We’ve been on summer break for just over a week now, but I can’t seem to shake the feeling that I’ve forgotten to open my Google Meet to livestream or post the assignment with the attached links to Google Classroom. Until I remember it’s summer, I run through the tasks in my head, “Did I mix a new batch of bleach in my spray bottle?” “Have I gone through the Two-Way Communication Log?” “Where’s my mask?” But it’s summer, so I tell myself to settle down, relax, really enjoy this moment. I’ve had twenty nine summers as a teacher, and I know better than to waste a moment of this precious time. But here I am, typing about it, ruminating over it, and trying to just get past the experience of this school year. We survived, after all.
Many of us were scared when we returned fully face to face in the fall. My own mom called and suggested I figure out a way to retire early. She did not want her child going to school during a pandemic. She did not want her child to get sick or worse, die. That was the fear that gripped many teachers throughout the past school year, including me. How many times did I wonder, “Is that scratchy throat the first symptom of COVID?” On the last day of school, the staff all stood outside and waved as the buses pulled away. Then we turned to each other in amazement and disbelief–we had done it! We had survived the 2020-21 school year, and it felt like a miracle. Serving our community and surviving without getting sick was the objective of teaching through a pandemic, and we had done it. That said, I don’t want to ever do that again.
Never again…I hope and pray. I’m not just referring to the increased workload of teaching in-person and remote learners simultaneously or the difficulties of teaching through a mask and sanitizing the classroom after each hour. I’m talking about holding mere survival as the goal for a whole school year. There has to more–I have to work toward more than simply making it through a school year. Next year I want the students and I to THRIVE. I want to group the students for writing conferences, so they sit side by side, hearing each other’s essays and stories. I long to see students sharing the supplies of crayons, scissors, and glue sticks to create artistic responses to our readings and writings. I daydream of a classroom where we move to play games and laugh. And I long for the end of a school day during which a child sneaks in a hug or a high five without hesitation. I need MORE than what teaching in 2020-21 offered.
I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but the prospects look promising. Now I’m going to exhale and breath in all this summer has to offer, holding on to the hope of more in the fall of 2021!
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