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I began teaching the Gifted classes in our school district in 1985. That year, the Ramses II exhibit was sent from Egypt to tour the United States. This was a one time opportunity to experience the authentic statues, sarcophagi, and other relics of ancient Egypt. The tour was having a showing at the Prime Osborn Convention Center in Jacksonville, which was a beautiful, huge new facility able to hold the great monuments. I created a curriculum using research materials provided by the exhibit, plus a study guide with slides from a very prominent group in Jacksonville. This group was offering a course on Ramses and the exhibit, and was giving excellent resources to anyone who took the course. I took advantage of this opportunity to be better able to present the information to my classes. My school district highly approved my curriculum. Many parents were quite excited about the course and the upcoming field trip to the exhibit.I had an 11 year old girl in my class whose mom had grown up next to my grandparents. These neighbors raised their children very thriftily-meaning their diet consisted of items picked from my grandfather’s garden and handed out from Granny’s freezer. When the little girl was born, I was in college, but I remember her running in and out of my grandparents’s house uninvited, stealing cookies and candy, and even hiding under the beds. I installed deadbolt locks on my grandparents’ doors, which prompted Little Daphne to bang on the doors and yell. Years later, when I took over the Gifted program as Director, I was “lucky” to have Little Daphne placed in my class.This child believed she was free to run around in school from room to room as she wished, disrupting learning by her behavior. This had been a problem since she entered school. After many warnings from other teachers and reviewing her records, I began to doubt her qualification for my program as she demonstrated no interest in the enrichment found in my class. In fact, her class work was in her regular class was often incomplete and sloppily done. I met with the principle, teacher, and guidance counselor about my concerns, requesting support for discipline with the girl. They all assured me that they had exhausted many methods.My next step was to contact her mom with each infraction. I would discuss what Daphne had done, then let Mom know how I would handle this after an initial warning. Her mom was fine with having me deal with her child’s behavior and appreciated my attempt to work with her, but she did not follow up. Mainly, the mother only offered a long string of excuses or the genetic history of her daughter’s behavior-“She gets that from her dad!” There was no dad in the picture, so I had no contact with a father.Time came for students to sign up for our field trip to see Ramses II. The promise of this trip was a great motivation for high interest in our study. I was excited to see how well my students’ knowledge applied to the exhibit. The students signed up, took home permission forms, and returned the forms and their $5 payment. We were able to get reduced admission and pay for the school bus for only $5 each. Students and parent chaperones returned permission forms and payments promptly. I called a few with reminders, who took care of this immediately. But of course not Daphne! Her mom was a nurse and was employed then, but I still contacted her with a reminder several times- offering to help with payment if she would send in the permission form. She said she’d get it to me, but never sent anything.The deadline came to pay and I sent our money in to pay for tour tickets. Admission was limited, so tickets had to purchased in advanced. I let Daphne’s mother know the deadline has passed. I could not get her a ticket, so Daphne would remain with her teacher that day. Of course, the day of the trip, I arrived at this school with the bus to pick up the students and there was Daphne in line. I explained again to her for the 100th time that she had not paid nor returned a permission form. Of course, the girl threw a tantrum, so I had her escorted back to her class.The field trip was a great success. Several parents, our Art teacher, and one principal had chaperoned the trip. The principal told me this was the best organized school trip he had ever attended and was impressed with the students’ interest and knowledge. But all didn’t end well! A parent meeting was soon scheduled by Daphne’s mother. At the meeting with myself, the principal, and guidance counselor, the mom requested to withdraw Daphne from my gifted class because, as she claimed, “I was teaching about Ramses- a heathen!” I took the Bible from the bookshelf and asked her to turn to Exodus. I asked,”Who do you think the pharaoh is who Moses went to?” I then pulled out my materials given to me by my Jacksonville class. I asked her to read the author of the booklet. She read, “Written by Dr. Homer Linsey, Jr., and Reverend Jerry Vines of First Baptist Church, Jacksonville, Fl.”After a long, stunned silence, the mom complained I should have told her the source. I showed her signature on acceptance of my curriculum and reminded her that a copy of our reading had been sent home to her. She kept saying,”I didn’t know!” The principal asked her,”If you didn’t know, why did you say Mrs. Hooper was teaching about heathens?”

This post has been updated to reflect new Zoom offerings and resources for educators in response to the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic.March 31Waiting Room on by default: Starting today, the Waiting Room feature will be automatically turned on by default. This security feature is one of the best ways to control who’s entering your Zoom virtual classroom by giving you the option to admit participants individually or all at once. Visit our support page for more information on adjusting your Waiting Room settings, or check out our blog on best practices for securing your virtual classroom.March 29Zoom has lifted the 40-minute meeting limit on free Basic accounts for K-12 schools in Australia, India, and New Zealand. Request to have the limit lifted for your school here.We’ve also put together this security resource for educators teaching over Zoom – Blog: Best Practices for Securing Your Virtual Classroom.March 26We’ve lifted the 40-minute meeting limit on free Basic accounts for K-12 schools in Israel. You can request to have the limit lifted for your school here.We’re also lifting the minutes limit for K-12 schools in Hong Kong SAR. Hong Kong SAR schools must request access using this e-learning support website only.March 25Zoom hardware partner Logitech is providing free equipment bundles for K-12 educators. Get more details in the Logitech blog post, or access the application request form.March 23Zoom has lifted the 40-minute meeting limit on free Basic accounts for K-12 schools in Canada, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Request to have the minutes limit lifted for your school here.March 20Resources for parentsSome programs that can help keep your at-home kids learning in a structured environment:California State Parks PORTS Program:The Home Learning Program offers virtual field trips four times a week!Khan Academy: Live online classes on a variety of subjects for ages 4-18National WWII Museum: Online teaching resources and distance learning archiveOutschool: Live online classes on a variety of subjects for ages 3-18March 16We’ve also lifted the 40-minute meeting limit on free Basic accounts for K-12 schools in the United Arab Emirates. Request to have the minutes limit lifted for your school here.March 13[Updated at 4:00 p.m. PT]We’ve proactively lifted the 40-minute meeting limit on free Basic accounts for schools in Belgium, Czech Republic, Greece, Norway, Portugal, and Switzerland. You can request to have the minutes limit lifted for your school here.March 13As of this morning, we have two new offers for schools:1. Zoom is proactively lifting the 40-minute meeting limit on free Basic accounts for nearly 60,000 K-12 schools in the U.S.If your school has already been pre-approved and your Zoom Basic account is linked to your school email address, you’ll get a notification the next time you log into Zoom. If you did not receive a notification, you can request to have the time limit lifted for your school here.2. We’ve partnered with Clever to make Zoom accessible to the 8,000 Clever districts who may be experiencing school closures.Clever is the most widely used single sign-on portal in K–12 districts, making it easy for schools to roll out Zoom quickly. Zoom accounts set up through Clever will include:Unlimited teacher accountsNo time limit on virtual class sessionsSingle sign-on via the Clever PortalSupport for PCs, Macs, Chromebooks, iPads, Android phones & iPhonesZoom is making all of these features available at no charge through July 1, 2020, for Clever districts.Here are some additional online resources for educators:Outschool, a marketplace for live online classes, has made available Free Remote Teacher Training Webinarsdemonstrating how to get started teaching online in a live video chat classroom for learners ages 3 to 18. These webinars are led by Outschool’s experienced K-12 teachers who have transitioned from in-person to online teaching. Educators can sign up and find available times/dates here.Instructional platform Nearpod is temporarily offering free online learning access to schools impacted by closures. Access includes live weekly webinars, a guide to using Nearpod for distance learning, and lessons on the coronavirus to keep students, teachers, and parents informed.March 12Zoom is temporarily lifting the 40-minute meeting limit on free Basic accounts for seven additional countries during the global COVID-19 pandemic.Effective immediately, K-12 schools in the following countries can request the 40-minute time limit be lifted for free Basic Zoom accounts:AustriaDenmarkFranceIrelandPolandRomaniaSouth KoreaSchools in these countries can request the limit removal by having a member of your school fill out this form using a school email address.Zoom has already removed the 40-minute limit on free Basic accounts for schools in Japan and Italy, and have lifted the limit by request for K-12 schools in the United States.Additional resourcesHere are some additional online resources to help you most effectively use Zoom for virtual education:Live Zoom training daily: These include sessions specifically highlighting Zoom Meetings for Education (Students & Educators), focusing on using Zoom Meetings as your classroom setting. Zoom Webinar training is also available.Recorded Zoom training: Watch previously recorded sessions on demand and at your convenience. Several are in German, Japanese, and Korean, in addition to English.Tips for instructors: Check out this Twitter thread from USC Ph.D. student and online instructor Alana Kennedyon some of the most useful features and best practices for teaching over Zoom.March 6Zoom has a wealth of experience helping educational institutions optimize the Zoom platform for virtual classrooms and online learning. It’s our goal to make Zoom easy to use and accessible for everyone, and we’re committed to streamlining the experience for our educational users amid the global coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak.Zoom’s teams are working to provide teachers, administrators, and students around the world with the resources they need to quickly spin up virtual classrooms, participate in online classes, and continue their studies online. It’s our intention that everyone, from seasoned Zoom users to those who’ve never interacted with our product, can easily download the client, start and schedule meetings, set students up with Zoom, and start using Zoom for virtual instruction with ease.This post is designed to help our education users:Sign up for a Zoom accountPick the best account optionUnderstand best practices for using Zoom in educationHelp for schoolsTo ensure all of our K-12 districts and other institutions can most effectively leverage Zoom for virtual education during this time, Zoom is:Temporarily removing the 40-minute limit on free Basic accounts for schools in Japan and Italy, and by request for K-12 schools in the United StatesProviding multi-language resources specifically designed for principals, vice principals, teachers, students, and parents to set up and use ZoomExpanding live trainings, webinars, and recorded offerings to share best practices for using the platformHow to enable your free Zoom accountTo have the 40-minute time limit temporarily removed for your organization’s free Basic accounts:Have your administrators, staff, and teachers sign up for a free Zoom account.Have a member of your school fill out this form to request the temporary removal.Upon verification, all free Basic accounts using your school’s email domain will have the time restriction lifted.Now teachers will be able to log in, schedule their classes, and send out invites to students. Students are not required to have a Zoom account and can join classes using the links sent from the teacher. For the best experience, we do recommend every user download the Zoom application on their preferred Mac, Windows, Linux, iOS, or Android device.We have numerous short videos on support.zoom.us to help you get started.Zoom account features & benefitsZoom offers robust collaboration and engagement tools as part of its standard free license, including the ability to connect using VoIP or via traditional phone when internet is not available. Administrators, teachers, parents, and students also have access to:Unlimited meetings for up to 100 participantsHD audio and videoScreen sharingWhiteboardingAnnotationBreakout RoomsVirtual backgroundsIn-meeting chatLocal recordingNonverbal feedbackFor organizations requiring a more robust feature set and administrative control, Zoom’s Education plan provides the above capabilities and more at a low cost, including:Unlimited meetings for up to to 300 participantsSingle sign-on (SSO)LTI integration to support most LMS platformsEnhanced user management to add, delete, and assign add-on featuresAdvanced admin controls for enabling/disabling recording, chat, and notifications500 MB of cloud recordingCloud recording transcriptionUsage reports to track participationNeed help deciding whether a Basic or Education plan is right for you? Connect with a Zoom education specialistfor assistance.Resources for Zoom’s education usersHere are some guides to help school administrators, staff, teachers, students, and parents leverage Zoom for virtual learning:Comprehensive Guide to Educating Through ZoomTips and Tricks for Teachers Educating on ZoomTips and Tricks for Administrators and StaffStudent Tips for Participating in Online LearningEducation Guide to Getting Started on ZoomSchool Administrator’s Guide to Rolling Out ZoomWe’re also providing multi-language resources specifically designed for principals, vice principals, teachers, students, and parents to set up and use Zoom.Additional measuresZoom is also proactively monitoring our global infrastructure to ensure reliability and uptime for your online learning programs. Our proven infrastructure regularly supports over 8 billion meeting minutes a month, and we are confident that our architecture can handle spiking levels of activity and support educational institutions around the world during this time.

As a retired elementary teacher from an international school in Bangkok, I have gone on hundreds of field trips. Now technically, these excursions should be related to the curriculum being taught. Let’s just say that I stretched the truth sometimes when filling out the request forms for the trip. Shown below is a perfect example.This photograph was taken by my Thai teaching assistant on the tarmac of the Suvarnabhumi Airport before it was open to the public. A friend of Dee (my wife) had called her and asked if my class would like to tour the airport. Naturally, I jumped at the opportunity and then began to wonder how I was going to pull this trip off.And then it hit me. As part of our English curriculum we had been studying about newspapers and each student was in the process of making their own newspaper for distribution to the rest of the class. Perfect. We would be touring the airport as reporters. The only problem was that a trip to the Bangkok Post had already been arranged, but luckily both the parents and school gave their approval for an additional educational trip.Let me set the scene. Bangkok Post headquarters. Circa 2004.A couple of Bangkok Post employees met us as we were getting off of the bus and the tour began. My students and I were amazed at the massive rolls of paper used, how fast the newspaper was printed and how noisy the printing presses were. After the tour we went to a large classroom for a question and answer period with a senior member of the administration team who was of Western heritage. But right off the bat, I noticed that the tour guides were not experienced teachers. Why?On the top of every desk that a student was sitting behind was a colorful plastic bag filled with Bangkok Post knick-knacks. Trust me, most eight year old students are not able to multi-task and nobody was asking questions. After a couple of minutes of silence, I decided to help out and break the ice. Plus it allowed me to tell the students to put everything down and pay attention. I then asked my question.“Does anybody in Thailand ever tell the Bangkok Post what to write or not to write?” I thought the guy was going to have a stroke. He stuttered and stammered and luckily a student soon asked how come the ink smells so bad. He answered that question.Why did I ask that particular question? I had got tired of students asking me over and over again what to print in their newspapers. My goal had been to try and get them to think for themselves and thought the Bangkok Post guy would say something along the lines that reporters have to find stories on their own.At the end of the day, the Bangkok Post ain’t a bad newspaper. I’ve read it for years and they do the best they can under the circumstances. Personally, I enjoy perusing the ‘Letters to the Editor’ section. Trust me, they have some nuts that write in…