Wilhelmina Bodine enjoys being creative in the classroom, which is coming in handy this year since her classroom shifted fully online. Bodine, who usually teaches family and consumer science at Weare Middle School, is now teaching remote learners in grades 1-5 at Henniker Community, Center Woods Elementary and James Faulkner Elementary, and has had to figure out how teach hands-on classes like cooking and art online.
Along with her live lessons, she has also been recording instructional videos of watercolor painting and cooking to help the students learn in a different way. On Fridays, she sometimes does live cooking sessions with student and their parents, teaching them how to make simple recipes like brownies in a mug or Dutch pancakes.
“It’s kind of a trial and error for me. It’s the first year we’re actually baking online,” Bodine said. ” But I’m thrilled with the parents who are willing to come into the kitchen on Fridays. The kids love it.”
Bodine has been teaching in the SAU 24 school district since 2001, and has taught many subjects over the years including special education, music, art and family and consumer science. Outside school, Bodine has taught private piano lessons for 50 years and records video art classes for Skillshare. Bodine lives in Henniker with her dog, Woody. She sat down with the Monitor recently to discuss the way COVID-19 has changed her teaching. The following transcript has been condensed and edited for length and clarity.
The biggest change for me is the hands-on. I did so many hands-on work with kids, whether its sewing machines, or how to whip an egg, it’s all just tactile. Sometimes I just sit here at the computer and I want to scream because I can’t show them. But it’s a challenge and its good for me to see where I’m missing it and where I’m not missing it. Sometimes there’s no adult around and I’m not comfortable with them doing some of the stuff without an adult – especially the younger kids. But the three times we have actually done it, parents have been wonderful. Some recipes didn’t work and we went over the ingredients and we realized “you put baking soda in instead of baking powder” which makes a really big difference to a brownie in a mug. And then the mom laughed and said, “we’re going to start it over again.” It’s a lot of fun and it’s great to see the kids communicate with their parents.
Cooking-wise, that’s a really tough one to expect. Sometimes there’s money issues, sometimes they can’t get out to shop. So I tell them, “just look at the recipes, and one day you might want to do them. But you never have to feel that you have to do them.” And that seems to be working pretty well. I would love to do an all-Friday baking thing but then the few children who can’t, I want to make sure they have something interesting for them, because I don’t want them just sitting there watching people bake. You have to balance that, that those kids don’t feel left out.
I started with my art videos, which are similar to the ones I do for Skillshare. I keep my kids in mind and say, “okay this is how I would teach them if I was standing in front of them.”
My cooking ones I developed for the students last year when we went remote in March, because all these kids were used to having me for cooking classes so I thought, they need to be able to cook at home. Their favorite recipe is pear and spinach quesadilla, which they all turn up their noses at when they hear that we have to do those. In school they used to prepare all the vegetables and I would say, “well let’s just try a tiny bite, that’s all I’m asking,” and then a lot of kids asked me in the next years, “can we make the spinach and pear quesadillas?” I did a video of that, and some gluten-free recipes. Then one little girl asked me, “can you please show us how to do popcorn from scratch?” So we did that. It takes me a good six hours to do a video from start to finish and upload it. It’s good to do requests for kids. I haven’t done a breakfast with them yet, I think that would be fun to do. We’ve done a lunch, we’ve done some desserts, we’ve done a simple snack.
My biggest challenge I think is keeping them motivated. When you see them shutting down or bored, or they’re under their blankets – which they are sometimes, you can’t get them out of bed – it’s reminding them gently that you are in school, it’s like being in school, and I expect the same that I would in my classroom. It’s keeping it kind, keeping it gentle with humor, but still reminding them that they need to take this seriously too.
I think in some ways, I have been able to get to know the kids better than I would in a classroom, where there were all the distractions from intercoms, kids in the hallway, all the other noise that goes with a classroom. I have them all on a screen in front of me and I can see who is doing it or who is not doing it and I can work with them all, whereas in a classroom I might be on the other side of the room, not knowing that ‘Johnny’ is struggling. But online I can see right away that Johnny is struggling. So I think in a sense, I’m more in tune to the kids, cause the body language is there. If they’re not interested, you know that whether they are in class or online.
The creativity that I can use. I would be miserable in a job that wouldn’t allow me to be creative. Even with the cooking, how you display, how do you make it look good, how do you make it look appetizing, how can you set the table , all these things the kids are somewhat not acquainted with at all. We talk about how you don’t need fresh flowers, you can use almost anything to set a table. That’s where the creativity comes in and it keeps it so fun. It’s different with every class we have. Sometimes it’s the same lesson, almost always it isn’t because I think of something else to do with it. I’m at my best and I’m at my happiest when I can think of new things.