Instincts and Urges

It's summer and this is the week traditionally when I would be back in my classroom arranging furniture, freshening up bulletin board displays, pulling stuffed animals, manipulatives, journals, tubs, books and other items from cabinetry and sitting down at my reading table to take a break, eat lunch, and survey the progress.  There's usually music playing through the surround-sound speaker system, my door is wide open for colleagues to come through if any are around, and it's either sunny and hot or storming like crazy outside my classroom windows, making me wonder if I'll be navigating around downed trees once I leave the building. Even last year after my surgery my teenager was able to help me sort through things and prep.  An angel of a colleague arranged all of my furniture so I wouldn't strain myself. 

Last week I got to see a video of my classroom, completely cleaned, and that same old urge automatically kicked in. I wanted to walk back inside, stand immediately within the door, and just look, slowing scanning my room from left to right, up and down, and back again. Bookcase, SMART Board, dry erase board, check. Calendar, storytime chair, book display, ELA tubs, check. Word wall, student chairs, writing table, center toys, check. Apple basket stand for puppets, dramatic play kitchen set, baby doll cradle, math bulletin board, check. Bookcase, round math table, manipulatives, rolling cart, check.  Art cart, desktop laminator, paint, glue, crates of craft mock-ups sorted by month, check.  Easel, play-doh table, carpet, sink, paint rack, Pete the Cat sitting in a wreath gifted to me by a Super Star family, check. Handwashing station, birthday bulletin board display, and way up high, above all of the built-in cabinetry, tchotchkes and keepsakes accumulated from over two decades of teaching in Alaska, New Mexico, and Kansas... check.  Door to a shared workroom/storage space, teacher desk, cabinetry, student lockers and cubbies, dollhouse table, check.  Rolled up carpets and students' tables stacked, rolling cart used for storage and at the end of each year- except for this year- yearbook distribution... check. Hooks hanging from clear fishing wire.  Check. I can imagine the laughter and buzz of students talking as my eyes track across our spaces.

I have also had the incredible urge to walk back into the classroom, empty all of the furniture into the hallway and shared space at the rear of the room where the bathrooms and iPad carts are located, measure out the actual floor space, and start pulling tables and chairs back into the room to measure some more and get a feel for what six feet apart all facing the same direction feels and looks like.  Tables and chairs have been in a wagon wheel or flower petal arrangement for several years now, which can't happen now. My go-to, when faced with a problem or situation requiring modifications and solutions, is to move furniture and be creative, taking inventory of what I have, and imagining new ways of using it all.  I've been watching all summer and have been seeking out photos and information about schooling and classroom arrangements shared by teachers from all around the world.  Articles and tweets about the happiness of being reunited with students, the smell of disinfectant permeating the air and face coverings, the adjustment being more difficult for adults than children and the touchy-feely declarative posts of "I just have to be here no matter what" do nothing to reduce my urges to cry or feel nauseous.

I've wondered if plexiglass dividers would work across the middle of each of my student tables, and should they be too expensive if creating dividers using clear shower curtain liners, PVC pipe and foam strips for a gasket-type seal would serve instead. I've wondered if I need to replace the fabric curtains that cover most of my lower cabinetry with vinyl or plastic of some sort, so they're easier to clean.  I've purchased Ziploc baggies with sliders and plastic lidded containers with divided sections of various sizes to see if they'd be efficient and easy for kindergarteners to access and store math manipulatives daily.  I've priced individual book totes in anticipation of students not being able to select, share or trade books to look through. I've purchased new tongs, long and short, for selecting items from bins without using our hands and for picking up the tissues, disposable masks and other garbage that will end up on the floor or left on desks.  I've tried different masks and bought safety glasses to see if there is any combination that isn't overly uncomfortable, sweat producing, or too scary for young children.   I've bought masks with our school mascot on them.  I've ordered new sit spots shaped like stars and colored carpet tape for delineating spaces and suggesting traffic patterns.  

Despite all of these deeply ingrained habits and urges, my instinct, just as it did in May, continues to tell me to stay away from the classroom.  Guidance about social distancing aside, it's always been my job to create a learning environment that appeals to young children, that communicates our classroom is a safe space to which they should want to return day after day and that parents also find reassuring.  I could shift decor and manipulatives to all laminated, disinfectant-friendly items.  But the safety implied, if it could effectively be so without our puppets and stuffed animals and shared spaces and hugs, would be a lie.  Acting-as-if and putting on a brave face aren't markers of professionalism during a pandemic, despite society believing them sufficient in the case of fires, tornados, earthquakes and school shootings.  

It's not lost on me that my money might have been better spent on purchasing a large dry erase board to help set up space at home from which I could teach, no masks required.  But as usual, my instinct and urge have been to anticipate and prepare for the worst while hoping for the best.  I just wish the worst wasn't so very, very bad this year.