"For My Teacher Friends...2020...Our End Of School Year Recap"

 

 "If you're brave enough to start, you're brave enough to finish." 

- Gary Ryan Blair

So, the 2020 school year has finished...finally.  With the last of many teleconference meetings concluded, I could tell that there was in fact a feeling of emptiness...a feeling of "Now what?"  

We are tired.  We will absolutely spend our summers licking our wounds and planning for whatever our state throws at us in September. But here's the good thing...We already know how to handle that.  Across the country, teachers were expected in a "nanno-second" to learn how dangerous their world had become to themselves and their students.  Remote learning was NOT what any of us signed up for when we took the "Calling" as teachers.  We signed up for the face to face, one on one, interaction with our students.  I would be lying if I didn't express the increasing difficutlies that teachers have experienced particularly in the past three to five years.  The ugliness of mass shootings, prejudice, politics, and now a pandemic have left our students with very few boundaries.  Public schools can not address every mental health issue or discipline issue with the rigor that is so desparately needed.  I have learned that try as I might, teachers can not perform the super human powers needed in the society we are currently experiencing.

After the mass shootings at Sandy Hook, I began to feel unsafe as a teacher.  I remember discussing the horror with my teacher friends.  We rose above the fear.  We rose above the fear each and every time a mass shooting made the news.  We had to explain to our students the importance of "sheltering in place."  Now, "sheltering in place" has an entirely different meaning and once again, we left to delicately balance our fears with those of our students who are asked to socially distance when part of their emotional development is to embrace their social development and reach out to friends and family.  If ever there was a time to encourage communication with our kids, it's now.  

What have we learned exactly?  We've learned that remote learning does not work unless there is an active involvement from the teacher and the parents. Parents have to be more vigilant now. They have to take an active role in policing their child's activities for reasons too numerous to mention. We've learned that less is more.  Abbreviated lessons, with very specific guidance breeds more success than flooding our students with work that they are never going to finish because they either can't or don't want to because no one is there to help them. Those students with special needs are also at a disadvantage unless, they get the active involvement and support that has been promised to them. 

Not everyone deserves a sticker either.  You can't expect a young person to strive for their best if you make allowances for poor attendance and poor behavior.  Life does not work that way and I am fearful that what we now are cultivating is that very assumption.  You have to "show up" in life.  You have to grasp concepts, and apply your knowledge and find your passion.  Without passion, the world will never know what you have to offer and that means, hard work and perseverance.  You don't give up.

My teacher friends, my colleagues, handled this 2020 year with about as much grace and fortitude as I've ever seen in my life-time.  Our integrity and our professionalism were challenged and our work, our precious work was constrained and limited to what we could do appropriately and morally.  The phone calls, the emails, the hope that our kids would show up to our on-line classroom meetings, all part of our work, our collaboration for their success. Not all chose to take advantage of our efforts and that, for some, hurt. Disappointment is part of the teacher trajectory.  If you allow yourself to be human, you  can and will be disappointed as a teacher.

Our summer is here.  We all need sun, a lake, a beach, a kayak, a good book...peace.  Our kids need our compassion, our strength and they need to feel our courage. Teachers have shown great resilence and bravery in their efforts to make our society appreciate it's educational service. We are in service.  An educated world makes educated decisions and treats it's people with tolerance.  That's why we do what we do and that's why 2020 is one school year for the history books.  We were "brave enough to finish" this school year and we will certainly show even more bravery once the summer is over.