rivErsidE Chat

five Questions for . . . John Adams

To say that the spring, summer, and fall have been busy for John Adams would be a significant understatement. The math teacher and director of academic technology at Rivers spent untold hours helping the school prepare for its fall reopening. When we spoke over the summer, Adams was gearing up for three possible scenarios: In person, online, and hybrid—with an emphasis on flexibility and the ability to pivot quickly. “The way you plan for this is planning for full online,” he explained, noting that it’s best to be ready for the worst. Did anything in your background prepare you for the current moment?

I always think of Steve Jobs’s graduation speech at Stanford, where he said you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. There are things in my experience that I’m referencing that I didn’t anticipate. For example, when I worked in sales, we used to make calls to schedule meetings. A lot of that was talking through a software platform, and that’s essentially what I’m doing. And all the team sports I played, there was the team dynamic of stepping up and making sacrifices. Those types of things have prepared me.

What was the biggest challenge in preparing for this year?

Training. We took a full-court-press approach to training, not just on the technical aspects but the basic elements of running a class, distributing work, providing feedback. And within all that, while you’re doing all these things, how do you maintain the Rivers ethos of Excellence with Humanity and relationship building? You can’t just train in the technology and forget what the school is all about.

Are there some positives that came out of the crisis?

Canvas [the school’s new learning management system] is a hub that makes for a good online learning experience, but teachers are recognizing how it streamlines their processes and gives them much more capability. It’s a huge silver lining. We needed this, and it wouldn’t have happened if COVID weren’t around.

Will the current circumstances affect not just the format but the content of classroom work?

People are going through a rigorous evaluation of their courses. If you were to tell every teacher to do that in a regular year, it would be insane. But in this case, that’s what happened, helped along by a lot of support and collaboration. Whether online or in person, we’re going to continue to provide the excellent education we’ve always provided.

Your superpower of choice?

With family in D.C., Connecticut, and San Francisco, I’d like to have the ability to teleport, so I could easily see them. Mask on, teleport, visit, then get back to your house. And you could also use it to go to cool places.