week 7: Building/strengthening relationships online

I believe we are created to be in relationship with others and in relationship with God. Relationships with others have been extra challenging in this season of stay at home. I mentor and meet weekly with a 17 year old girl. Most of our visits are currently restricted to zoom. When I meet with her, I am competing for her attention with Minecraft as she would play that all day long if permitted and talking with people isn’t her favorite. I’ve had to get really creative with how to have meaningful interactions with her over zoom as we’ve had a couple of visits that were total duds and awkward. This past week we played pictionary on a website called scribl.io and it was a blast. There was a lot of laughing and a request from her to play another round. I think shared experiences are crucial when forming a relationship and although I’d prefer to meet with her in person, I’m pleasantly surprised by some of the options available online. I will say other things I’ve tried like watching a live zoo camera didn’t go over as well.

My district is virtual this entire year. One of my students with a disability this year greatly benefits from the peer interaction provided at school along with the interaction she gets through Special Olympics which is not currently operating. On top of that, her dad died unexpectedly less than 6 months ago. I connected with her mom this past week and asked if the student would like to meet weekly over google meets with me and a couple of other kids as a time to interact and socialize with peers. Mom was thrilled. I’m trying to brainstorm activities like scribl.io mentioned above or sharing a favorite youtube video that I can use as something to talk about during these meetings. I am a little nervous that I won’t be able to understand the student when she speaks. This has happened once already and I feel badly about it. My current plan is if I can’t understand her is to ask her to type it out in the chat.

Even though virtual relationships are NOT ideal and I think staying virtual the entire year is harmful to my students, I am glad that there are resources and opportunities via technology to have shared experiences and build relationships.