I walked through the kitchen around 10:30 this morning.  My daughter was making herself some special pumpkin coffee drink while her computer played on the counter beside her.

She was—of course—on a Zoom call with her classes.  Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays are all Zoom call classes for sophomores. 

Mid-morning was lecture time in photography class, and my daughter had her computer’s camera off.  I felt safe to look over her shoulder to watch the presentation for a few seconds.  “So now we are going to look again at the landscapes,” the teacher said, “and the focus of your landscape shots.  Let’s look at this one with the geese and the foliage…”

I stood by for a few seconds, listening in on how he was teaching them and how he described their assignments.  The thought floated through my head that I would like to be learning more about photography, too.  For a moment, I even wondered if perhaps I could just “audit” the class myself; it sounded like a lot of fun.  

This photography teacher has fully embraced the remote learning idea.  “Now, when you go outside to shoot around your houses over this next break,” he continued, “take advantage of what you have around you.  We’re not just on the school grounds.  Go out and really look.” 

Photography is not a new class to our family.  Son number two and Spanish daughters numbers one, two and three all took it.  But for each of them, their enthusiasm was tempered by the time demands.  Photography had to be jammed between practices, travel to games, travel to and from school, and their other classes. 

The silver lining for this fall is the difference the remote learning setting makes.  I love that this time around, our daughter has time to complete the classwork during the day.