How many times have we heard the cliché “You don’t know what you have, ‘til you don’t have it anymore’? How many times have you had the epiphany of this cliché?
During this quarantine, I have had more thoughts rushing through my head than I can ever remember! What would I be doing in my classroom right now? Where would my focus be? What would be stressing me out the most? Let’s see…state testing, which kids are in danger of failing the year, and am I doing all I can to make sure ALL of my kids show growth so our school can show growth as a whole, thus allowing our school district to keep its grade A rating…all of the above would be at the top of my list right now. Thrown into that mix of very much desired madness would be a fair share of students who enjoy aggravating their friends, asking me questions about topics that have nothing to do with the task at hand, sneaking a peek at their forbidden cell phones, and of course, the occasional serious offense which results in students missing instructional time in favor of in school suspension or out of school suspension. But hey, it is my job, and I absolutely love it!
How about my own personal family? Normally, I would be so consumed with creating the perfect lesson plans in order to establish the goals listed above that I would barely have time to help my own kids with their homework or show up for every extracurricular activity performance for this time of year, thus feeling a bit guilty of doing a run-of-the-mill job as a mother. Don’t all of us mothers feel guilt at some point?
Having thought all of that, I must reflect on the following question: where am I now? I am thinking I didn’t know what I had ‘til I didn’t have it anymore! I can’t even begin to explain what I would give to be back on my routine of rising at 5:00 AM every morning, saying good-bye to my boys as my husband takes them to school, and arriving at my school around 6:30 AM, give or take a few minutes to prepare myself for my eighty ‘other children’ who have been entrusted to me for their academic growth. After a long day’s work of teaching my students all I can for that given day, I long to arrive home breathtakingly exhausted and become Mama, the one who turns off the television and ‘electronic whatevers,’ forcing my three sons to do homework, which will inevitably lead to interruptions to cooking dinner and other various chores as each son in his turn asks me to come and help him understand some aspect of his academics. Can you relate to this crazy way of life? I bet you can! 😊 Can you also relate to the complaints, the annoyances, the desperate wish to have “this school year hurry up and end already, so we can finally relax” train of endless thoughts?
Everyone has their own theory as to why COVID-19 is happening all around us, and goodness knows, everyone has expressed their opinions with the strongest of convictions about whether this quarantine is or is not truly necessary.
Regardless of the present circumstances in which you find yourself, I encourage you to hold on to these memories as tightly as you can! If there is one thing I have personally learned, it is this: I didn’t realize the amazingness of my teaching life, as well as my daily home life, until I was forced to reconstruct those lives from top to bottom. I was so blessed with that mix of madness, and I never took the time to reflect on those blessings as I was too busy trying to change that madness in one way or another.
My prayer today is to feel again! I want to feel the frustration of running out of time during a class period, when I wish I could complete just one more activity. I want to feel the joy of seeing my students perform well on a weekly test after we have covered certain standards, which proved to be more complex than originally thought. I want to feel the exhaustion in my spirit, mind, and body when our administrators dole out one more thing we need to focus on before testing day arrives. I want to feel the nervous anticipation I always feel before we walk into our weekly PLC meeting with our subject administrator. I want to feel the stress of wondering if I am doing my job well enough, or if my kids are learning anything from me this year. Above all, I long with all of my heart to feel the excitement of seeing my students walking the halls towards their classes, while every educator in the building tries to guide them in the right direction, both physically and behaviorally.
While there are enough prayers about this pandemic to go around our world a million times over, I have one everlasting prayer which has dropped anchor in my heart….”God, remind me of these feelings of longing when the need to complain about daily struggles begin to take over my thoughts. Let me never forget how wonderful it is to have what I have, even when the going gets tough!”
Just My Perspective 
Amy
I came across your post. Wow, what a year this has been. Now, that we are back in school the pressures are surmountable. Until this last school year, I also beat to the mantra to be a problem solver not a problem starter. I truly have lost focus amongst all the negative with this school year because of COVID-19. You seem to be very abreast of the feelings and nuances that out quarantine time and now the new school era we are in. I previously taught fifth grade for most of my career and now, I am at a different school teaching sixth grade. I am personally struggling with finding teaching and learning strategies that work for rebuilding their base knowledge from missing the remaining nine weeks of their fifth grade year. The usual strategies I would implore require me to get really close to the students and I cannot this year because of health reasons. I really like the suggested solution focus way to approach situations. This is currently causing much distress and I just cannot find solutions. My technology access is limited. What are solutions that you might offer?
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One of my favorite fifth grade teachers did something with my son that brought him up to par when he was lacking certain skills….she simply gave him on level exercises only with a few higher level text. While I noticed some teachers ( and I was guilty too) attempting to ‘back track’ to see if they could re-teach students skills they lacked, her approach was to start them where they should already be and never go lower. At first, I thought it would not work, but she showed me how practice after practice of on level skills exercised my son’s brain until he was making solid B’s in ELA without struggling. It was as though the attempt to teach students lower level work in an attempt to teach them what they should know did more harm than good.
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