In the middle of preparing dinner, it hit me and I asked Diana to take over. She heard the trembling in my voice, and immediately took charge, as I ran upstairs and it all came out.
Was this the first time I cried about something that happened in my life as a teacher? Well, if there was another time, I don’t remember it. I mean this was a sit in a chair, hugging my knees up to my chest and crying into a hand towel moment.
So, what went so badly? A Zoom call.
Along with some other teachers I was working with, we had put together a wonderful plan for an Zoom music sharing for our middle school band students. The idea was that we were going to have a Zoom call with so that there was some kind of live sharing event. Instead of having students perform live, we’d watch videos of student performances as a group. This seemed like the best way to have some kind of group experience but not put the pressure of performing online on the students.
I worked hard on editing their videos together and arranging this event. I checked and double-checked the video sharing settings and everything seemed like it was good to go. Then the call happened and I shared the first video. The sound worked but the video froze. I frantically texted some other teachers on the call and they gave me helpful feedback, but I still couldn’t get the videos to work right. I tried everything I knew and after ten minutes of struggling, we finally got the videos to work. What should have taken twenty-five minutes took almost forty minutes to get through.
I felt horrible during that call, after the call, and well, for the rest of the day. Luckily the second Zoom event I hosted later that afternoon went out without any issues. I told myself that if that one had the same issues as the first one, I would be tears, but I did end up in tears a couple hours later.
This was about more than the fact that the call didn’t work. This was about weeks of uncertainty, the feeling of inequity in the world, doing so much and working so hard while others openly questioned the very reason that I was apart from the students that I loved. This was a harsh reminder that things are not fair. Just because I kept it together for the other teachers in my department, for my students, and for my family, it didn’t mean that I was going to get a break. And sometimes you can do everything right, and work as hard as you can, and things fall apart, and it can feel like there’s nothing you can do about it at the time.
I’m okay now.
Diana, my wife was wonderful that night. The next day, I had a Zoom with one of my principals, and he told reminded me of all I had accomplished and that some issues with a Zoom wasn’t a big deal at all. He told me to be nicer to myself, and he was right.
Even with all of the issues in that Zoom call, and throughout distance learning, there was more good than bad. More joy than frustration, and more laughter than tears for me and my students.
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