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June 18, 2021 was the last day of school for my district for the 2020-2021 school year. As is my school's tradition, the entire staff gathered on the blacktop to wave goodbye to our students as their busses rolled out. I cried—not sentimental tears. No, these were tears of release—of grief, pain, anxiety, depression and anger. The long nightmare of COVID teaching was finally over!
Or so I thought...
Come September, I will be starting my 20th year in this profession, and this past school year was by far the worst. Worse than my very first day of teaching which was September 11, 2001, worse than Super Storm Sandy, way worse than mold outbreaks, rodent infestations or working without a contract. I’m a pretty tough cookie, but I won’t lie, it broke me. I spent many days in tears. I told myself I couldn’t do it, I was horrible, a failure. And it wasn't just me. So many of my colleagues—including veteran teachers—were going through the exact same thing.
It wasn’t the actual teaching that got me. When I’m in front of students, I’m in my zone. It was everything else: technology, software, constant schedule/rule/procedure changes, switching and combining cohorts, muting/unmuting, trying to keep 5-year-olds socially distanced, endless Zoom meetings, endless paperwork, AWOL students, the tsunami of emails that flooded my inbox, and the seemingly endless stream of information that I was required to ingest, digest and regurgitate into one or more parts of my instructional day. I struggled to sleep and woke up to immediate panic attacks. There were days when ice cream calmed my nerves. I became an expert at baking—and eating—chocolate chip cookies. The Dave Matthews song, Too Much, was a constant ear worm:
It wasn’t the actual teaching that got me. When I’m in front of students, I’m in my zone. It was everything else: technology, software, constant schedule/rule/procedure changes, switching and combining cohorts, muting/unmuting, trying to keep 5-year-olds socially distanced, endless Zoom meetings, endless paperwork, AWOL students, the tsunami of emails that flooded my inbox, and the seemingly endless stream of information that I was required to ingest, digest and regurgitate into one or more parts of my instructional day. I struggled to sleep and woke up to immediate panic attacks. There were days when ice cream calmed my nerves. I became an expert at baking—and eating—chocolate chip cookies. The Dave Matthews song, Too Much, was a constant ear worm:
Straight in, suck up and go,
Cool it, swallow, swallow
Breathe deep, take it all
It comes cheap
Push it through the doors
Because in between the lines
I'm gonna pack more lines
So I can get in...
I eat too much
I drink too much
I want too much
Too much
Imagine having a day and a half to figure out how to ride a bike upside down and blindfolded, then having to teach it to 400 students under the age of ten when you haven't really mastered it yourself. That's what March 2020 - June 2021 was like. Oh, and I got COVID-19 and was pretty sick for a few months, so there's that.
This was just my experience. All over the country, hundreds of thousands of educators were going through their own kind of COVID hell. I read their stories and tried to write about them, but it was all I could do to get to work on time and not crawl into bed before the sun went down, let alone try to blog. But over the summer I had some time to rest, recharge and reflect. Here—in no particular order—are my four takeaways from teaching in a pandemic:
1. Unions are vital to the survival of the 99%
Healthcare workers, first responders, retail and other frontline workers (including teachers) have been fried, burned out and way overworked during COVID, but educators took an enormous amount of heat because we dared to demand safe teaching and learning conditions in order to return to in-person instruction (imagine that?). History is rife with stories of workers who suffered and died because of unsafe working conditions and individual workers who tried and failed to improve their conditions, but it's also filled with stories of workers who organized, unionized and rallied to make changes for the better. That's what teachers all over the country did (some were more successful than others) because they know that better teaching conditions lead to better learning conditions, which leads me to...
Healthcare workers, first responders, retail and other frontline workers (including teachers) have been fried, burned out and way overworked during COVID, but educators took an enormous amount of heat because we dared to demand safe teaching and learning conditions in order to return to in-person instruction (imagine that?). History is rife with stories of workers who suffered and died because of unsafe working conditions and individual workers who tried and failed to improve their conditions, but it's also filled with stories of workers who organized, unionized and rallied to make changes for the better. That's what teachers all over the country did (some were more successful than others) because they know that better teaching conditions lead to better learning conditions, which leads me to...
2. Biden's infrastructure bill is critical to the advancement of the poor and middle class
The bill includes $100 billion for school upgrades from Pre-K to college, and $100 billion for expanded broadband access. As The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health states on its COVID-19 webpage, "Schools can be made safe, but they are not inherently safe." So far, in the 21st Century, the United States has not only landed rovers on Mars, but flown drones there, created self driving cars, and cell phones that can manage almost every aspect of our daily lives. But we send too many children to schools that rival those of third-world nations. In the wealthiest nation on earth, public schools are far too often the place where students go for stability, including things like food, heat, medical care and emotional security, and far too many schools are sorely lacking in all of them.
The bill includes $100 billion for school upgrades from Pre-K to college, and $100 billion for expanded broadband access. As The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health states on its COVID-19 webpage, "Schools can be made safe, but they are not inherently safe." So far, in the 21st Century, the United States has not only landed rovers on Mars, but flown drones there, created self driving cars, and cell phones that can manage almost every aspect of our daily lives. But we send too many children to schools that rival those of third-world nations. In the wealthiest nation on earth, public schools are far too often the place where students go for stability, including things like food, heat, medical care and emotional security, and far too many schools are sorely lacking in all of them.
Every single school in this country should be structurally sound, clean, safe, have fully operational windows, water fountains, toilets, cafeterias and HVAC systems, with the emphasis on AC. I don't care that you went to school without air conditioning at the dawn of time so kids today should just suck it up. I did, too. And you know what? It was awful—and it still is awful! Two years ago, the temperature in my room one September day was almost 92º:
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| Actual picture I took of my portable thermostat, 9/19 |
I dare you to try to teach kids anything meaningful in those conditions, especially when some are coming from third floor walkups that are no better. When the health department issues heat advisories and air quality warnings and there's no air conditioning, teaching and learning are compromised. So is health. And we know that low-income students and students of color in urban neighborhoods are more likely to attend schools that are infrastructurally compromised. The pictures below, posted on Twitter by the Paterson Education Association, show the conditions in one of the district's schools as staff were being forced to return to in-person instruction last year. It's the fifth largest district in New Jersey, one of the wealthiest states in the US that also happens to have the best public education system in the country. If this is the best, can you imagine the worst?
Despite a tough fight by the PEA to keep schools closed during the height of the pandemic, they reopened to this:
As 900 of Paterson’s 29,000 students came back to school buildings this week, they were greeted with dead rodents, cockroaches, standing water, mold, broken air conditioners, and filth. One student classroom even had a visit from a pigeon. Bathrooms were missing paper products, soap, and have disgusting toilets that were not cleaned since March of 2020. Many windows won’t open. The sinks either clog, spout brown water, or both. Unfortunately, the district lacks the will to change anything, sending a destructive message to students that they are not worth better conditions.
Earlier this year, Dr. Chris Carroll, Pediatric Critical Care Physician at Connecticut Children's Medical Center, tweeted an important thread on racism, COVID-19 and children with asthma:
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| Sorry for the crop on the graph. It looks the same on Twitter. |
3. It should be pretty clear now that distance learning is no match for in-person instruction
During the height of pandemic learning, teachers all over the country reported the same thing: handfuls of virtual students that either never showed up for class or did so sporadically. Some never turned on their camera or would hand in no work. Others played with pets or toys, watched TV, ate, danced or otherwise fooled around. I had my own experiences with all of this. As frustrating as it was, it was also completely age-appropriate—at least at my level (K-4). Spend ten minutes in an elementary classroom and you will see a lot of energy and movement. They're little kids who should never be forced to sit in front of a computer for that many hours a day! If it was exhausting for us, can you imagine how awful it was for them?
During the height of pandemic learning, teachers all over the country reported the same thing: handfuls of virtual students that either never showed up for class or did so sporadically. Some never turned on their camera or would hand in no work. Others played with pets or toys, watched TV, ate, danced or otherwise fooled around. I had my own experiences with all of this. As frustrating as it was, it was also completely age-appropriate—at least at my level (K-4). Spend ten minutes in an elementary classroom and you will see a lot of energy and movement. They're little kids who should never be forced to sit in front of a computer for that many hours a day! If it was exhausting for us, can you imagine how awful it was for them?
I tried to keep a soft spot for parents who were as stressed and burned out as I was. Many just couldn't adequately monitor their child's learning while working from home. Other students did just fine. Those high-achievers can learn anything, anywhere, but they are not in the majority. The lesson here is that children—young children—need the structure and support that only brick-and-mortar schools give (I can't say the same for high school because I've never taught at that level). It's not just about the academics. Half of what we teach is social skills: how to get along with each other, how to function in society, how to share and take turns. And learning together helps students learn better. There were a couple of times when I forgot to end a Zoom class and I came back a little while later to find my students hanging out together, talking, laughing, sharing artwork they had done. Those kids were craving social interaction. Education is not just about academics; it's a huge part of a child's social/emotional development.
4. Put your oxygen mask on first
Every good teacher knows that some days we just aren't on our game. For whatever reason things didn't go as we hoped. We are taught to reflect, regroup and prepare to meet the next day with a renewed sense of purpose and lessons learned. This is how I'm heading into this coming school year. We are not back to normal yet, and things could change on a dime, so I have to be ready. But no matter what happens, my students will always come second. Yes, you read that right, second—after me.
Flight attendants always teach us to put our oxygen mask on first before we help others. If we're not breathing, we're no good to anyone. If I am stressed, sleep-deprived, anxious or panicked, I am no good to my students. I cannot and will not go through another school year like last year so I made a vow to myself that this year I will take care of myself first and foremost. If not, I will wind up smack-dab in the middle of that bowl of chocolate chip cookie dough.
Things I have promised myself for the coming school year:
- I will put my health and wellbeing first. This includes working a reasonable number of hours every day and giving myself weekends off.
- I will provide my students with a safe, nurturing environment in which to express themselves creatively. If I achieve that, nothing else matters.
- I will work verrrrry hard at not sweating the small stuff. PS: it's all small stuff.
To all my education friends: I wish you a healthy, happy and productive school year. To all my parent and advocate friends: I wish the same to you, and I thank you for all you do every day to help students and teachers succeed.
Oh yea, and if you haven't done so already, get yer damned shot! Vaccines save lives.
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