Parenthood: Week 399 – Early Intervention, Part 3 - Going Remote

We started with a hearing specialist when Ethan was six months, and then Ethan started speech therapy a year later when he was a year and a half. From a very young age, Ethan had therapists in his life doing one on one work. Even though Diana or I was with him during these sessions, often we would not be active during this time as the therapist did a great job engaging him. When I was around, Ethan sometimes would want a hug when he was bored or need some redirection to stay focused, but more often than not, Ethan engaged and worked hard during these sessions. 

Therapy was tough work for Ethan. After these sessions, he would be exhausted and often have a great nap after the time with his therapist was done. There were times that it was a struggle to get him working or get him ready in time for sessions scheduled first thing in the morning, but the effort was always worth it. While there were times when I would feel frustration because Ethan wasn't focusing during sessions, Diana would remind me that he was barely a toddler who is working hard.  

The state government subsidizes Early Intervention. I submitted tax returns and other financial information, and they created a payment structure that they felt was appropriate for our income level. While the process of paying for Early Intervention feels overly complicated, the payment level that we paid for Ethan's therapy was very reasonable.  

These two therapists were part of our life. They came to our house, Buffy greeted them enthusiastically, and they were with us for a long time. Ethan enjoyed working with them, and we were so happy with his progress. Additionally, they served as counselors for us, helping us understand what it meant to have a child with a hearing disability and how to navigate the support systems that would help him throughout his childhood.  

When the pandemic hit, and my school and my children's schools went remote on 3/13/20, Ethan's therapy wasn't the first thing on my mind. With all of the stuff that we were juggling, having one less thing to think about at the time was nice. It was clear to us that if our therapists were not going to come to our house, we understood why. As days went on and it sunk in that Ethan couldn't have therapy, it made me really sad and frustrated at one more thing that we were losing because of this crisis. 

I didn't have high expectations for success when Ethan's therapist emailed us about the possibility of remote therapy. This wasn't because of them; it was because of the situation. Ethan was a three-year-old who is doing therapy to help him hearing disability. How effective could this be over Zoom?  

About a month later, we had our first remote session. It was so hard. Ethan didn't react very well to the therapist, it was hard to keep his attention, and it took a lot of work from me to keep him engaged. It felt weird and wrong to force him to interact with a screen when I've been spending so much energy trying to make sure that he didn't have too much screen time during the pandemic when it was a necessary evil.  

During some of those early sessions, Diana and I would have to tag-team because it took so much of us to keep Ethan focused and engaged throughout the session. I'd be exhausted half-way through, and Diana would swoop in with energy and positivity and get him across the finish line.  

The therapist worked so hard. They tried everything. They had music, videos, games, and toys. A lot of stuff they tried didn't work, but they always had something else to try.  

No one gave up. The therapist didn't give up. Diana didn't give up, and I didn't give up.  

Over time things started to get better. We better understood how to be assistant therapists, Ethan got used to interacting with his therapist through the iPad, and Ethan began getting excited once again to engage in the work.  

There were times when it was frustrating that all we could do was therapy over the iPad, but more than that, we were grateful for the incredible hard work that the therapist did to make the time they spent with Ethan meaningful.  

One of the therapists said that Ethan's work remotely was a success story among many children for whom remote therapy wasn't working well. I'm happy about this and sad knowing that even though Ethan had a level of success with remote therapy, he lost something, like so many, because remote therapy had to happen.  

Sometimes the best we can do isn't enough, but for Ethan, the best the therapists and me and Diana did for Ethan made the seemingly impossible happen and created something positive for my special one.

Year 11 – Week 12: The Pandemic, Part 6 - The Faculty

No group of people is a monolith. All people who identify as Black don't have the same political beliefs. All people who identify as Asian like Chinese food, and not all teachers in America, even in my school, felt the same way about school opening this fall. 

Some teachers were vehemently against any in-person learning, some teachers committed to the idea of teaching in-person, and I found that most teachers were somewhere in the middle.  

In the early summer, we left school, trying our best to recover and not over worry about the fall. It was not unreasonable to expect or even to hope that by the time august came around, we would have some clarity in how the best way to educate America's children in the next school year. As the summer wore on and the statistics did not drastically improve like so many of us hoped, schools stumbled at best, and many of them floundered, making unclear statements. Like I outlined in this earlier post, the path to the fall was complicated and ambiguous.  

The summer set-up the faculty at our school for a rough start. It felt like everything was going to be different. The students were entering campus differently; most students had different classrooms, students were taught in small pods, the class size was different for many grades, and the schedule was different. There was very little that felt "normal" as we geared up for that first week back. 

On top of all, most schools in Chicago, most notably the Chicago Public School (CPS), were not going back in-person. As a JK-12 school, we chose to bring our JK-8 students back to campus, and some other private schools had a similar approach, not because we had a consensus amongst the area private schools. Every school was making decisions with the knowledge they had and taking chances to do their best to mitigate risk.  

It didn't feel right, just, or equitable that my students could have in-person learning while students in CPS did not. Were we putting our students and faculty in risky situations to help our tuition dollars?  

Some parents felt like they wanted a refund from the distance learning last spring. Being in-person in a risky situation wasn't right. Shouldn't we be sensitive to the fact that by using our resources to open in-person, weren't we contributing to education equity issues?  

We know the Black and brown children are affected by COVID-19 disproportionally, so were we being sensitive to this fact as most white schools opening in-person? Everyone in this crisis needs to give more, but how much is giving too much?  

These questions were among valid questions that faculty had at our school about opening in-person. There were no easy answers to any of these questions. Some brilliant people I worked with at our school and Chicago decided that our school should not have an in-person school. Yes, there argued issues of equity, but I feel the major issue was the risk of spreading COVID-19. 

After two and a half months of in-person teaching, it is clear that our mitigation strategies worked. Even though students who contracted COVID-19 exposed people at my school, not one faculty or student got COVID-19 from the school building. We didn't know that this is how things would pan out at the beginning of the school year. Even though this is proof of our success and the administration's correct decisions to bring in JK-8 students in-person, others feel the lack of a breakout is just luck. They may be right.  

It felt like I was in the minority in union meetings in supporting our administration's decision to open in-person. I listened and did my best to process the arguments and thoughts of brilliant people who I respect. As the union had voted on actions and demanded more from the administration, my instinct was to work to help them directly. I second-guessed these feelings often and tried very hard to figure out if I was on the wrong side of this. I just kept coming back to this feeling, this idea that it had been done before. Daycares opened in New York that didn't lead to outbreaks. Doctors were working in hospitals and not getting COVID-19. The argument that daycares and hospitals are not schools is a valid one, but that wasn't even to dissuade me from jumping in to make in-person work.  

I worried that the fact that there were members of the faculty who felt differently about the administrator's decision would cause a rift in our school. To my knowledge, it hasn't. When I returned from being quarantined after being exposed by an 8th grader, there was some awkwardness. People weren't sure if I was happy or sad to be back in-person.  

Even though the faculty have varied opinions about the decisions that the demonstration made over the summer and how they came to these decisions, you would have never known watching the teachers with their students that first week of school. 

More than caring who is right and who is wrong, I feel a deep level of respect for my colleagues for handling the start of the school year with professionalism and dignity.     

Parenthood: Week 398 – 2/23/20 – Moments: Bears, Video Games, and Green Clocks

Lucas Bear  

Now that Lucas is putting everything he touches in his mouth, I feel comfortable letting him crawl around on the ground when we are at the park. We have this adorable full-body fleece bear suit that keeps him warm when we are outside. It's great.  

It's not that hard to get him in and out of, it has little glove flaps built in to keep his hands warm, and the best part is that the warm hood has little bear ears on it.  

Lucas has a strong crawl. When he sees a step-down, he knows to turn his body around and go feet first, and he can go up steps with ease. He learned this through one of his favorite activities, going up and down the stairs in our house (we make sure to spot him when he is doing this, and we have baby gates to keep him off the stairs).  

When Ollie was at this stage, he would cry every couple of minutes to check in with me. I would go over, hug him, and put him down, and he'd be good to crawl around and play by himself for a little bit longer.  

Lucas doesn't need this at all from me. He's good to explore on his own for long periods of time. The only time when I really interact with him is if he's about to put something in his mouth or if he's crawling in the direction of something unsafe.  

Lucas is an adorable and brave little bear, and it's wonderful to watch him explore the world with joy and curiosity.  

 

Ollie Getting Into Video Games 

On weekend afternoons, while Ethan takes his naps, we've been exploring playing video games. We started with retro video consoles, the NES Classic, SNES Classic, and Genesis Classic. Ollie got really into Street Fighter II, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Super Mario World.  

Complementing his interest in Star Wars, I got out my GameCube, and we've been working out way through Lego Star Wars II.  

It's an interesting process helping Ollie learn how to play video games. At times I give him space to figure things out, and other times I help him.  

I'm reminded of playing video games with my older brother. At times he would help me through difficult sections, and other times he would be annoyed because I was doing something in the game that made no sense, but I wanted to do it anyway. More often than not, my brother showed me patience with video games, and we had a lot of fun together.  

I'm taking on my brother's role with Ollie, and I see myself doing the same things that my brother did for me. It's fun, sometimes frustrating, and it's nice to have another way to bond with Ollie.  

 

Ethan And The Green Clock 

Ethan has been waking me early in the morning, every day for almost two years.  

When he was in his crib, he would wake up in the middle of the night, crying. I would pick him up and, more often than not, end up with him sleeping with me in my bed. As much as I would try, I couldn't get him to fall back asleep in his bed. One of the problems with this was that Ethan and I didn't get very much sleep when we co-slept. Ethan had this habit of scratching my neck as he slept.   Diana also took a heavy load of Ethan's early morning episodes as well, but I took the lead on Ethan's sleep when after Lucas was born.  

I had some success in getting him to go back to sleep in his crib over the spring, but it never got to the point when he slept for much past 6 am. 

About a month ago, we moved Ethan into Ollie's room. They share a bed with a trundle, and they have been enjoying sleeping in the same room together.  

Instead of Ethan screaming and waking me up in the middle of the night from his crib, I have Ethan waking up and sneaking into my bed early in the morning. Neither of us gets very much sleep when this happens, and we both end up being cranky because of this.  

In a moment of hope, I set up Ollie's old ready-to-wake alarm clock. It's basically an alarm clock that has a function where it lights up green to tell a child when to wake up. For six out of the past seven nights, it has worked!  

Except for one morning, I'm awoken at a reasonable for our household, 6:30 am, with Ethan running into my room holding the clock with its green light lit up. We are both better rested and in better moods because of this clock.  I'm sure there will be more restless nights dealing with Ethan's sleep issues, but it feels like there's a light at the end of the tunnel.  

When Ethan comes into my room with his clock, even brighter than the clock's green light is the smile on his face, full of pride and joy

Year 11 – Week 11: The Pandemic, Part 5 - Going Remote Again

I was planning on writing about how my school opened in the fall, the differing opinions within the faculty, the teacher association's role (our union), and tensions between the administration and the faculty. But then, Tuesday night, I got an email from my administration saying that our school would go remote after Thanksgiving break. I'm going to focus on the present right now and duck back into the past later.

Timeline of email calendar updates: 

• 7/15/20 The school calendar is released to faculty and families. 
• Week of 11/15: no classes on Thursday parent-teacher conferences. 
• Week of 11/22: Monday and Tuesday are full days of classes. Wednesday is a half-day, and Thursday and Friday are Thanksgiving break.  (This is the general approach to these two weeks that we've done in years past. This is expected.) 

• 10/30/20 
• Week of 11/15: no classes on Thursday AND Friday parent-teacher conferences.
• Week of 11/22: Monday and Tuesday are now remote learning classes so that teachers and students can gain some practice with the new remote learning schedules. Wednesday has no school and is now part of Thanksgiving break.

• 11/17/20 
• "All grades will go to remote learning between the end of the Thanksgiving Recess and the start of the December Recess (Monday, November 30, through Thursday, December 17). There will be no school on Friday, December 18, which was previously scheduled as a half-day." 

At the end of October, we knew that we had to prepare for two remote learning days on the week of the Thanksgiving break. That is plenty of time. We found out that we were going remote for after Thanksgiving break, the night before the last day of classes before conferences. Basically, we had less than a day to prepare the students mentally for going remote for December and prepare and disseminate materials for extended remote learning. Could parents come and pick up materials? Yes, like last spring, the how's and when's of this wasn't laid out clearly with the message that December would be remote.  

Did I see this coming?  

Similar to last March, I did, but I didn't want to admit it to myself. I have been so laser-focused on making in-person learning work despite all of the challenges that I haven't let myself focus on the issue of whether our school should be in-person or not and whether we should go remote for an extended period of time.  

I had heard last week that other schools had made the call to go remote for December. It made sense. The positivity rate was going up, and the cases were rising exponentially. Yes, this was concerning. Students and teachers at my school had been exposed by students who had tested positive to COVID-19 who came into the building. No one had gotten COVID-19 from exposure at my school, which means our mitigation practices were working. The issue is that even if we are doing everything right and more and more people are getting COVID-19, even with the best mitigation practices, a school can only do so much keeping people safe and staying functional as a school.  

One of the most difficult lessons I've learned over the eight months is that sometimes it doesn't matter how much I sacrifice and how hard I work. My family did everything we could to stop the spread of COVID-19 last spring and summer, and the case numbers went up. I worked so hard at my job as a teacher for two and half months, carefully following every safety guideline, to make in-person school safe joyful and, and we are going remote because COVID-19 is out of control in Chicago.  

The choices we make have always affected other people. However, we forget this sometimes, and the pandemic has been a painful reminder that the ignorance, lack of empathy, and selfishness of others has a real effect on other people's lives. It is frustrating that people who care so little can have power over my life and my efforts.

At some point, I will process these feelings of frustration and feel proud of what I accomplished teaching music in-person without singing or wind instruments, without a classroom of my own, and without a curriculum, I've used before. 

Right now, I'm just tired. 

While I am not looking forward to remote teaching, I will enjoy being able to let go of the stress of teaching while wearing a mask, and social distancing, in a school full of students, staff, and faculty.  

I take consolation knowing that my school's choices will make the faculty I admire so much and the students I care deeply in my heart safer this holiday season.

Parenthood: Week 397 – Early Intervention, Part 2

 "Duck." 

Looking into Ethan's eyes, she brought her hand close to her face, made the sign for "duck," the pointer and middle finger opening and closing on the thumb like a mouth, and said again "duck." Swiftly she pulled a stuffed toy duck out of her bag and said, "quack." Then she once again brought her hand up to her mouth and signed and spoke the word "duck."  

Ethan was sixth months old when he started with this therapist. We had a different therapist for about two months, but she didn't really work well with Ethan and us. I told a parent of a student who had hearing loss that I taught about this, and the parent told me to request a new therapist. Early Intervention therapists come into homes to work with children. If the vibe is not right, something needs to change. We did just that, and the one we ended up with was amazing.  

Our first meeting with our Early Intervention case manager was on 1/5/18 when Ethan was two months.  

She was talking about getting him started with therapy at four months old. I had made peace at this point that Ethan did have special and was disabled. I was delighted at the idea that he would be able to get therapy at a young age but four months old seemed really young.  

Until we switched therapists at six months old, I didn't really believe that it made sense to do therapy this young.  

At six months old, Ethan was not sitting reliably like most kids his age, so he often sat in our laps during therapy. His attention span could not last the forty minutes of work time that therapy sessions lasted, but this didn't deter his new therapist at all.  

As soon as Ethan lost interest in the duck, she would pull a ball out of her bag, make the sign for "ball," and roll it towards him. She had so many different ways to assess and teach him. For example, she would distract him with a bright spinning toy and then press the button on a noisemaker behind her back to see if he would notice. It was amazing to watch. 

I have had the privilege to watch master teachers work with students, and it is one of the most inspiring and impressive things to witness. She was clearly a master teacher, and she could get this baby to work and really engage. It was a struggle often to keep him engaged, and After these sessions, Ethan would be exhausted and nap really well. In every session, Buffy would always be close by within a couple of feet of Ethan and the therapist, watching carefully to make sure things were okay.  

We started with this amazing therapist on 4/25/18. Sometimes the session would be every two weeks and at other times every week. I was able to make some of these sessions, but Diana did most of them.  

I'll never forget coming home from work a couple of months into therapy and Diana coming up to me so excited.  

"Ethan did great in therapy today!" She exclaimed,  

"Yeah? That's great."  

I replied. "Ethan learned the work, duck!!" 

After months of work, Ethan finally demonstrated to his therapist that he understood the spoken word and the sign for the word "duck." I went over to Ethan and gave him a big hug. I was so proud at that moment. He was really doing the work, and he was growing.  

This therapist guided us through every question we had about Ethan's disability, and through it all, through all of her work with Ethan, she never stopped believing in him. Ethan did nothing to earn this. She walked into that door during their first session, and she looked at him and spoke to him, believing he could learn, he could grow, and that he was worth her time, effort, and care. That is so special to find in a teacher and a human being.  

I don't know how many times she said the word duck, made quacking sounds, and signed "duck" for Ethan, but she never got frustrated, never gave up. Little did we know that this perseverance would be further displayed by a pandemic that would force the therapist of a child with hearing loss to do remote therapy.

Year 11– Week 10: The Pandemic, Part 4 - The Break

More than any year, summer break was just that a break. 

In previous years Summer break was the time between the end of the school year and the beginning of the next year. Yes, there was planning that I did in the spring for the upcoming fall, but there seemed to be a clean break, a sense of finality. That feeling wasn't there. Maybe it was because all of our closing events like graduation were a shadow of themselves on Zoom, or because I never got to say goodbye to most of my students. More than anything else, the uncertainty of fall is what never allowed me to feel like I could truly be done as summer break began.  

We ended school, not knowing what fall was going to be like. No one knew if we would be in-person, remote, or some hybrid of in-person and remote.  

There was a flurry of conversation and debate about schools opening in the late spring, and once that idea got quashed down, we just rode the school year out to the end, and no one seemed to be talking about the fall. There was very much sense of let's not worry about this until later, because someone else is going to figure it out.  

The problem is that we didn't have time. Schools needed every single second from the end of school until the school's opening in the fall to figure out what to do. No help came.  

There was no massive influx of funds, no meaningful guidance from the federal government, and people behaved with complete ignorance of how their choices in spreading the pandemic further would affect schools' possibilities of opening in person.  

I needed to feel like I was doing something to help. I couldn't just sit back and not have a voice, so I volunteered to be on my school's Return to Campus Coordinating Committee. We met on the week of 6/14 a couple of times and talked about ideas and opening in the fall.  

This was followed by a couple of announcements that mirrored the messaging in the spring of how our school closed in the uncertainty.  

June 15th

Our administration explained that they were looking into different possibilities for the fall. No specifics were given at this time. Working on the committee at the time, I felt hopeful that we could find a better way to do remote learning, and I was intrigued by the idea of being in-person.  

 

June 26th  

We received another email saying that plans were in development. At this point, I was convinced that there was no way we would be in-person in the fall, except for maybe the younger grades. It didn't seem right, and it felt far too dangerous.  

 

July 10th

Our administration proudly announcements that all students JK-12 were going to return to campus. I was shocked by this email. It felt like the school was making this promise to differentiate itself from other schools, which at this point were already making announcements that school would not be in person. My more cynical part of my brain thought this was just about money, though part of me understood how, especially for our younger students, we had to make in-person happen.  

 

July 31st

With August coming quickly, the school announced that is Illinois was in stage 4, the 9-12 grade students would be remote, and JK-8 would be in-person. So much of what we were doing was hinging on these stages the governor set, and it was hard knowing that other people would so influence my job in the fall. At this point, I had a full on "freak-out" about being in person. I could not see how this was going to work.  

August 6th 

I was excited to have this meeting with all of the faculty and a leading expert in infectious diseases. I initially left this meeting, not feeling very good about teaching in person because her advice went to go against my fears. When she talked about how unlikely it would be for us to get COVID-19 with certain precautions, I didn't believe her. Later, most of what she said proved to be right, but at the time, I wanted to believe the worst of the possibilities of teaching in-person. I was resentful of not being treated well as a teacher, and it like by extenuated the worst-case scenario. I wanted to be a victim at that time. The problem was that my viewpoint wasn't right, and it didn't reflect the science.  

 

August 12th 

The administration announced that the 9-12 graders were going to be remote. In a way, this was a relief. It meant that getting the JK-8 students in the building would be more feasible. I was happy that my high school teacher colleagues didn't have to be in the building while I was still not feeling good about teaching in-person.  

 

 

Plans started slowly coming together at this point. We found out that students had the option to be remote, but teaches did not. Schedules less than a month before school was to open were still not solidified. I didn't know until the week before school started my schedule and what grades I would teach. While not having a teaching schedule and teaching assignment earlier was stressful and felt unreasonable at the time. 

 

In retrospect, the actual negative effects of this uncertainty were not that big a deal. No matter what, I was going to have to plan week by week. Knowing my schedule earlier wouldn't have really changed that.  

I was proud that I focused my frustration on helping out. I spent hours in the evening and one Saturday morning on the beach, working out schedule issues. While my children played in the Lake Michigan water, I was furiously writing out emails on my phone, trying to make pieces fit.  

 

At that point, I had moved on to the mindset of making things work. I gave up thinking about whether or not we should be in-person and instead focused on doing all that I could to make in-person work. People I trusted in the school felt like we could make this happen. In 12 years, they had the school had never let me down. Once again, I was going to give them the benefit of the doubt.  

 

While the chaos in my brain settled down and I began to focus on what I needed to do to make this work, the opening days of school would bring to light a new tension, one I did not expect and that felt like it could to pull apart our school community.

Parenthood: Week 396 – 11/7/20, The Moment We Knew For Sure

Driving into the Chicago Botanic Gardens, I was relieved. 

I had missed the freeway exit that led to the gardens and had to spend almost twenty minutes trying to figure out how to U-turn and make our way back to the gardens. After getting up early in the morning, Ethan fell asleep in his car seat, allowing us all a respite from his liveliness and energy.  

As I drove toward the parking lot, the Circle Round podcast's calming sound played in the car bringing in a story from a culture not of my own but feeling familiar and comforting.  

I noticed the kaleidoscope of light showered us as light streamed in through the changing fall leaves as I turned into the parking lot. I was looking forward to a good morning with my family. This had been a difficult week, but the weather had remained unseasonably warm, and the changing of fall leaves brought evolving beauty to the world.  

And then Diana, in hushed excitement, told me, "Joe won, it's confirmed." 

Diana had been reminding me all week that the mainstream media narrative was not giving the full picture of what was happening. It seemed like Biden was losing after Tuesday night, but he wasn't. The fact is that the mail-in ballots were going to swing towards Biden. The hope that Biden was going to win became fact on Friday even before major news outlets called it. By Friday, I accepted that the news organizations' final call was going to be a matter of time, and by Saturday, I was at peace with waiting. So when it happened, it didn't feel like a great moment or victory. It felt more like a relief.  

After exploring the orchards in the gardens and getting some lunch, we ended up in the Nature Play Garden.

Only a couple of other people were there as our boys ran around the open grassy field and the gently sloping hills. We reclined on the hills, felt the warmth of the sun, and let the children explore the space. 

Lucas, who is just one month shy of a year old, got very determined to climb one of the hills. He had climbed up some of the smaller ones and, at one point, adorably lost his balance and rolled down the hill giggling as he landed in the soft grass. As he started climbing this larger hill, I reflected on his life. He has no idea who the president is or who the president will be. His world is his family, and with every place he goes, there is something new to experience, something new to see. The hill in front of him was enormous for him to climb for his size, but he was undeterred.  Lucas saw something that he wanted to explore, and he was willing to persevere to get to the top. 

 

When he almost got the top, he lost balance and fell on his side. He screamed out, and I rushed over to him, picked him up, and told him, "everything is going to be okay." As I put him down and watched him make it to the top, it felt like, for the first time in what felt like forever, that things were really going to be okay.

Year 11 – Week 9: Quarantine On Election Day

For weeks I had been thinking about what the election would mean to me as a teacher. Four years ago, I was on an outdoor education retreat during the election. The results came in sitting in a lounge area with some great educators, and the next morning, we told the student the results and kept moving on the activities that we had planned. This was one of the most important moments in my teaching career. It kicked started a journey into diversity work and helped see the real importance of my work as a teacher to instill in my student the perspectives, and the skills to make a better America. 

This year would be different. Because of the pandemic, our retreat was canceled, and after going through the last election away from our families, we made sure to schedule it on a different week even before the pandemic hit. I thought about what I would say to my students if the election was decided Tuesday night or a later date. I tried to figure out what I would say if Vice President Biden won and how I would handle my own emotions in front of my students if trump won.  

I was concerned that my students had the space to process their feelings, and at the same time, I wanted to make sure that teachers didn’t bring up the election in every class and overdue discussions about the election. Most importantly, I wanted to make sure whatever I did around the election was for my students and not for me.  

Monday felt as normal as Mondays have felt teaching a new schedule wearing a mask, and doing lessons about music without singing and playing wind instruments. It ended up being a good day, and I came to school Tuesday, planning to focus on creative, fun lessons for my students. The election was on my mind, and I still wasn’t sure what I would do, if anything, about the election in my music class.  

Around 11 am, my student teacher and I walked to the 8th-grade classroom that we were going to teach our next class in. As I peeked my head in, the teacher in the room gave me a telling look and told me that she would talk to me in the hall. We waited outside for a minute, and she came out and told us that a student in 8th grade had tested positive for COVID-19 and to see when we last taught the class that included this student. I was pretty sure we had taught this student late last week, but I wasn’t sure, so I quickly sat on the ground and double-checked my schedule.  

Yes, we had taught this student. I was going home. 

While no COVID-19 cases have been spread at my school, students had gotten COVID-19 outside the school, come to school when they were asymptomatic, gotten tested, and been found to be positive. When this happens, all the other students in the pod and all teachers who taught that pod have to be quarantined and switch to remote learning and remote teaching.  

We went down to the middle school office, and a group of teachers was gathered there, talking about what was going on. The students in the pod and the teachers who taught this student in a specific time period were going home immediately. I knew that quarantine was a possibility from the moment I started teaching in-person, but all of the ramifications were just now coming down onto me like an avalanche of boulders. It took all I had to keep moving forward as I felt beaten down upon by the possibility of what could be. We went back to the music office, and I stood there looking at my student teacher in silence for a couple of seconds. I asked her if she was okay, and at that moment, looking in her eyes, I realized that I was not okay.  

We went to the school nurse, and she broke down the specifics of what we should when we would get tested and how to handle our specific familial situations. My two older sons would have to say home until I got a negative COVID-19 test, and the circumstances and timing of my teaching the pod with that students meant the chances that I would have gotten COVID-19 were very low.  

I grabbed all I could think to take out of my office and found the two teachers of the two remaining classes I had that day. I figured I could get home to teach one of them remotely and one I couldn’t, so I canceled one class and told the other one that I would teach remotely. I mixed up the schedule, and at the last second, I sent an email with a list of activities and told the other teacher that I could not get home in time to teach the class remotely.  

The next hour I sat in my car trying to schedule a COVID-19 test. It was a frustrating process, but I finally got a test scheduled (both rapid and PCR) and headed home.  

Wednesday, my children stayed home from school, and I got tested. The rapid test result came back quickly, and it was negative, to my relief, and my children were cleared to return to school on Thursday. I’ve been so used to coming up with new lessons and unique teaching situations that switching to teaching all my classes remotely didn’t feel that out of the ordinary. Like so many lessons this year, my first remote lessons were not good, but they got better as the rest of the week progressed. By the end of the week, I felt like I had an idea of handling teaching while quarantined at time.  

Tuesday night, I had no emotional energy to react strongly to the election results. I fell asleep in front of the television, and for the rest of the week, focused so much on my family’s health, the election had little emotional effect on me. I didn’t think to bring it up in my music classes. I had to focus on just making them work, and I was successful at that by the end of the week. 

I can’t imagine going through this past week, well this whole school year, without my student teacher. Each twist and turn, she was right with me, and her support and hard work helped keep my focus. In helping her grow as a teacher, I had helped myself grow and re-thinking what and how of what I do. In this difficult time, having someone share the experience with you makes the challenges feel that much more doable because I haven’t had to face any of them alone.  

I’m more okay than I was on Tuesday, but I’m not really okay. No one is right now. Even having the slightest possibility that I could have contracted COVID-19 from my job was scary, and this week, this part of my life felt more important than the election. I’m not angry at my school for putting me in this situation. I may have felt very different about this if I did contact COVID-19 from that student. Right now, in my mental exhaustion, I am proud of how I handled this week, and I am proud of the way my student teacher and my colleagues handled this difficult situation.  

In a school year full of hard days, Tuesday was the hardest day I’ve had this school year.  The difference from four years ago is that instead of feeling dread, I have hope in my heart.  With this feeling of Joe Biden having my back, I can do hard things.   

Parenthood: Week 395 – 11/2/20, The Night Before

Dear my sons, 

The past four years have had some of the most beautiful moments in my life. 

Ollie, I watched you grow from a toddler into a school-aged child. We danced together, sang together, and explored the world together.  You learned to read, write, and manipulate numbers. More importantly, you have learned how to be more empathetic, to show love, and know what it means to be loved. 

Ethan, you came to us full of determination and love. Your early life was full of the new challenges of understanding how to best serve you as parents with your hearing loss. In those moments of feeling lost, our hearts filled with more love for you. Watching you grow up into a toddler, full of love, passion, and joy has enriched our lives in ways that we never imagined, taught me to be a better human.  

Lucas, every single time I check on you before I go to sleep at night, you take my breath away. I reach down and touch your little hand, and then I play with the curl of your hair. I hold my hands to my chest as I gaze at you, barely being able to handle the wonder that is you. Your giggles, your curiosity, and your smiles always warm my heart. It's impossible to have a bad day with you in my life. 

In the past four years, your mom and I have been blessed with meaningful work. Our work in education reflects our values, has brought challenges that have helped us grow as professionals, and given us the flexibility to be present in your lives. While there are always challenges in balance our work/life schedule, our jobs have allowed us to be there for the critical points in your lives and when you needed us the most.  

We have had an incredibly blessed and privileged life these past four years. You, as part of our family, have brought challenges that made our life meaningful. We have overcome all of these tribulations with our friends and family's support and with you as our inspiration never to give up.  

For many people worldwide, these past four years have been some of the most challenging times in their lives. The Presidency of trump has caused needless and gratuitous immeasurable pain and trauma. The COVID-19 pandemic only heightened this. Even though we have provided you a warm and loving household during this time, the threats to our family's safety and trump' and his supporters questioning our family's right to exist have put a shadow over these past four years.  

Your mom and I engaged in this election because of the threats to our family and others' pain. We are all connected, and we all have to give more and do better for each other. This what makes us good. This is what brings meaning to our life. This is love. 

It's that love that makes us fight for a better future and imagine a world where our leaders also demonstrate kindness in your hearts.  

It has been a tough couple of years, and these past couples of months have been challenging. Your love and spirit have sustained us. I will forever be grateful for how you have made these four years beautiful and meaningful during this difficult time in our country.  

I am so proud of all of you. I am proud to be your father, and at this moment, thinking about all of the amazing people who fought for a better tomorrow these past four years, I am proud to be an American.

- Dad

Let them say of me,
I was one who believed.
In sharing the blessings I received,
Let me know in my heart.
When my days are through,
America, America I gave my best to you.