What's Keeping Kids' Cameras On for TNP Remote Lessons
Working remotely did not begin for The Nora Project team when COVID hit. We have always been a team that worked remotely. After being a teacher for 11 years, the adjustment to working from home was a tad awkward. I didn’t know how to shift my home environment to my workplace daily. I would get distracted (and still do) by things that need to be done around the house. And I felt absolutely uncomfortable having video calls and meetings in my home. Honestly, I was always very reluctant to offer a video chat as an option to the teachers I was working with. I’m not entirely sure what it was that made me so uncomfortable about allowing someone to peek inside my home, but it just did.
Fast forward to March of 2020 and the sudden shift to living in a pandemic. Businesses that could, had to have their employees work remotely. Homes had multiple people vying for space to work in. Many of those spaces were not ideal, so it was understandable that team calls everywhere had people who chose not to turn their cameras on. Was there ever a moment when you reluctantly turned your camera on? I remember overhearing someone ask my husband what all the stuff behind him was. It was a massive pile of unorganized art supplies for our kids. He was working in a makeshift office in our basement, because in our small house we just didn't have a space that was made to be an office.
As adults, some of us have felt uncomfortable with this shift of allowing our coworkers in our homes. If you ask any teacher, they will tell you that it is a feeling we share with many students. I had so many students in the past that didn’t want to open up about life at home. Coming to school was an opportunity to step away from home and I allowed them that escape, as so many teachers do. But what were teachers to do during remote learning? No one, not even their district administration knew what they should do. Should they allow students to keep their cameras off all the time? Was it okay to never see a student's face during the day? Answers to these questions differed from one teacher and school to the next. Personally, I wasn’t sure where I stood on it either. Thankfully, one of our favorite educational influencers, Jen Newton from Teaching is Intellectual, started amplifying different sources on the subject. She shared an edutopia article which really helped me settle on the fact that students, like adults, should not be expected to turn their cameras on unless they wanted to. Camera-optional policy is the only way to structure your remote classroom.
Thankfully, this was also the stance taken by so many of the teachers who are teaching The Nora Project this year, which is why they have noticed something incredible. We’ve had several teachers share that students who often choose to keep their cameras off for lessons in other content areas are turning them on for The Nora Project lessons. One of our Chicago Public Schools educators said “The Nora Project is just cozy. It makes kids feel comfortable.” She also noted that her middle school students are often more engaged in conversations centered around our content than any other subjects throughout the school day.
So what is it exactly that makes students more willing to turn on their cameras and share their stories? I think it comes down to the foundation of what The Nora Project is at its core. The Nora Project is about creating relationships and fostering those connections over time. All of our programs center around empathy and providing everyone tools and opportunities to demonstrate that empathy. We provide training for our teachers on vulnerability and encourage them to be vulnerable with their students, because we believe real growth comes from our most vulnerable moments. As an organization, it is a goal to move everyone from acceptance of differences to celebration of differences. Thinking about these core values, it makes sense that it is during Nora Project lessons that students are taking a leap of faith and turning their cameras on. They feel comfortable allowing their teacher and classmates to peek inside their home for a moment, because regardless of what is happening behind them, they know that what is in front of them on the screen is safe and cozy.