Being a teacher has never been easy and the career has lost a lot of the respect it once held decades ago.  Since March 13, 2020, educators have been on the world’s worst, longest rollercoaster.  First we were heroes and then we were doing too much or not enough or maybe “nothing” at all.  Then the summer came and educators seemingly became villains because many parents were finding it very difficult to manage their own  work and facilitation of their kids’ education. In my experience, this prompted many parents to have spat teachers’ names out, devaluing our livelihood and maybe even lives. 

On March 13, the world felt like quicksand…everything about real life was slipping under.  The world was on hold. Students were locked at home. Parents were doing their very best to keep their households together, and, yet, virtual school had to go on.

On March 13, I committed to moving my high school kids forward. I’ve never wavered in my commitment to that goal.  I refuse to let my kids be “covid kids” or “that covid class,” stunted because of a school or a teacher that kept expectations super low.  I’ve always been a rigorous teacher (“tough but fair” is how I’m rumored to be), so I (selfishly) needed to maintain that normalcy in life even though there was NOTHING normal about lockdown and quarantine school. 

Honestly, without my classroom, my life in lockdown felt meaningless.  This career IS hard, but damn if the good moments aren’t little nuggets of gold. 

Truth be told, I was lonely at home in my lockdown bubble.  I was used to being surrounded by teen angst, energy, fashion, music, colloquialisms, and fresh perspectives. I was used to being inspired and being part of a bustling English department hive of ideas and personalities.  

If I didn’t do my heart and life’s calling, I would have sunk into the covid quicksand, so I recorded lessons and fine-tuned 16 years of experience into tangible bits of recorded presentations. I was doing all the work of teaching: recording lessons, posting assignments on Google Classroom, adjusting curriculum, grading, and trying to stay true to what my heart told me to do.  It was all of the work (different, more time-consuming work!) but felt like none of the fun. Classes weren’t meeting, and I wasn’t talking or seeing their faces or hearing from them. 

But you know what they DID do?  They SHOWED UP.  They just. Kept. Moving. Forward.  Was it hard? YES.  Did they try? They DID.  I hope that they tried because I refused to let them sink into the quicksand of laziness or plateauing grades or depression. 

 They did the work that I asked of them (mostly on time!).  They turned in memoirs, poetry, essays, comic strips, vocabulary stories, bookmarks.  They found resources that they thought would interest my future students. One even recreated scenes from Romeo and Juliet with homemade, cardboard castles and dressed up pet guinea pigs.  Some created memes using Spongebob and The Office to capture Romeo and Juliet. They found ways to create Tik Tok videos capturing our curriculum.  They created Spotify playlists for me and decorated album covers.  Whatever I asked of them, if they could mentally and emotionally handle it, most of them did. 

They gave my life meaning in a time when everything else in my life felt meaningless. They’ll never know the gift they gave me in responding to me…in responding to my expectations of them. In responding to my effort, I hope that they discovered it was possible to survive– or even thrive– in hard times. 

It’s been a series of twisted sofas and tight corners and narrow stairs since last March. They’ve been faced with pivoting innumerably since March. (Really hoping you are on board with this Friends metaphor.)

They can do hard things.  

Your kids can do hard things.  

They are doing hard things. 

I didn’t let all their work and progress just slide down into the quicksand because the pandemic is hard.  I didn’t coddle them and let them off the hook.  I may not have been a popular topic at the dinner table, but I hope that my efforts and goals were respected. 

This month, our school started a virtual Wall of Kindness. I received this note anonymously from a student:

“Ms. L truly shows that she has a passion for teaching, she helped me get through a really hard patch in my education and never lost hope in me as a student.  She helped me and other students regain the joy to go to english class as she made/makes it a super safe learning space.”

When I read the anonymous post yesterday, I cried.  I cried because I felt seen.  This 15 or 16-year-old kid SAW my efforts to focus on growth, confidence, and a juxtaposition of rigidity and flexibility. 

When you’re struggling with facilitating learning at home, remember that your student and his/her/their class might be giving that teacher life.  We are all doing the best that we can.  

[Submitted anonymously from a teacher in America.]