Covid-19 in the Education Field

Maria Elisa Morales

Covid-19 in the Education Field

Management Theory 1

Dr. Maricela Sylva

Final Project

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Abstract

Coronavirus or Covid-19 has arrived the United States to change everyone’s life’s

specially to teachers, parents, and students around the country. It has been noticed that most

teachers had to learn how to teach virtually in a very quick way. It has also been a challenge for

parents and students around the Rio Grande Valley to learn and use the virtual learning style.

Social distancing plays an important role in our valley today and because of this many schools

have been shut down for everyone’s safety. Teachers are also considered the front line of this

epidemic and have had it hard to learn and maintain their student’s attention in order to continue

teaching their children. The year twenty-twenty has been a challenge and teachers have had the

courage to confront it with love and patience. Social distancing has been tough on everyone, but

these front liners are doing everything in their hands to help in the name of education.

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Communication is the most important issue in any organization including in the

education field. Communication is the facility to connect effectively for planning, organizing,

leading and controlling at anytime and in any circumstances. Communication is vital and

necessary in a day to day basis and in our everyday life. Communication is a way we coordinate

actions and achieve many goals. Just as communication is essential for any organization it can

also be misused and be miscommunication in a scenario. Just as great communication skills can

be beneficial miscommunication can also be fatal for an organization even in the educational

field. Poor communication often cost time and money and can cause many conflicts in an

organization.

As we know, communication has three roles, transmitting information, coordinating

effort and sharing emotions and feelings. These functions are essential to a success in any

3 organization or business and even in our everyday life. The transmitting of information is

something we use every day; good communication skills can make it easier to transmit a

message correctly and in a proper way. Organizing efforts help the employees or team members

to work together to achieve a desire goal. The sharing of emotions and feelings creates bonds

among employees or people that makes them feel and work comfortable. The sharing of feelings

makes the working environment feel safer and cozier to be in.

For communication go through we must have a sender which it can be a boss, a

supervisor or someone leading an organization. In the education field it can be a principal, an

assistant principal or a group leader. We must also have a receiver who is responsible of

receiving the command or message. The receiver oversees decoding and understanding the

message as well as execute the command or breaks down the message into words.

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Now that we have a little information about communication it is time to be aware of how

it is being used in todays pandemic. The arrival of Coronavirus or Covid-19 has been hard to

everybody. The United States as well as other countries have been battling a virus that we can

not see and that is injuring our people specially our elderly and humans with a low immune

system. Unfortunately, the coronavirus has hit the health and economy of the country of the

United States, it has forced to create a safe distance between all human beings. A study showed

that this virus, Covid-19, is spread through the respiratory tract, which has caused a social

distancing between families and communities. Here where I reside, the Rio Grande Valley, it is

very difficult to be separated since everyone is used to always being with family and with a lot of

nightlife.

One of the organizations which has been hit hard is that of education. Our children were

4 forced to stay home in order to be safe. The teachers did not have time to say goodbye to their

students, much less explain what was happening. This is a very strong blow for all of us who

work in the area of education. As a result of this pandemic that until today is hitting us, all

schools were closed to avoid infections and thus take care of our children from any illness. This

has ensured that our teachers and administrators are part of the front line of combat during this

global pandemic.

Our parents also play a very important role during this pandemic since they, like the

educators, had to learn resources in order to enter what they call virtual education or virtual

learning. Remember that sadly, the Rio Grande area has the poorest population, which indicates

that many of our students are low-income and do not have access to the internet. This leads us to

the fact that communication between parents and teachers is essential to get ahead and continue

with the education of the students. In this case the sender would be the teachers, or the

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administration of education and the receiver would be the parents of these students. Here, as in

any business, communication is essential to achieve a goal. In this case, the goal is for our

children to continue studying and not lose the year due to this pandemic.

Today I interviewed a wonderful person whom I respect and admire very much for being

part of the frontline in the education field and through this pandemic. Mrs. Alma Garcia is a

kinder teacher with over fourteen years of experience in the educational field. Mrs. Garcia, like

many other teachers, had to learn to use google classroom and many more resources in order to

help and rescue her children. She says that the whole process has been very difficult since many

of our children do not have the appropriate technology to continue with what is required for them

to continue learning. Mrs. Garcia says that the teachers have been very involved and that despite

that, the main source is communication. She says that without proper communication there is no

5 progress. Mrs. Garcia as well as many other instructors have invested many hours of learning

and research onto how to help the students and it all falls in the communication in order to

achieve the learning goal.

As we have mentioned, communication is an essential part of any organization and today

we know the importance of being able to communicate properly between people. Mrs. Garcia

comments that she makes use of all social networks in order to get communication through. She

comments that although they are not allowed to use Facebook, she knows that it is the fastest

way to contact the parents of those children who need more help than others. She comments that

she has used all the resources for having to be able to communicate with the parents and explain

to them the importance of the children continuing to study virtually. Unfortunately, there is a

small percentage of children who still do not communicate but for them she decided to make

some study packages that come out of her pocket expenses but she does not care because she

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knows that those children need it. I firmly believe that this is having a vocation and that is why I

am proud to be part of that school. Those packages are carried by herself and are put in the

mailboxes of her students' houses and she comments that if the children do not have access to a

computer it is not a pretext for not continuing to study.

Mrs. Garcia has a teaching daughter and she helps her daughter with her homework and

her daughter is her support and her driving force to keep going during this difficult situation

which we all go through. Mrs. Garcia comments that although she has to combine more than

forty hours of teaching virtually online per week and more than thirty hours of being in constant

communication with her superiors as well as with parents and being a full-time mother. She says

that it is very gratifying when her students send her photos with the finished works. She confirms

that the basis of everything is communication between her superiors, teachers and parents. He

6 also comments that it is very sad since he cannot hug his students or make sure they ate or played

but that he trusts that all this will happen and it will only be a bad thing that the universe sent us.

Mrs. Garcia says that it was quite a challenge to be able to teach online as she was

unaware of many of the new technology because she firmly believes that children learn by seeing

and hands on. I asked her how they developed the strategy of distance learning or virtual

learning. She says that due to the fact that everyone needed to be home for safety and social

distance was forced in order to survive and that the learning must go one the superiors, the

school board as well as the TEA and by the governors instruction they decided to try virtually

since now a days most people have phones and tablets and that it would be the easiest was to

continue with the learning process. It was and is difficult since, as I mentioned before, the

population that we serve is very low-income residents and that is why she as an instructor for

kindergarten children chose to learn the new technology resources as well as the decision to

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make educational packages which she delivered in the safest possible way and at her cost, would

help learn the most vulnerable and those who do not have access to computers. She mentions that

it was a hassle at first and that there was a lot of miscommunication. The first week they were

instructed to view various resources and learn to navigate google classrooms as well as class

dojo. The superiors were in constant meetings with those of the board members. The district was

tasked with letting parents know of the decisions that had been made and that education would

continue online. Mrs. Garcia says that they were days of great concern since the parents of her

students were worried about not having the resources or the money to be able to complete the

tasks. She recounted that it was long days of which they were called after calls trying to reassure

parents and avoid stressing more due to the pandemic and the education of their children.

Remember that at this time many parents stopped working and the economy is not the same. The

children are at home longer which was more food expense than light. Mrs. Garcia comments that
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many parents were frustrated enough to tell her that their children did not have much less to eat,

a resource to think about learning, much less buying the necessary devices for them to continue

their learning. She comments that they were difficult days and that more Which teacher was the

best friend and counselor to the parents of her students.

Fortunately, I think they made the right choice in making education continue virtually. I

think that both the supervisors and the board made the best decision because to think about the

greater number of students than if they had access to computers, iPad, laptops or cell phones.

Like Mrs. Garcia I think I would have reacted the same way in using the Facebook as a resource

to contact the parents of my students only if it was necessary since I also believe that privacy

should be respected. I firmly think that it was an excellent idea for Mrs. Garcia to think about

those students who do not even have access to the internet, much less to a computer. I think it

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was a brilliant idea that she took the initiative to make educational packages and take them to her

home mailboxes, always keeping the necessary care and a healthy distance. I think that she went

above and beyond for her students and that parents shall be grateful for having a teacher that

truly cares for her student’s education. I don't think I would have done anything different other

than listen to my student’s voice to just be aware that they are safe.

We know that this pandemic will not go anywhere for a while and that it may even stay.

People on the front line like doctors, firefighters, nurses, police, janitors, mail carriers as well as

many essential workers are having a difficult time because they are exposing themselves to this

virus and that we are grateful for them but I also believe that our teacher like Mrs. Garcia are

also in the front line because without them our education would be on hold and our Rio Grande

Valley students would be missing on important learning information that is very crucial to their

8 learning development. I truly appreciate teacher and every school educator as well as

administrators, principals, teacher aides, counselors, PE and music instructors for all the effort

they are putting in this new system of virtual learning and make this pandemic as bearable as

possible for all but especially for our children that their innocence does not let them know the

severity of this virus and as children they do not have to stress about it. As we can see,

communication is the most important role for this organization and through these hard times.

Communication is essential for virtual learning or any kind of learning to be possible. We are

also aware that miscommunication can cause big conflicts that may take time to resolve. A big

thank you to those at the head of this district but even more to all the educators and to them who

are really doing the job of communicating with the students and teaching them in some way what

the students need to learn. In difficult times like this it is good to know that this district has

teachers with a lot of moral quality who do everything so that the communication that is

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essentially becomes a reality and that the students are not left without good learning. Teachers

should earn much more than a footballer for their moral quality and for the care they give our

children even in times of a pandemic like the one we are experiencing this year of two thousand

and twenty.

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Wehmeyer, S. (2001). How to Train for Building Communication Skills. Staff

Development: A Practical Guide.

https://corescholar.libraries.wright.edu/ul_pub/150

Geraldine DeSanctis, Peter Monge, Communication Processes for Virtual Organizations,

Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Volume 3, Issue 4, 1 June 1998, JCMC347,

https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1083-6101.1998.tb00083.x
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Adu-Oppong, Akua. (2014). COMMUNICATION IN THE WORKPLACE:

GUIDELINES FOR IMPROVING EFFECTIVENESS. Global Journal of Commerce &

Management Perspectives. G.J.C.M.P... 208-213.

Derks, D., & Bakker, A. B. (2010). The Impact of E-mail Communication on

Organizational Life. Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace, 4(1),

Article 4. Retrieved from https://cyberpsychology.eu/article/view/4233/3277.

Nicoleta Duta Georgeta Panisoara Ion-Ovidiu Panisoara

Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Bucharest, 90 Panduri

Rd., Bucharest 050663, Romania

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.04.064

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Communicating with Parents: Strategies for Teachers

Graham-Clay, Susan

School Community Journal, v15 n1 p117-129 Spr-Sum 2005

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