The Teaching Journey "Post-Covid"
3) Or rather the 2021-2022 Academic Year
I want to keep on leaning into the theme of teaching and schools. I mean it has been very much prevalent in the news, and headlines leading up to the 2022 midterm elections are indicating how Republicans are seizing on Democrats shutting down school for a year and a half from the end of the academic year 2020 through the end of last academic year 2021. For the record I don’t care to make this a political post. You can read older posts to delve into my politics.
But, FYI - I find the Democratic Party to be largely inept and enabling and the Republican party and most of its platform just downright terrifying. As for corruption and money in politics, it's prevalent everywhere, no political party has anything close to the moral high-ground here, nor should morality and politics mix like this anyhow, since most people in politics are already considered suspicious of being a criminal no matter how pure a person’s intentions are.
I also don’t want to make this about the rightness or wrongness of whether we should have shut-down schools for the whole academic year last year. Although, in hindsight, I do think it wasn’t a very good decision. But to call it the worst policy decision since the Iraq War?…Hmm, that seems a bit harsh even if the argument itself might very well have some merit and is worth discussing. What I will say is this; I think our children are really hurting right now in this country, and I’m not sure how long it will take for them to fully bounce back from essentially being closed off from society for 15-18 months.
I think Covid was majorly disruptive for everyone, but when I think of 12-14 year olds I teach, 55-65% of whom stayed home for over year, and the other 35-45% of whom only went to school from September through June for two out of five days per week (at most), I think “MY GOODNESS, IF I HAD TO GO THROUGH THIS AT THIS AGE, HOW THE HECK WOULD I HAVE EVER COPED?” Legit, I wonder how many adults managed to stay home for so long. Many teachers I work with now were teaching remotely all year last year. I was not one of them. And honestly, if I were, I’m not sure how well I would have coped with that.
When I just think of the changes I went through in these last two years, from;
1- Having a new kid.
2- The challenge that presents when a new sibling is on the scene.
3- Navigating intimate relationships in general.
4- Keeping my $ financial house in order $.
5- Rediscovering myself and my love for teaching (and Writing).
And then I think of my students, most of whom were home for such a long period of time, and didn’t have school as a safe haven for themselves, as many of them were dealing with a lot of different thing, such as;
1- Dealing with their parents getting divorced (yes covid brought families together, but also separated many of them).
2- Dealing with absentee parents (this really was pronounced when kids are home alone all day).
3 - Let's be real here! Some parents have been dealing with some things that might cause them to be taking their frustrations out on their own kids, be it emotionally or physically. I don’t think anyone ever adequately addresses emotional violence or abuse, but in a lot of ways it's more prevalent in homes than actual physical violence and abuse. Both scenarios are horrible, and they both speak poorly to us and about us as a human-race, and are largely indicative of how evolved we are not!
4- The gaps in students' education, creating bigger learning deficits, where kids that were below grade reading level in reading, have fallen even further behind.
5- Being even more addicted to devices that keep children/all people up all night, and raises one’s anxiety .
As a really good friend of mine, and a teacher at a school separate from mine has reminded me numerous times, we are a very sick nation, and our jobs as teachers actually have the widest impact on these kids compared to anyone. We might not have the “deepest” impact, but we do have the “widest” impact. And his reminding me of that, has actually been a bit of jet-fuel for me to remind me of why I wake up every day to face hormonal young people who are either on the cusp of being a teenager or are actually teenagers.
And when I talk to the parents of my students, I realize how challenging it has been for them to raise their own kids under these circumstances. As a teacher, I’m with these children thirty-five to forty hours per week. That adds up to a lot of time. The amount of corrective behavior these children need, and honestly in some ways crave, is truly something I don’t remember experiencing having to need that as much as a kid. But, maybe I did. I mean school is a bit of an experimental lab where hundreds of personalities convene among mostly children and a sizable number of adults too. Depending on how big your school is, this number could be in the thousands.
One thing I also realize as a teacher, is that - once I stopped asking for my students' approval (or anyone’s approval for that matter), I became a much better teacher. It has become more about my expectations of my students, and then fulfilling to the best of their ability to do good work and put their best foot forward. I’m their teacher, their mentor, their big brother, their uncle, their parent, but I’m not their friend.
When I think of these kids, I realize my oldest daughter is eight (born in 2014) my students are typically only five-six years older than her, (born in 2008 or 2009). Granted to them, five years is something like 40% of their lives. But, to me, it’s a reminder not that they don’t know anything, or somehow don’t have insight into life, but rather they have just not had the life experiences that they are gaining from being in school every day. Something that they were robbed of for at least a year! Yes even the kids who still got to come to school two days per week, they were essentially robbed of a year of in person learning.
I legitimately am always thinking of what my students are going to be like 20-25 years from now, when they have kids of their own, and are paying taxes and voting, and are the adult members of their community. It’s not my goal to raise these kids to millionaires or movie stars or future big-shot politicians. Some of them will reach tremendous heights, and many of them will find fulfilling careers. But not all of them will, at least not initially.
Growing pains are part of life, whether you are 13 or 23, 33 or 43 or even 53 or older. I’m not that far away from 43, I’m not rushing towards it either, as it is a couple years off. But, honestly I really want my students to be good citizens. I want them to be conscientious people who want to make something of their lives in some way they can be proud of. Just for them to have the dignity of life. So many of us have been deprived of that for so long. Covid has frayed a society that honestly in some ways wasn’t doing that great to begin with.
For this first wacky “post-covid” year, my goal all along has been to be a teacher that was able to help my students re-adapt to life as we once knew it, and that they grow as individuals and be the best that they can be. They also need to continue to do the necessary and required work to ensure present and future success.
I also hope they have role models to look up to that give them the best chance for them to be the best version of themselves. I mean, isn’t that something we all should want for our children? We all are handing off this world to them. It will be their privilege to be the next ones in line being the parents, leaders and mentors of future generations.
If you are reading this and are a teacher - God Bless You! If you are a parent and you are doing the best you can to raise your kid or kids right - God Bless You! If you are someone who has dedicated part of your life to children’s lives, be it as their aunt or uncle, tutor, mentor - God Bless you!
Overall I just hope now more than ever that we are preparing our children for what’s next. Whatever that may be.
-JPJ