Pandemic school: A teacher’s experience
The first week of this school year was not something i was looking forward to. In all honestly, this is very likely to be my last year teaching as the reality of what transpired in response to a pandemic amidst an economic crisis, social uprising, and environmental catastrophes has left a chasm in me for which I will need space and healing. The weeks leading up to the first official start of school, which was pushed back by two weeks, I felt myself waiting and waiting in anticipation for more clarification. How will we equitably deliver instruction? How will we know how students and their families are doing? How will we be able to uphold all to the same standards as “before”?
I blame myself for having more faith in the wider system than it probably deserved. Writing this in an effort to capture the emotions and events that have transpired is already imprinting a sense of guilt and shame. But I know this is an important story. My story is one of hundreds of thousands that need to be shared. And in a desperate act to feel like I can still perform a public service, I will write.
School has been in session now for a full week and I am exhausted. We have a bell schedule that organizes the times of the day for students into a block schedule Tuesday-Friday and Mondays are for completely asynchronous “learning”. Almost everything about the previous sentence is excruciating for me to make sense of. Why is there an arbitrary schedule of times? Why are we calling it a bell schedule? These are just a tiny sample of the clarifying questions that I asked that reached no one. Because amidst understanding what the expectations of my own work, there was an undeniable sense of isolation balanced by a self-serving need to give the benefit of the doubt to everyone. Administration demands made no sense to me, but I trusted that they were only doing the best they could. And the decisions they made were based on the best information they had available to them.
I hoped it would be better. I wanted it to be better. I wanted the concept of a “schedule” to be thrown out the window. I absolutely saw no better time than in response to a pandemic for us to throw out the entire rule book and start over. Redesign the way we assign credits to classes. Re-design how we assess, deliver instruction. Re-design the role of the teacher, the paraprofessional, the administrator. Make every decision on the basis of empathy and in service of a grander vision of equitable schooling--a vision that never stood a chance in the “beforetimes” way of schooling. I was in complete denial of the system I had been a part of for six years. In having these hopes, I was operating with amnesia, forgetting how even small simple and common-sense changes, like abolishing a dress-code, funding extracurricular programs, implementing widespread equitable grading practices, hosting an observation club, all efforts were futile.
We got little to no clarity on what we should be doing with students leading up to the first day of school. Staff training days were a bust in that the level of technical difficulties were all that were visible to me as I sat uncomfortably from my dining room table for hours on end, waiting for a stroke of inspiration or hope to land on me. As I witnessed the attempts of those who had spent days and weeks planning 30-45 minute sessions for large groups of participants, all I learned was how little I would likely get accomplished compared to the level of effort that teachers would need to put into it.
Here are some of the barriers I encountered during the week leading up to the first day:
Paraprofessionals were even more in the dark than teachers about roles and responsibilities
The blueprint course I was provided reflected little of what I knew about CRT practices
I had to troubleshoot my way through using a video conferencing program, of which there is no guarantee of access on the part of students
I connected the dots within the attendance program that spelled out attendance at live sessions was optional as long as students were completing the work, this gave me little hope that i’d have consistent attendance.
Tech and connectivity issues up the wahzoo. I can’t even put a number to how many. And they all varied. I am not a trained web-designer. As much as the district I work for touts that we received adequate training on how to design a Canvas course. We did not.
Following the first day, I had to juggle translating instruction by myself for cluster classes. Being technical support for students after i prompted them to share via the conferencing app. Become a web page designer to make information accessible. All while feeling like I exist in a vacuum.
By the next week I was getting messages from students explaining technical difficulties, comprehension challenges, and many that were completing the work and ready to move on. Incoming emails about IEPs I barely read. Attendance reminders, when there’s no simple, manageable way to take attendance fairly.
I became overwhelmed after just 4 days. I took two days off the second week to try to re-think how i’ll approach all of it. I had some initial intentions: keep it simple, keep it kind. But I just don’t know how and it's not coming to me.
And even though I can mindfully observe the thought, “I can’t do this. It’s too much. I can’t do this”, I will press on. Because I’m a teacher. And we always do what we can. It’s just overwhelming me to think that what I actually can do now, in my 7th year teaching, is so far below adequate.
