Teaching shifts to online methods

CLOVIS — If Mark Sena had continued down his original path, his part in combating the current pandemic might have involved dealing with COVID-19 patients directly.

Sena, now a Clovis High chemistry teacher and boys track and field coach, was initially bound for the medical profession.

“I went to school to be a doctor; I was a pre-med guy,” Sena said. “And about halfway through college I got really nervous about having to tell parents that I wasn’t able to save their kid. I was watching too much TV at the time and I got freaked out.”

In the days of “E.R.” and “Chicago Hope,” Sena could see a lot of unhappy prognoses playing out on the small screen.

He decided a change of direction was in order. Teaching was a part of his family bloodlines, and he received a lot of encouragement.

“‘You can still affect a lot of lives and you can have a positive effect. I think you’ll be really good at it,’” Sena remembers being told.

Medicine’s loss is education’s gain. Sena is in his 18th year of teaching, which may also be his most challenging.

Due to the coronavirus, on March 12 Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham ordered that all New Mexico public schools be closed from March 16 through April 3. Just in the past week, Lujan Grisham followed up by ordering New Mexico schools closed for the remainder of the academic year.

That put Sena and teachers throughout the state in new territory, because this coming week they will begin completing the school year’s teaching requirements online. They had been used to molding minds in the classroom, not via the internet.

Welcome to the 21st century and the pandemic that has redefined it.

“Before this week I had never taken part in a Zoom meeting,” Sena said Friday, “and never heard of Google Hangout.”

He’s picking up on them, though. If his teaching pulpit has to be a computer to keep people safe, so be it.

“I’ve been trying to do all that I can to help kids,” he said.

His wife Mindy, a Portales High guidance counselor, has helped.

“She’s been catching me up on this technology stuff,” Sena said. “She really is good at communication; me not so much. It’s been a learning experience. … But by the end of this thing we’re all going to have a few more tools in the tool box, which will make us better teachers. But I wish it wasn’t under these circumstances.”

Sena has two sons in the Texico school system — one in kindergarten, the other in high school — and a daughter enrolled at Lubbock Christian. They all have to pay attention to their academics online for the remainder of the school year.

But this week during work hours, Sena’s flock will be his chemistry students across the internet.

“We haven’t changed what we do,” Sena said, “just how we do it.”

As the teachers step up to their new challenge, Sena lauds heroes like the school administrative staffs that have still been going to work — what he calls “working, working” — during these past three weeks. There are also some people who have been driving around Portales handing out food, others handing out school lessons in Texico.

Now it’s time for the teachers to do their part in the classrooms, albeit electronic ones. And for Sena to remind himself of why he became a teacher in the first place.

“Just the relationships you have with students, relationships you have with the people that you work with,” he said. “It’s something different every day. … Mostly it’s just being around the kids, seeing them grow. You’re proud of what you do … because you know you do the best to give them a chance to succeed. You’re not the main reason for it and you’re not the only reason, but you’re part of the reason.”