Suzi Kim

This interview with Suzi Miranda (née Kim) took place on October 24, 2021 via Zoom. Suzi is an elementary educator who was teaching at a one room schoolhouse in Hudson, NY when lockdown began and moved to online/remote teaching for the remainder of the school year. The following year, she began leading a homeschool pod with a few families and in this interview discusses the challenges that reimagining these new roles presented, and how, even through all of the unknowns, it became a really beautiful experience. She talks about how complying with the very strict social contract agreed to between the families and herself became a source of loneliness and isolation for her and her fiancé. At the time of the interview, she was in her first year teaching in-person at a small private school outside of Albany. She compares and contrasts her experience leading the homeschool pod and her new position at the private school. Although she did some questioning about whether or not to continue on as an educator, she found herself taking the new job at the private school and discusses the effects of how transitioning back to in-person has effected the younger children and what their needs are now as opposed to before COVID-19 pandemic. She finishes by talking about what COVID has exposed and taught parents and teachers and administrators about one another's roles and created a new appreciation for what everyone brings to the table.