As we were getting word as department chairs to get our faculty ready for a possible shutdown in early March 2020, part of me was looking forward to the week off. To my knowledge, all we were going to do was shut down for a week or two, the virus would chill out, and then we’d be back. This would give me a respite and time to catch up on work, which felt overwhelming.
We know how that worked out…
Then teaching during the 2020-2021 school year was understandably overwhelming. Being in person before vaccines, with students podded, teaching in homeroom classrooms instead of a music classroom, with restrictions to singing and wind instruments, was a lot. Some of what made this year feel like a lot was the great lengths we were taking to get back to “normal.” I remember putting on an outdoor concert that Spring, and working late to figure out how to make it happen.
Then there was 2021-2022. Teaching during this year, in some ways, was harder than the year before. Yes, we had fewer restrictions due to the pandemic, but we also had a more significant disagreement and less clarity on what COVID-19 mitigations were necessary. Once only a fringe opinion, the idea of not wearing masks was embraced by reasonable professionals based on scientific research. This added a layer of tension. Also, we kept getting tripped up by students being exposed and quarantine rules, which seemed to become less clear as the year went on.
Now, here we are, months into the 2022-2023 school year, and do things feel? CRAZY. J/K. Not really, but things aren’t simple. So returning to how easy things were before the pandemic is an illusion that has confused me until I remember that things weren’t truly a walk in the park before the pandemic. The challenges were just different.
Some things feel much easier and like a return to home that I haven’t felt since before the pandemic. For example, my class schedule has returned to what it was before the pandemic. I’m back to teaching a curriculum that I don’t have to make up new every week, which I had to do when the pandemic first started. Yes, we still have to mask up at my school when there is exposure, which is a pain. However, it is helpful that most kids do not wear masks voluntarily, so how we communicate does feel much better.
The challenges I’m feeling now are related to two things. First, I am trying to get back to the processes we did before the pandemic that will serve us moving forward. More importantly, the challenge now is figuring out how we have all changed, the students, the faculty, the staff, and the administration. When I look at my students and things aren’t working like I expect, how much of this is how my students have changed, or how much of this is because of how I have changed?
The pandemic has changed us all and continues to change us. The evidence of this is clear at times, and other times the change is more ambiguous.
We have a lot of work to do as adults to unpack all that we've been through as teachers as we figure out how to serve our students in a world no one imagined.
We may feel done with the pandemic, but it isn't done with us.
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