Week 1 complete
Today was the first day where my other teacher duties set in. I had to record a lesson today, and I had a staff meeting via zoom, and then I had to support my student group. On top of this, I have two children doing home school.
Today I could really feel what parents with non-education jobs have been feeling. Sitting down at night and writing out lesson plans for my kids was just a push on my typical skills that I use everyday. But today was running my lesson (high school English class lesson), keeping my son on track with his online grade level app, my daughter completing her work. Then as my first lesson ended, I needed to head into a staff meeting, and my son was going to his first break. Ultimately, this wound up with my son coming and sitting through my staff meeting. He was complimented at the end for being calm and quiet and not causing any issues. And I have to say that I was as impressed as my colleagues. I was able to mute the screen because he did have a lot of questions about what was going on and who was who.
It was also Friday. I mean, Friday is usually a day to wrap up what was learned that week. But today, for my own children, was a break from all the structures because I think I needed to have a break from all the structures. And at the same time, as I am settling into realizing that this is going to be our new normal, I need to ensure that I have more structures in place for next week as things start to get real.
“Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do.
Pele
”
I had been hopeful that we would be looking at something short and sweet. Fourteen days is the incubation period, so I wanted it to be that we only had to wait out everyone’s incubation period. But it would seem that as people continue to mingle (and I know some people who have done this because it seems that we don’t know people that are sick or that would get sick, or because so often we live in a world of immortality), we have to remember that mingling spreads germs.
I utterly hate glitter. I know, what teacher hates glitter? This high school English teacher does! Glitter is the herpes of the art world, that is how I think of it. If I have a glitter episode and wind up with glitter on my hands, everything i touch will have glitter on it. First you touch your face because face it (hahaha) as soon as you can’t do something it is the first thing you do. Now you have glitter on your hands and your face. Next your friend laughs and reaches out a hand and you touch. Now the friend has glitter on them. Someone else comes along, and they don’t even have to touch you, glitter will just jump into the air and find them, like a miracle of air conditioning. Now all three of you have glitter because you happen to be in the same place. Two days later you will go to grab a bag you had that day, or a book, or a shirt, and you will find glitter, and so will the other two people. And quite possibly, so will anyone else who came in contact with you that day after the glitter incident. Germs are the glitter of the social world. We share them all to readily.
Okay, I gave you my creepy paragraph regarding my theory on disease, and you can see why I now understand why I am probably not going to be back to work until the end of April or May. And it hurts. I miss my students. I was not suppose to say goodbye to them, I had time left, we all had time left.
On that last day in my classroom, a student said to me “Do I say goodbye?” That has stuck with me all this week. And it haunted me all that day. I did not know how to answer that student, or how to look at it myself. But now, now that I know I have at least 29 more days until I see them, it is hard. Not that I have to teach in a new way, but that I won’t see them, and watch the grow. I can’t see them get something or the joy when they understand something they have been struggling with.
Know as you work with your child through this isolation, that there is a teacher missing your child. As much as you are struggling through this new normal, so is someone else with a life that is wrapped up in yours.
