Year 11 – Week 34: "You Don't Have To Do This"

With the spirit of our students in our minds, a desire to honor the trust families put into teachers, and a vision of what can be, there are times when what we can do for our students feels like what we have to do.

Most teachers go above and beyond the duties of their job. Monetarily many teachers use personal funds to supplement school budgets. Time-wise, teachers more often than not extend their working hours into the evenings and weekends, and emotionally, teachers' empathy for children taxes the emotional well that compromises what they can bring into their personal life.

The reason that "can-do" so often feels like "have to" is because our clients, children, are deserving of so much more than what our society gives them. When we have the money, time, and emotional strength, it's hard to say no to children who deserve our very best. This is why the duty of being a teacher can sometimes feel like a burden.

As COVID-19 restrictions have evolved, so have the policies around mitigation practices at my school. The one-time seemingly impossible idea of having an in-school live performance recently got approved by our medical committee.

In a typical year, performances are scheduled during the previous school years, and there are months to plan and prepare for these types of events. Earlier this week, we got cleared to put on our first in-person concert in a year, and our planning timeline put our planning timelines on the scale of weeks, not months. Add that this was a concert like none I had ever been involved in before added a layer of stress. This concert has to be outside with multiple layers of COVID-19 mitigation procedures.

It's a lot.

I found myself in the main office talking to one of the administrative assistants asking for helping to find an available date for this performance. She sensed my stress in my voice and body language. Looking in me straight in the eye, she said firmly, "You don't have to do this."

We talked about why I was working on this. I told her about how hard the students in our music classes have been working hard this year and what this would mean to the seniors and their families. While it did feel like this is something I had to do, she was right. I didn't have to do this.

At this moment, she reminded me that I had a choice. The challenge was mine to take on or not. Even though these students deserved this musical experience, they were not entitled to it.

One of the features of teaching in this pandemic is accepting that we cannot be what we want for our students as much as we would like. However, I have a little left, and I can make this happen. No, I don't have to, but I want for my students as much as for myself.