St. Louis Public Radio First-year teacher Zachary Udell in his classroom at Froebel Elementary School in St. Louis Gravois Park neighborhood. Udell didn t have students in his room until halfway through the year, when 11 of his 28 students returned.
Another anything-but-normal school year is coming to a close. It was especially tough for new educators, who had no experience to fall back on and had to ride the pandemic’s tsunami while navigating the already choppy waters of first-year teaching.
To try to capture it all, St. Louis Public Radio asked first-year teachers in the St. Louis region to pick up their phones from time to time and record audio diaries.