My entire life, from when I started preschool, every year, my life has been structured by the cycle of the school year. I went straight from high school to college, then to graduate school, and right into working at a school. The arc of the school year is my life. And every summer, I’ve had different feelings about the upcoming school year.
There were feelings of doubt, fear, and excitement transition from middle school to high school, and high school to college. There were moments of excitement from junior year to senior year of college. There were times of doubt after I was fired from my first teaching job and didn’t have a gig lined up for the next year in mid-August. And there have been many years of excitement and anticipation in the past eleven years at my current looking forwards to working with the amazing colleagues at my school, and getting the privilege to teach my wonderful students.
This year is completely different.
Since I’ve become a teacher, my job has never been discussed so widely and by so many different people, many of whom have no idea what they are talking about. People are acknowledging hard truths about education in America which feels validating, but is also frustrating. Yes, schools are inequitable, like they have always been in our country. Yes, our schools are underfunded, and yes, our society have laid far too much on teachers to solve as they work underpaid, underappreciated, and undervalued.
People are also continuing to devalue, denigrate, and disparage teachers, and teaching as profession. We are trained experts on child development and education. Assertions that we can be replaced by anything but other highly trained teachers are insulting. Allocations of testing and support to professional athletes over teachers is dehumanizing. And politicians ignoring this issue for months, displays how much disregard people like trump and devos, and other leaders have for human life.
Schools are trying to figure out what to do. Pressure to open because of “economics” is ridiculous, and displays an idiotic understanding of schools, AND the economy. Unresolved tensions between administrators and teachers have forced unions to continue to fight for the safety of students and teachers. And even the best administrators find themselves at odds with parents, students, and teachers because of the rampant misinformation, and a vacuum of leadership have left our country in a crisis of knowledge, compassion, and cooperation.
This has all left me feeling tired, scared, worried, angry, and most of all sad. We are in the middle chapter of the trilogy, the sad one where it seems like all hope is lost. There is no federal plan coming to save us. No influx of funds into schools is going to make education work for all next year. Even $100 billion would be far too little, too late.
This is year that teachers have to get through, that we have to survive, so that we can be around in the following years to rebuild. If that means that teachers take a year off, because it is what is best for their family, and the risk is too great for them to teach, that is the right choice.
No teacher death is acceptable, and yet, teachers have died from Covid-19, and we as a society have accepted that as we push forward into the next school year.
I'm not sure how people who are leading teachers into danger sleep at night, because I'm beginning to lose sleep.
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