Edutopia – Nora Fleming
All school year, Montenique Woodard’s seventh period, her last class of the day, has been her hardest. “I feel like I don’t know what to do with them,” she said of her middle school science class when Edutopia first talked to her back in the fall. One boy in particular, the “class clown,” was a persistent challenge, and his behavior influenced his 23 peers, 15 of whom are boys. But reconnecting months later during the coronavirus closures, Woodard shared some surprising news: the same boy was “thriving” during remote learning. “I think not having those everyday distractions in school has really allowed for kids like him to focus on the work and not necessarily all the social things going on because some kids can’t separate that out,” said Woodard, who teaches in Washington, D.C.