An AP history class’s quest to survive remote learning

March 16

66 days till the examination

Am’Brianna is the sort of child Nielsen works onerous to recruit into AP World Historical past. At Burton, like most U.S. excessive faculties, African American college students are vastly underrepresented in AP lessons. Each February, Nielsen provides freshmen a heavy gross sales pitch, promising the category will increase their grade-point averages, hone their writing, unfurl the course of human occasions and assist get them into school.

“I promise you this,” he tells them. “If you happen to are available and also you do your finest each single day, you’ll stroll out of my class with a C assured. I haven’t failed a child in three years, and it gained’t be you.”

Am’Brianna appears by means of a stack of her educational awards, which she retains in a folder.

Am’Brianna missed a whole lot of faculty when she was youthful. Now, she is making good grades and plans to go to varsity.

LEFT: Am’Brianna appears by means of a stack of her educational awards, which she retains in a folder. RIGHT: Am’Brianna missed a whole lot of faculty when she was youthful. Now, she is making good grades and plans to go to varsity.

The pitch appealed to Am’Brianna. Over time, she missed a whole lot of faculty — truant in elementary faculty, and absent in later years to assist take care of her 95-year-old great-grandmother, who has dementia. Now she will get good grades and is heading for faculty, although neither of her dad and mom has a level. She retains a folder stuffed with certificates marking her achievements; in eighth grade, she gained honors within the Black Minds Matter competitors, for her proposal to create more healthy consuming choices at her faculty. Nonetheless, she wasn’t certain she was AP materials, and she or he thought onerous earlier than making use of for the category.

Distant studying shortly proves difficult. She lives together with her mom, who’s been out and in of the hospital with well being points. She was cleansing homes however is now out of labor. Their small home additionally consists of her great-grandmother and 4 canine (and, for a time, 4 puppies). Typically her 11-year-old brother is with them, however currently, he’s been staying along with his dad.

The assignments from Nielsen begin instantly, with movies posted on-line and inquiries to reply. With no laptop or WiFi, Am’Brianna has to improvise: She pulls the assignments up on her iPhone, hand-writes the solutions in her pocket book and emails Nielsen a photograph of her work.

Nielsen shares his dwelling along with his spouse, Laura, and their two children, ages Three and eight months.

On March 13, college students and college at Burton Excessive College in San Francisco left the constructing anticipating to be out for 3 weeks, for an prolonged spring break due to the novel coronavirus.

Like different faculties throughout the nation, Burton Excessive College switched to on-line studying strategies after coronavirus restrictions went into impact.

TOP: Nielsen shares his dwelling along with his spouse, Laura, and their two children, ages Three and eight months. BOTTOM LEFT: On March 13, college students and college at Burton Excessive College in San Francisco left the constructing anticipating to be out for 3 weeks, for an prolonged spring break due to the novel coronavirus. BOTTOM RIGHT: Like different faculties throughout the nation, Burton Excessive College switched to on-line studying strategies after coronavirus restrictions went into impact.

April 3

48 days till the examination

It has been three weeks since faculty received out, and Nielsen — his college students name him simply that, “Nielsen” — places on a shirt and tie for his first try at educating by Zoom. If he attire like he’s going to actual faculty, he figures, possibly they’ll conclude: All the things else is bizarre however at the very least he appears regular.

Broadcasting from his small Craftsman home, throughout the Bay in Alameda, he positions his laptop computer in entrance of his sofa, with photographs of his two babies within the body behind him. Simply off digicam to his proper is a child’s play tent; to the left is an elliptical machine that Nielsen makes use of to work out, typically late at night time.

He’s anxious. He’s used to working round, telling tales, main video games, calling on college students randomly and seeing when children begin falling asleep. “I can elevate my voice, I can decrease my voice, I can placed on a present,” he says. “Now it’s simply me with a PowerPoint.”

For some time, Nielsen puzzled if there would even be an AP take a look at this spring. However the School Board simply introduced that the exams would go on, administered on-line, at dwelling and open e-book. The World Historical past examination, pushed again to Might 21, can be simply 45 minutes, with 10 further minutes allowed for college kids to submit their work.

There can be no a number of alternative or quick reply sections. As a substitute, a yr’s value of labor would come right down to a single essay on a single subject — a document-based query, or “DBQ,” the place college students learn 5 paperwork and weave them along with historic context to show a thesis.

Nielsen was cautiously optimistic. All yr lengthy, he drills his lessons on methods to write DBQs. By the point they take the take a look at, they may have practiced 19 occasions.

He has all this and extra to clarify on this first Zoom class, and no thought the way it will go. College students are nonetheless technically on spring break, so this session is voluntary. He stares into the digicam, pushes away a flop of brown hair, and smiles large. Inside minutes, 83 of his 112 AP World Historical past college students are logged in.

“Take a look at that!” he says. “Good day to everyone. I’m excited. I hope you’re excited.”

AP World Historical past is supposed to span all of human civilization, from the agricultural revolution 10,000 years in the past to the current. When faculty closed, he was about to show World Struggle I.

Immediately, he explains the modifications to the AP take a look at, then speeds his manner by means of the conflict’s causes: world powers gaining army power and swelling nationalism throughout the globe. “New nations are forming, and so they need energy, they need status,” Nielsen says. Industrialism. Imperialism. Alliances. Colonial rivalries. And, in fact, the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria.

He covers the fabric however ends the category fearful that he moved too shortly. It went so quick that Ryan, whose face fills a type of 83 tiny Zoom containers, was frantically snapping photographs of his display, unable to maintain up.

Nielsen has different worries, too. What concerning the children with their cameras off, these faces he couldn’t see? What concerning the 29 college students who didn’t present up in any respect?

April 6

45 days till the examination

Jonathan’s day begins early, in entrance of a pc display, within the sunny front room of the three-bedroom sponsored residence he shares along with his mom, two sisters and their grandmother. Burton, like faculties across the nation, is now closed for the yr, and Nielsen’s Zoom periods are now not elective. That is faculty now.

They used to lease the underside flooring of a home, however they moved right here after month-to-month lease neared $4,000. His mother, who immigrated to the US from Vietnam, scrapes by on earnings from a small nail salon. However her store was closed by the pandemic, so she spends her days dealing with the household affairs whereas Jonathan watches his little sister, Gabrielle. Typically, she perches on his lap whereas he attends class. Mother takes over round 7:30 or Eight p.m.

He doesn’t thoughts serving to. “I would like my child sister to develop up with none stress, with out having to maneuver as a result of we’re fairly near being homeless — something like that, I wish to protect her from.”

It’s not straightforward. It by no means has been. Just a few years in the past, he had a child sister who died out of the blue of pneumonia when she was simply Three months outdated. After that, he discovered himself breaking down at school, consumed with guilt that he wasn’t together with her when she died.

This faculty yr was onerous, too. This winter, he was hit by a automotive on the way in which dwelling from volleyball observe and was on crutches for a number of weeks. Then he received the flu, which grew to become pneumonia, which left him coughing up blood and terrified.

He’s a powerful scholar, occupied with engineering, his eye on the College of California at Los Angeles. However he missed a whole lot of faculty this winter and fell behind. When he was in class, he wore a masks, prompting taunts: “Oh, he’s received the corona — avoid him.” Sooner or later he went to the varsity nurse and fell aside. What if these children had been proper?

Lastly, now, a few weeks into distant studying, he’s feeling higher. However now his grandmother is within the hospital together with her personal case of pneumonia. They share a twin mattress most nights, and although he slept on the sofa when he was sick, he worries he received her sick.

His mother “Lysoled all the home,” however she nonetheless doesn’t permit anybody in that room. So he eats most meals on the sofa and research there, too. If he desires to have a personal telephone name, he steps into the lavatory. His mother gained’t let him go outdoors until it’s completely essential.

However within the night, free of Zoom and babysitting, Jonathan can set his personal agenda. He kilos by means of his AP historical past and different work. Then he stays up doing push-ups and enjoying video video games on-line with buddies late into the night time, when he falls asleep on the sofa.

April 20

31 days till the examination

“Good day, college students!”

Nielsen begins class with the keenness of a telethon host, calling out children by title as they arrive, urging them to chase down lacking classmates.

“Oh, we received anyone else! Who will we received right here now? Jason! Good day, Jason!” he says. “Properly, on the minimal it will likely be the 2 of you, getting some severe good educating. I don’t know — the place is everyone else? Week three, week three is the place it will get boring. Individuals are like, ‘This isn’t enjoyable anymore.’”

Ready for extra, he performs the Korean pop music video “Energy Up,” replicating the music he performs within the classroom and exhibiting off the musical acumen he’s gained as Ok-pop membership adviser. There are a pair dozen college students on-line by the point the video ends, nonetheless heaps lacking.

Nielsen is working into one main problem of on-line faculty: Many college students merely can’t or don’t present up. Different, smaller points vex him, too. He desires college students’ cameras on, however typically they permit classmates to see overstuffed properties or adults arguing within the background. In a single class, a scholar’s college-age sister walks previous carrying solely underwear. The chat room lights up: “Oh, my God, your sister is so sizzling.”

In the midst of one other class, his WiFi fails. It’s 15 minutes earlier than he’s again on-line, lastly tapping into his neighbor’s community. He figures the scholars might be lengthy gone.

“What number of stayed with me?” he asks.

“All people,” a scholar says.

“Wow,” Nielsen says. “That’s unimaginable.”

April 24

27 days till the examination

Work is piling up now, so Lilian is doing what she does when she feels harassed. She will get quiet, much more quiet than regular, and makes lists of issues to do in her planner.

She’s dreamed of attending the College of California at Berkeley since doing a summer time program there on synthetic intelligence. She wandered into the massive Doe Memorial Library, with its traditional Beaux-Arts design and lengthy tables and little nooks for finding out, and imagined herself as an engineering scholar.

However proper now, it’s onerous to seek out anyplace to check. She lives in a three-bedroom residence with three siblings and her dad and mom. She shares a bed room with one in every of her sisters and that sister’s 1-year-old child. It’s crowded, as is the WiFi, with nearly all of them taking lessons on-line.

She was born in Nigeria, however 4 years in the past, she, her mother and her siblings moved to San Francisco to hitch their father. Lilian was 11 and barely knew her dad. She’s grown near him since then, and she or he worries. He works in a hospital, transporting sufferers. Everybody she is aware of is hunkered down, attempting to keep away from the virus. He’s in the midst of it. When she tells him she is scared, he tells her to not fear.

Lilian loves AP historical past, and she or he is aware of it might assist get her into school. However she spends a lot of her day watching her niece whereas her sister attends lessons. She additionally varieties homework for her mother, who’s finding out youngster growth, her first time in school.

She turns to her personal work late at night time, typically up till Three a.m., alone in the lounge. However maybe she’s not alone. Immediately, an sudden electronic mail pops into her inbox. It’s a survey checking on her well-being.

Nielsen can be up in the midst of the night time. His 8-month-old child, Elliot, is teething, so Nielsen’s up in any respect hours, attempting to rock and sing him again to sleep. Elliot additionally makes an occasional look throughout a Zoom class, perched on his dad’s lap.

He additionally has a 3-year-old daughter. His spouse, Laura, additionally a instructor, remains to be on maternity depart, however she’s taking a web-based class of her personal and is exhausted from caring for each children all day lengthy by herself. “It looks like what was already a crowded house is overflowing,” she says at some point. “Typically I have a look at the home and marvel, ‘The place is the house for me?’”

Nielsen’s work retains coming. The primary week, he acquired 150 scholar emails. Sooner or later, he holds 35 back-to-back one-on-one Zoom conferences with college students. He grades essays all day lengthy and late into the night time.

He’s additionally beneath strain from his union, which has signed a memorandum of understanding with the district that claims lecturers shouldn’t be on-line greater than 4 hours a day. Between educating, workplace hours and conferences, Nielsen blows previous that day-after-day, irritating some colleagues. He helps the union however sees this second, for lecturers, as uniquely demanding: “That is our World Struggle II.”

And he’s apprehensive about dishonest his children out of historical past. The School Board has knowledgeable lecturers that the examination query might be drawn from the years 1200 to 1900, so Nielsen may simply spend the remaining weeks drilling college students on materials they’ve already lined. However that will imply skipping World Struggle II, the Holocaust, the Chilly Struggle, the Vietnam Struggle, globalization, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and extra.

No matter he covers at school, he has to do it quick. Earlier this month, the varsity’s management workforce had voted for a schedule the place every class meets simply as soon as per week, for one hour.

Throughout the nation, faculties are combating these questions and infrequently foundering. In some locations, college students seem like getting no instruction in any respect. Possibly he’s giving an excessive amount of? Burton’s principal thinks so: She simply ordered her lecturers to present much less work.

Nielsen wonders whether or not she’s proper and sends a survey for college kids to fill out anonymously. The outcomes are sobering. Almost Four in 10 college students say they really feel completely overwhelmed. An extra 27 % say they really feel “at or close to my restrict of what I can at the moment full.”

Just a few college students lack Web entry, however about Four in 10 are liable for youthful siblings. One in 5 says there may be extra arguing and combating than regular at dwelling. Almost Four in 10 say they don’t have sufficient house.

After that, he reluctantly dials again the work.

April 30

21 days till the examination

With three weeks to go, Nielsen plans the primary of three observe exams. College students might be given a batch of paperwork, an essay immediate and about an hour to complete and submit, identical to the true deal. Ryan research till 10 or 11 that night time, cramming materials he thinks he would possibly want.

Strain comes from faculty, but additionally from dwelling. His household, who he describes as usually Chinese language, makes clear he’s anticipated to earn prime grades so he can get into an excellent school and get an excellent job. At household occasions, they wish to know what he plans to main in, and the appropriate reply is one thing like finance or computer systems. He desires a profession in music. “I did coding lessons earlier than, and that’s so boring,” he says.

He loves working and band, volleyball and hanging along with his buddies, none of which can be found. He’s caught inside a just about silent home, his drums and trainers locked inside the varsity. Ryan spends 9 hours a day in his room alone, combating the distractions — laptop, telephone, pill, TV.

Video video games are his solely enjoyable. He’s up late, night time after night time, rescuing hostages and thoroughly defusing bombs in Rainbow Six Siege, and chatting with buddies on Discord, the app well-liked with avid gamers. “I haven’t seen a face outdoors my household for therefore lengthy,” he says.

One afternoon his mom, a preschool instructor who’s working from dwelling, surprises him. She’s taking a break to get their yard backyard so as. Does Ryan wish to assist?

Pulling weeds and laying bricks, he and his mother make jokes, and she or he tells him about rising up poor in China — how having a bicycle was a giant deal, how strolling to high school may take an hour. She tells the story about frog looking together with her brother, when she fell right into a pond and nearly drowned.

He loves this time along with his mother. However as soon as the backyard is completed, they every return to their work.

April 30

21 days till the examination

Am’Brianna does most of her schoolwork on the sofa outdoors her great-grandma’s room. She sleeps there, too, in case she is required in the midst of the night time.

Sleep not often comes simply. She typically lies awake, her thoughts racing, exhausted however unable to sleep. She’ll strive watching a present or listening to calming music. Typically she’ll name a pal. It solely typically helps. “All my power is bottled up,” she says, “and I’ve nothing to do with it.”

The night time earlier than the primary observe take a look at, she research late after which is up till Four a.m. By now she has a pc, courtesy of the small nonprofit the place she works, and three months of free WiFi from the native supplier, though it’s spotty. She’s apprehensive it would fail throughout one of many observe runs or, worse, the examination itself.

It holds up throughout the first observe take a look at, however the take a look at is tougher than she anticipated. She talks with a pal by telephone throughout a part of it, at a loss for methods to reply the query about how the Portuguese remodeled maritime commerce within the Indian Ocean within the 16th century.

When it’s lastly over, she has a chunk of her 16th-birthday cake. She is flooded with texts and requires her birthday, and at some point her supervisor shocks her by stopping by with a $100 reward certificates to space eating places. However there isn’t lots to have a good time. She sees nearly nobody outdoors her rapid household. Her assignments are sometimes late, and typically she misses them altogether.

“I used to get pleasure from faculty,” she says. “Now it’s like, dang, I’m simply right here.”

Might 15

6 days till the examination

Lilian wakes up early and shares morning prayers together with her household, religious Catholics. Now, together with her sister out shopping for groceries and their mother engaged on her personal faculty work, Lilian is liable for watching her niece.

Immediately is the third and remaining observe examination. Many of the class has been combating the practices, incomes 4 or 5 of the 10 attainable factors. (For the true examination, the School Board interprets these scores to a 1-5 level rubric, with a Three thought-about passing.) Even prime college students aren’t ending within the allotted time, and the School Board has stated any take a look at turned in late scores a zero.

Lilian squeezes in a few hours of cramming, reviewing her notes on nationalism and revolution in 1750 to 1900, and on the Industrial Revolution. “I’m so nervous, oh, my God,” she says a couple of minutes earlier than it begins. “It looks like my coronary heart is about to drop in my abdomen.” Her sister makes her lunch, however she’s too nervous to eat it.

Now her sister is napping together with her daughter within the room the three of them share. So Lilian picks up her laptop computer, notes, pen, pencil and eraser and strikes to their mom’s room for the take a look at. The query is concerning the rise of nationalism. Concepts come simply, and the writing feels pure. She finishes a couple of minutes early.

A few of her classmates battle. Am’Brianna, who floundered by means of the primary observe and missed the second when her WiFi failed, is befuddled by the query and flummoxed by a doc that may be a tune from the French Revolution.

However Lilian is flying excessive. She thinks to herself: I’m prepared for the true factor.

“This was the perfect observe essay that I’ve written up to now. ’Trigger guess what? It’s from one thing that I studied!” she says instantly after ending. “Woo! I’m so excited. … I’ve by no means felt like this earlier than.”

She heads to the kitchen to lastly eat lunch. Then, again to work, serving to her mom kind her homework.

Might 20

1 day till the examination

The night time earlier than the examination, as their homes fall quiet, Ryan, Jonathan and some different buddies log into Discord, the app that facilitates their gaming night time after night time. Tonight, although, they’re utilizing it to check.

Jonathan feels good, regardless of months of sickness and anxiousness. Eventually, he’s caught up with schoolwork. His grandmother’s well being is bettering; a couple of weeks later, she’ll be dwelling. And on the final of three official observe exams, he scored a 9 out of 10. Ryan is nervous however assured. He simply hopes his examination query is about one thing he’s studied.

The group runs their very own observe DBQ, utilizing a pattern query about Christianity and Western tradition. They depend down and fall silent as they write.

Might 21

Examination day

The morning of the take a look at, Nielsen has escaped to his in-laws’ home, within the woods north of the town, the place his children can run round. He flips open his laptop computer for one of the vital aggravating days of his profession.

In the long run, Nielsen didn’t make it by means of all of world historical past. He received by means of World Wars I and II and did one lecture on the Chilly Struggle. He determined he needed to spend their restricted time collectively ensuring his college students understood methods to write a powerful response to a document-based query.

He spent the final 24 hours responding to 100 emails. Some college students apprehensive concerning the technical issues that overwhelmed the School Board per week earlier, with college students unable to submit their essays. Some had lengthy, substantive questions that he simply couldn’t reply.

Now, an hour earlier than the take a look at, he gathers the Zoom containers one final time, for a distant pep rally. By the point he logs on, there are 51 college students ready for him.

“That is beautiful,” he says. “I used to be apprehensive no one was going to indicate up.”

He urges college students to go search for lacking buddies.

“Discover the individuals who must be right here,” he says. “Wake them up. … I’m not seeing Jonathan, anyone textual content Jonathan. Who else, who else are we lacking? Ninety-six — we’re as much as 96 individuals. I’m not seeing Ryan. Any individual textual content Ryan. … Any individual textual content David.”

Then he strikes into cheerleader mode.

“You’re about to take a take a look at that could be very onerous in essentially the most ridiculous and inconceivable of circumstances, so give yourselves a break, regardless of the way it turns,” he says. “It will be okay. The truth that you are taking the take a look at, that’s the large deal.”

He makes a confession: When he took this take a look at as a highschool sophomore, he says, he didn’t move. “That take a look at was too onerous for me, however I realized lots from that class. So this take a look at doesn’t outline who you might be or the work you will have carried out.”

Am’Brianna rubs her eyes whereas doing schoolwork.

Ryan does work from home for a category.

Lilian participates in a category on Zoom.

Jonathan stands outdoors his residence complicated.

TOP LEFT: Am’Brianna rubs her eyes whereas doing schoolwork. TOP RIGHT: Ryan does work from home for a category. BOTTOM LEFT: Lilian participates in a category on Zoom. BOTTOM RIGHT: Jonathan stands outdoors his residence complicated.

Am’Brianna settles in at her eating room desk together with her Chromebook, a pocket book stuffed with analysis, and paper to take notes as she reads.

She’s drained. She was awake till Four a.m. and up by 7 for a last-minute evaluation. However she forces herself to focus. She units her timers: 15 minutes to learn the paperwork and 25 minutes to write down the essay. That leaves 5 minutes to revise.

The examination begins, and her WiFi works completely. There are a number of completely different questions, randomly assigned to college students. Hers appears scary at first; it’s about spiritual tolerance in 1450-1750. However the paperwork put her relaxed, and she or he sticks to her schedule.

Ryan’s query is about how the atmosphere affected imperial enlargement. He hasn’t studied this subject in any respect. He reads the paperwork. Feels misplaced. Begins to panic. Brainstorms. Nothing. He begins to write down, however runs out of time so as to add a remaining piece of out of doors proof to help his thesis. He’s pondering: I actually may have carried out higher.

Afterward, he finds his mom.

It was aggravating, he says. He’s nonetheless hoping for a 3.

She asks when he’ll get the outcomes.

In mid-July.

“Okay,” she tells him. “Hopefully you handed.”

Jonathan does some last-minute cramming that morning and makes it to the pep speak. When the examination begins, all the pieces clicks. He finishes 10 minutes early — hoping not “overconfident sort of early” — and has time to go over all the pieces a second time.

Lilian was up till midnight watching a evaluation video overlaying 1750 to 1900, and she or he fell asleep feeling assured. She wakes up earlier than 7 a.m., and through morning prayers, her mother asks that Lilian be capable to flip in her essay on time.

However after the Zoom pep rally, she finds her father and tells him how scared she is. “Try to be robust,” he tells her. “You’ve studied for it. You are able to do it.”

She geese into her mother’s bed room and opens her examination. The primary phrase she sees is “Mongols.” A wave of anger hits her. It’s a query about 1200 to 1450, not remotely associated to something she had reviewed final night time.

She throws her notes on the ground and considers giving up. Then she thinks: It is a likelihood to show one thing to myself. She begins studying. Concepts pop into her head. She sees a theme associated to how individuals within the Mongolian empire adapt to new religions. She finds outdoors proof in her textbook, varieties furiously and turns in her take a look at with 2 minutes and 10 seconds to spare.

She exhales, texts her buddies phrases of encouragement and walks into the kitchen, the place her father wraps her in a hug. “See,” he says. “It wasn’t that arduous.”

Because the take a look at begins, Nielsen calls up Twitter and a Fb web page for AP historical past lecturers and begins gathering intelligence. A instructor someplace sees a spike in Google searches on a specific truth and speculates that it means the query is about this or that.

After 15 minutes, it’s an excessive amount of. He grabs a newspaper and sinks right into a hammock in a grove of redwood timber, gently rocking till the take a look at is over.

After that, the emails pile up. Some ship display photographs of their solutions and ask if he’ll assess them on the spot. (Reply: no.) Some are apprehensive their know-how failed, however in the long run these fears are principally unfounded: 109 of his 112 college students efficiently submit a take a look at. He’s additionally coping with his class of 37 seniors, who’ve endured a killer AP economics take a look at the identical day.

For Nielsen, the previous 69 days have felt like a catastrophe. He’s annoyed that he needed to depart a lot materials out. He’s offended that fewer of his college students will do properly on the take a look at this yr, and that fewer will get the jolt of confidence that comes with an excellent rating.

And but. He’s so happy with then — how onerous they labored and what number of made it to the end line.

“The youngsters are successful,” he says later. “All the things else is a failure.”

He can’t even take into consideration what he’ll do if faculty is distant within the fall. However fall is coming. The subsequent morning, he presses ship on an electronic mail to college students who might be taking AP World Historical past subsequent yr.

“I do know that lots of you may be questioning in case you are sensible sufficient or a adequate scholar to deal with this class,” he writes. “I promise you all are.”

Workers photographer Melina Mara contributed to this report. Story enhancing by Joe Tone. Photograph enhancing by Mark Miller. Designed by Alla Dreyvitser. Copy enhancing by Shannon Croom.