• Editor’s Introduction: Living the Teaching Life in a Time of COVID-19
• Jeraldine R. Kraver

There are very few bright spots for those of us living and teaching in the time of COVID. And, frankly, “those of us” pretty much means all of us. Things that seemed as if they could be positive effects—more family time, the opportunity to master new technologies, a chance to develop a hobby or reorganize one’s closets—quickly lost their appeal. Making sense of the news became progressively harder and harder. Bright spots were hard to find.

In my capacity at my university as Director of English Education, I am in frequent contact with former students who are now classroom teachers. Although we in the university might be facing extraordinary times and challenges, they barely compare against what confronts teachers in K-12 classrooms. Many of these young teachers—and, in fact, many of their seasoned colleagues—are enduring unimaginable anxiety, frustration, and stress. In seeking to comfort one of them during the early days of the pandemic, I offered, “Think about it: for you and for your students—no matter where you travel in your lives, no matter what cities in this nation or other countries you might visit in the years to come—everyone in the world will have a story about COVID.” After all, there are not many events in all of history that are truly global, and fewer and fewer people are alive who endured World War II (indeed, one might argue that the war was not so global as COVID, which has touched nearly every nation¹). My former student, I suspect, was only marginally comforted, but at least our exchange did its part to inspire this issue.

Since The CEA Critic moved to the University of Northern Colorado, our third offering each year has been a proceedings. More than just collect essays, we get to celebrate the organization’s annual conference, and producing it is one of my favorite jobs because I get to relive the experience. Too, it is an opportunity for me to read papers presented in sessions I could not attend. The result always reminds me of the scope to the CEA, both in how members hail from across the nation and, increasingly, the globe and in how they represent diverse interests and roles in the academy. The CEA is a kind of floating community of catholic interests, and I, along with everyone else, dearly missed traveling to Hilton Head. For me, though, the disappointment was quickly superseded by panic: “Oh, *!#%! what will we do for the proceedings?” [End Page xiii]

Casting about for answer to my question, I took my own advice. As I told my distressed former student, the experience of COVID is worldwide, so why not try to understand that experience by soliciting essays from around the globe and in the moment? The key would be focus. I have little doubt that future scholars will still be examining the effects of COVID on all aspects of our lives, but, for our part, we merely wished to take a snapshot of the historical moment. Given as much, the questions we posed in our Call for Papers emphasized the here and now:

• • How are you using the situation in terms of literary, historical, or philosophical discussions with your students?

• • What are you learning about technology, and how will that insight help you when life returns to on-campus teaching?

• • What general responses are you finding with students, and how can those responses be leveraged in terms of student learning objectives?

• • How has the situation affected your scholarly endeavors, whether for better or worse?

• • What do you think the situation has taught about “business as usual” in higher education?

• • What has the situation taught you about yourself as a teacher, especially in your role within your larger society?

• • Given the sudden switch from in-person to online identities, how are you staying sane?

To our call, the response verged on overwhelming: our closing date found us with 40 submissions to consider.

The process of choosing which essays to include was daunting, if not downright maddening. There were so many fascinating experiences shared by...

• 编者简介：在COVID-19时代过着教学生活
• 杰拉尔丁·克拉弗（Jeraldine R.

在COVID时代，对于我们这些生活和教学的人们来说，鲜有亮点。而且，坦率地说，“那些我们”非常手段所有我们的。似乎可能产生积极影响的事情-增加家庭时间，掌握新技术的机会，发展爱好或重组壁橱的机会-很快失去了吸引力。对新闻的理解变得越来越困难。很难找到亮点。

在我的大学担任英语教学总监时，我经常与以前的学生联系，现在是课堂老师。尽管我们大学时代可能面临非同寻常的时代和挑战，但他们几乎无法与K-12教室的老师所面对的挑战相提并论。这些年轻的老师中的许多人，实际上还有许多经验丰富的同事，都承受着无法想象的焦虑，沮丧和压力。为了在大流行初期设法安慰其中的一个人，我提出：“为您和您的学生考虑一下：无论您生活在何处，无论在这个国家或其他国家的城市中，可能会在以后的几年中访问-世界上每个人都会有一个关于COVID的故事。” 毕竟，在历史上，真正的全球事件并不多，¹）。我怀疑我以前的学生勉强得到了安慰，但是至少我们的交流为激发这个问题做出了自己的贡献。

自CEA评论家以来搬到北科罗拉多大学后，我们每年的第三次录取已经开始。我们不仅庆祝散文集，还庆祝该组织的年度会议，并且制作它是我最喜欢的工作之一，因为我可以重温这段经历。我也有机会阅读无法参加的会议上发表的论文。结果总是使我想起CEA的范围，既包括来自全国各地，以及越来越多的来自全球的成员，也包括他们如何代表学院中的各种利益和角色。CEA是一个由天主教徒组成的浮动社区，我和其他所有人一样，非常想念去希尔顿黑德（Hilton Head）的旅行。但是对我来说，失望很快就被恐慌所取代：“哦，*！＃％！我们将为诉讼做些什么？” [第十三页结束]

为了回答我的问题，我接受了自己的建议。正如我告诉遇难的前学生一样，COVID的经验是全球性的，那么为什么不尝试通过征求全球各地以及当下的论文来尝试了解COVID的经验呢？关键是重点。我毫不怀疑，未来的学者仍将研究COVID对我们生活各个方面的影响，但就我们而言，我们仅希望对历史时刻进行快照。尽可能地，我们在“论文征集”中提出的问题强调了现在和现在：

• •在与学生进行文学，历史或哲学讨论方面，您如何使用这种情况？

• •您对技术有什么了解，当生活重返校园教学时，这种见识将对您有何帮助？

• •您对学生有什么总体反应，以及如何利用学生的学习目标来利用这些反应？

• •这种情况如何影响您的学术成就，无论是好是坏？

• •您认为这种情况对高等教育中的“一切照旧”有何启示？

• •在您作为大社会的角色时，情况如何教会您如何成为一名老师？

• •鉴于从面对面身份突然转变为在线身份，您如何保持理智？

在我们的电话中，答复几乎是压倒性的：我们的截止日期发现我们有40份要考虑的意见书。

选择要包括哪些论文的过程令人生畏，甚至令人发疯。...分享了很多迷人的经历