On my first day of online learning, 63 eager sixth grade faces appeared in Brady Bunch format on my English class Google Meet. I adjusted my additional monitor and accidentally pinned one student’s face to the screen, shutting off my view of every other pupil. Seconds crawled by as I welcomed students I couldn’t see.

Nothing in my 20 years of teaching taught me how to “unpin” the student’s face. I threw a Hail Mary pass to a friend’s son in my class. He unmuted himself and helped me.