Episode 8: Teaching and Learning During COVID in NYC

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In this episode of Playing Teacher, we rewind to one of the most surreal, exhausting, and defining chapters in modern education: COVID in New York City. Teaching during the pandemic wasn’t just about pivoting to Zoom—it was about surviving, adapting, and finding humanity in the chaos.

We talk candidly about what it meant to be an educator when the world shut down: the scrambled emails, the lost students, the tech failures, the eerie silence of empty classrooms. But we also talk about the grit, the creativity, and the small, quiet victories—like the student who turned on their camera for the first time, or the day a class full of muted icons finally laughed in unison.

We explore how the pandemic didn’t just test our ability to teach—it forced us to reimagine what learning could look like, and what school even meant. From digital access disparities to the emotional weight of teaching through trauma, this episode captures both the cracks in the system and the light that somehow got through.

This one’s for the teachers who taught through tears, through masks, through screen fatigue—and who found new ways to connect, inspire, and hold space when the world felt like it was falling apart.

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