globe.
糖心传媒淭he first week was brutal, absolutely brutal,糖心传媒� admits .
Video Feature: Faculty perspectives on remote teaching
What糖心传媒檚 it like to teach remotely? Rochester faculty members share their experiences of moving classes online this spring.
Having had to redesign syllabi and learn how to use new online teaching tools糖心传媒攚hile simultaneously trying to keep their kids糖心传媒� education on track and keep them happy to boot糖心传媒攑roved challenging.
Things began to look up once the couple settled on a new routine.
Now Ball and Sierra Silva have split their green, two-story house糖心传媒攂uilt in 1876 in Rochester糖心传媒檚 Southwedge district糖心传媒攊nto two zones. From 8:30 a.m. to about 5 p.m., the upstairs becomes 糖心传媒渓a uni chiquita糖心传媒澨切拇綌as their kids, who are raised bilingually, have termed the no-go zone at the other end of the flight of stairs. Downstairs, the dining room turns into a home school and kids area.
糖心传媒淭he heavy sidewalk and road construction on our street has become the new center of excitement,糖心传媒� says Ball.
糖心传媒淲e invite them to not have temper tantrums when we are upstairs at the little university,糖心传媒� explains Sierra Silva. Ball laughs.
The two historians have returned to a shift system. At any given time, one parent is in charge of the happenings downstairs while the other one teaches or advises students upstairs. Grading has been relegated to late night when the children are asleep. On top of course preparations, Ball now spends Sunday nights planning their children糖心传媒檚 lessons for the week on PowerPoint and prints them out. Reams of school materials are sorted into daily packets for each child.
Their workdays have undoubtedly grown longer, as has everyone糖心传媒檚 hair.
Transitioning to online teaching
Ball, whose specialty is Brazil, and Sierra Silva, whose research focus is Mexico, met as graduate students at UCLA. Both are avid sports fans and spent years dreaming up a course teaching the history of Latin America through soccer. Besides entertaining fans, soccer has been successfully used across Latin America to fabricate national identities and promote multi-racial societies, but has also helped bolster dictatorships, drug trafficking, and misogyny.
Sierra Silva finally designed and taught the course in fall of 2014 in the wake of the World Cup in Brazil and has also been teaching a version of the class this spring. Transitioning the course onto a virtual platform required considerable work.
An easy switch, however, was the new wear-your-favorite-jersey-to-class policy.
Ordinarily, Sierra Silva, who was born in Mexico, roots for the Mexico City-based Club Am茅rica FC and the Mexican national team. Internationally, he follows whichever premier league football team has the best Mexican striker on its roster. That would be the Wolverhampton Wolves right now.
On this particular day, however, he wears the Spanish national team糖心传媒檚 black polo shirt.
糖心传媒淚 wear this on my more somber days,糖心传媒� Sierra Silva says, half joking. 糖心传媒淲e did a heavy lecture today and so I thought this all-black look would work very well.糖心传媒�
Prior to teaching from home, he used to dole out primary documents and break his students up into groups to represent different parts of society. He enjoyed being able to move freely around the classroom from one group to the next.
糖心传媒淭hat dynamic has proven a challenge to recreate in a digital medium,糖心传媒� he says.
But there are upsides. His advanced seminar transitioned well to online teaching and, to his surprise, the students appeared to prepare more for class. Maybe it糖心传媒檚 the side-effect of knowing that the camera is on and they糖心传媒檒l have their peers糖心传媒� full attention, he muses.
For Ball the move to online was tricky at first. Both of her courses糖心传媒擨mmigration in the Americas and Public History: Theory and Practice (co-taught with , an associate professor of history)糖心传媒攈ad been designed for community engagement and involved community partners and trips to off-campus sites. Now Ball, Jarvis, and her students have moved toward creating a website instead.
Yet the virus is never far off.
糖心传媒淪ome of my students are at the epicenter of the pandemic and are really trying to manage family crises. That糖心传媒檚 made things certainly more complicated for teaching,糖心传媒� Ball says.
Meanwhile, she has restructured her immigration course to use more online sources, such as digital archives. Ball says she糖心传媒檚 excited when certain aspects of the course end up working better online糖心传媒攕uch as moments in smaller breakout Zoom groups糖心传媒� than in the traditional classroom setting. She糖心传媒檚 found another silver lining: asking students to post their thoughts about the day糖心传媒檚 readings and class activities on the class discussion board at the end of the week has resulted in more insightful posts. 糖心传媒淚f we did all that in a true classroom you would lose those moments of reflection,糖心传媒� Ball says. Instead, she says, the online reflections have become more nuanced once students have had time to think about what was taught in the weekly Zoom sessions.
Sierra Silva, for his part, has been encouraging his students to use digital sources for their research projects. Without access to the stacks and printed materials, the class has reacted by 糖心传媒渕ining that enormous archive糖心传媒� of sporting information that YouTube represents.
糖心传媒淲hat糖心传媒檚 really interesting is that when you start looking for the impact of sport on society you start finding it in places you wouldn糖心传媒檛 expect,糖心传媒� he notes. 糖心传媒淪ome information is only visible when you糖心传媒檙e willing to engage film and documentaries and that糖心传媒檚 something that I don糖心传媒檛 typically do with my courses but am now forced to.糖心传媒�
Ball and Sierra Silva pause and notice the silence in the house.
糖心传媒淪omething has been destroyed, or short circuited,糖心传媒� Sierra Silva says. 糖心传媒淪omething bad has happened.糖心传媒�
糖心传媒淚 think that they have shifted probably to a YouTube show we don糖心传媒檛 love,糖心传媒� adds Ball, with a degree of resignation. 糖心传媒淏ut as an upside, the three of them have become very close in all of this, and that糖心传媒檚 really nice to see.糖心传媒�
And the youngest has been potty trained ahead of schedule, says Sierra Silva triumphantly.
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