FacultyApril 5, 2020

Pandemic Silver Linings

Photos and Story by Josh Meltzer

Arlo Meltzer, 7, (left) and Gus, 9, work on their school work in the kitchen. At 2.5 years older, Gus has been more self-directed each day, and keeping Arlo on task has been much more difficult as he needs more hand holding through the lessons.

These are the morning sounds of first-world remote learning problems.

  • “What’s the password, Papi?”
  • “What is the Zoom number again? It disconnected.”
  • “How come the sound isn’t playing?”
  • “Why isn’t this working?”
  • “How do I do this?”
  • “I need help with this, Papi.”
  • “I don’t want to do Seesaw.”

Like many parents of school-age children in the RIT community, we’re settling into a new routine of teaching online while home-schooling each day. For us, it’s 2nd and 4th grade. Along with our RIT students’ requests for one-on-one meetings on Zoom or questions about assignments have come a flood of emails from my kids’ teachers, all of whom are learning how to teach from their homes too.

Melissa Warp, Arlo and Gus write in their journals before the boys’ bedtime recently. Writing is something Melissa does each night, but we’ve asked the boys to start doing that too, as this time will be a really important moment for them, as it will be for everyone.

For several years we’d been using one App called Seesaw, which was a great way for the kids’ teachers to share videos and photos of their activities at school. It was a fun way to connect with each of them at night about the things they’d already forgotten about from earlier in the day. Now Seesaw is school.

Gus plays his favorite iPad game, Madden football, in the afternoon after finishing his schoolwork while our dog Lincoln keeps an eye on squirrels in the yard.

My wife, Melissa Warp, a lecturer of New Media Design, is highly considering having her students next year redesign the UI/UX of Seesaw, which I think is enough to say that it’s not the easiest App to use. Gus, our 9-year-old, grabs the iPad after breakfast and is pretty self-directed to finish most of the assignments. He loves math but is bored with colonial history. The day is filled with science, social studies and reading, and the teachers have connected them with various other websites with a varying degree of enjoyment and ease to figure out.

Arlo Meltzer, 7, has his first Zoom guitar lesson with his instructor Tim, who had never used the platform before. Over the weeks of lessons, they’re both getting more used to the virtual lesson platform. It’s far from ideal, but better than nothing.

Gus and his younger brother Arlo, 7, record themselves reading or explaining math problems to their teachers through Seesaw.  Late one evening we enjoyed seeing Gus’ video he sent his PE teacher counting his pushups, jumping jacks, sit-ups and wall sits. It was a welcome moment of levity amidst the frustration and stress.

Now in week three, we’re starting to get a routine going. We spend a few hours with school work for the boys and attempt to fit in a bit of our own work when they’re able to work independently. For Arlo, those moments when we can work come in 45-second bursts.

Gus and Arlo hike across a long boardwalk in the Ganondagan State Historic Site near Victor recently on a daily outing. The time allows them to freely explore and wonder about the things they discover outside, and gives us all a much-needed break from being cooped up inside.
Arlo, 7, and his brother Gus, 9, (right) play on a makeshift playground of driftwood logs along Ontario Park beach in Charlotte.
Arlo runs through an open field of tall grasses at the Ganondagan State Historic Site on a recent outing. He returned to the trail with one tick found on his pant leg.
The boys venture out on a stream while hiking in the Ganondagan State Historic Site near Victor recently. The trails there, unlike many parks closer to the city, have been sparse with visitors, giving plenty of personal space in the woods.

Recess is a daily welcome break. By the fifth App login fail, the outdoors calls, no matter the weather. Both my wife and I enjoy daily exercise and we’ve figured out ways to do that with the boys on some days. We’ll run while they bike or take turns riding through parks and county roads. The Lehigh Valley Trail has been our latest favorite. The boys zoom ahead and take rest stops at the road crossings. The weather will improve, but that famous Rochester overcast is getting old. We broke out the winter boots twice this week, just for the mud.  Still, there are peaks of sunshine on even the greyest days. On one recent slushy walk, we found stones painted with jokes laid out along the path like a scene out of Hansel and Gretel, including one adult-humored joke. The boys desperately wanted to know what it meant.  Maybe in a few years, I explained.

The boys spent a recent day looking up magic tricks on Youtube, so I took out my video camera, lights and microphones and we produced a 3-camera shoot of magic tricks. Gus, 9, (right) ran the second camera while Arlo, 7, (left) performed the disappearing Lego trick.
Gus, 9, picked up Adobe Premiere editing pretty quickly and works through cutting a video we all made of the boys performing some magic card tricks. Shift-Command-K cuts through all layers, option-Delete is a ripple delete. It was fun teaching him the skills my students learn too.

But I say all of this because in any instance of challenge and limits in life, there often can be a silver lining.  It’s hard to think that there could be even a small silver lining throughout this time. The hardship that falls upon me isn’t comparable in any way to the families who have lost loves ones to the virus, or to the millions of people out of work, or to the medical professionals for whom going to work has life and death consequences now. Is seeing a silver lining at all appropriate as millions suffer?

On the first days of social distancing Arlo, 7 watched as passers-by exercised in the neighborhood streets. It was initially an uncomfortable feeling to have to remind kids to keep their distance from friends who walked by, but we have all become accustomed to this as our new normal for social behavior. I wonder whether after a few months of this whether it will be strange to return to our normal 2-foot social distance, high fives, hugs and hand shakes.

Perhaps we must all see some ember of hope and through whatever way that spark of light appears, we should recognize and celebrate it, even if only minor. What I see each day and what will make this period of staying in place manageable is how close Gus and Arlo have become to one another. Watching them strategize football plays in the muddy yard, race their bikes along the Lehigh Valley Trail and giggle together has been incredible to witness. They are two and a half years apart, but that age gap has nearly disappeared lately. I’m proud of how they’ve leaned on one another.

Arlo, 7, and Gus, 9, have found a new fascination in football in the past few months, so I’ve joined them in 2-on-1 games in the yard. Here they strategize a 3rd down play.

When one day hopefully soon, we are back to hugging our friends, cheering for a sports team in a crowded gymnasium and living without fear of contagion at the grocery store, I am confident that Gus and Arlo’s experiences in this time will impact their relationship forever. It’s a silver lining for which the cause I loathe, but it is the small light of hope that I see every day.

Gus, 9, writes in his journal before bed, which is a new routine my wife has started with both boys each evening. It will be interesting to read these in years to come and reflect upon this time.
Arlo, 7, brushes his teeth before bed. We are trying to keep a regular schedule of life at home, with time set aside for school and for play as at least that routine has a semblance of normalcy.
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