Yesterday I taught my last class. Next week there’s a couple online events. I got grades to finish and then this school year, my 10th at this school, and my 14th overall as teachers will be, as they say, in the books.
This summer, I’ll be helping plan for the fall, serving a special committee to figure out how we are going to handle next year. I possibly have some other projects that are up the air, that will hopefully come together. Yes, I need a break from school, but I also know that the work is important for me to keep engaging in, and I do love this work.
Even in the past a couple months throughout all of the chaos and uncertainty, I still love being a teacher. Now that I’m on the other side of this, remote teaching really wasn’t that bad. It was a shadow at best of what I do in the classroom, but that shadow still had shape and meaning.
There was a lot of technology things that I had to figure out, and curriculum that I had to adapt, but that piece helped me grow as an educator. The things that I learned and the curricular work that I did will resonate when I’m teaching back in the classroom. In this way, the past couple months felt more like a continuation of the journey than a detour.
I’m very lucky and privileged as a teacher. I have a great administrative team that supports me, and teachers in my school are organized as part of the American Federation of Teachers (UNIONS!!), which has ensured that my students have gotten the best educational experience possible, while supporting the needs of teachers. My wonderful colleagues make dealing with challenges feel more like an adventure.
The job of being a remote teachers in the grand scheme of things is an amazing job to have in the current crisis. And I feel very fortunate to have a job I could do from home, that also serves others. Balancing this out with my home life was not fun at all, and that piece made doing the job very difficult, but the job itself was more good than bad.
Part of feeling the way I do right now is feeling very differently in past weeks. There were times that I really hated teaching students online, there were times that videos I made for my younger students felt like a waste of time, and there were times in the chaos of all that is going on in the world that my job felt pointless.
We need to have space to complain, but we can’t forget our privilege. It’s a balancing act between these two needs, but both are important.
Making it through the summer and the fall is all about learning to accept uncertainty. We will not know for sure what the fall will look like until August as the soonest, and even then, changes could be made that steers the school year in ways that we cannot predict and plan for. One way to come to terms with uncertainty is to remember that the important parts of our job have not changed.
We are still teachers who have the incredibly rewarding and essential job of serving the needs of children. We are still inspired by the spirit, energy, and ideas of the children that teach, and we still have the opportunity to change the world into place that is more equitable, and more inclusive through the work that we do.
The important stuff hasn’t changed, no matter what the future brings.
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