Photo by Marco Verch under Creative Commons 2.0
Each summer, I'm usually sharing photos of my classroom set up right about now, or posting some tutorials on bulletin board creation, and of course, gushing over my fresh, new teacher planner. This year, I'm at home, with bedhead, my second cup of still-hot coffee steaming next to me on my nightstand and the smell of Clorox kitchen cleaner wafting down the hallway listening to the whirring of the dishwasher, fully loaded and running at 8:30 a.m.
I briefly considered joining my district's COVID-19 task force/re-opening schools committee two weeks ago (they're meeting this week), but decided that I wanted and deserved a break with a little bit of "real summer" leftover to try to enjoy after a workshop I took came to a close. Changes at my building and our state's back-to-school calendar mean that convocation and first few days of PD could be fairly interesting, but it's the sitting and waiting to hear about what the framework of my district's remote learning plan might look like that is preventing me from turning my brain off and attention toward other much less stressful pursuits. The committee is plowing through a lot of content and putting their creative selves to the test. I wish I could bake them all cookies.
In May, I volunteered to be on the staff for any digital academy or distance learning that we might offer because 1) I didn't believe we'd be back in brick and mortar schools, or if we were, that we'd stay there long and 2) I fall into a high-risk category for coronavirus complications. As it turns out, the pandemic and virus did indeed continue on their merry way, causing problems and necessitating adjustments, despite many of my neighbors' disbelief that any entity would dare to work counter to their plans and schedules. I still do not know if I'll be expected to teach face to face, face to face and have my instruction live-streamed (a ridiculous format for kindergarten), face to face with an extended day schedule for half of my class and the remainder of the afternoon after early dismissal creating and sharing virtual lessons and instruction for the second half (easily double or more the workload, especially if diverted to sub in another classroom), remote only using Seesaw and other digital platforms/curriculum tools and restrictive rules implemented last spring, and if teaching remotely, working from home or within some other office elsewhere so that I can help multiple grade levels with planning instead of just kindergarten, all while trying to not be pulled right back into the danger zones of in-person meetings and step-in substitute duties that prompted me to volunteer for remote instruction in the first place.
I'm looking forward to having an answer to the questions I have about where to invest my time, and frankly, money too. Do I start shopping around for an oversized dry erase board, green screen cloth, mini-desk, bookshelves, comfortable rolling chair, storage tubs for all of my belongings and classroom library still at school, and repaint a wall in the guest bedroom? Do I completely reorganize my storage to accommodate all of my gear, which includes classroom furniture and toys, and if so, when do I actually go in to pack it all up and haul it home? If I'm going to have to work in an office, when do I get to pull my necessities and then pack up and store the rest? Do I make and buy more masks and a visor? Do I need to stock up on wipes and hand sanitizer, none of which is available in town, and when it appears in other stores is limited to one item per customer and incredibly overpriced requiring extra gas and extended exposure to others? Do I purchase scrub-type clothing? I spent a lot of money to pay for my summer workshop... will I be allowed to use any of the tools and resources I learned about? What do I have that I can donate to the cause to help my colleagues and their students? Do I create age-appropriate mask-wearing posters, or create Wakelet boards of tutorials for how to create Bitmoji classrooms? I'm not panicked. I'm anxious.
A former colleague told me in May that we shouldn't plan anything, and just wait and see what the state decides and what our district decides in the fall, because "you never know." Yes, yes, you can know. You can know that a pandemic occurs over a wide geographic area and affects an exceptionally high proportion of the population. You can do some research and can come to know that pandemics don't operate via collaboration with businesses' calendars for the fiscal year, and you can infer that preparation for change is necessary. That many parents are now turning on teachers, those same teachers with whom they partnered and praised last year, demanding that we take their children back after purposely (even proudly) avoiding the mask-wearing and social distancing recommendations that could have made that very option viable makes me realize just how much of the population also believes in just waiting and seeing what happens rather than being proactive and making informed, not wild, guesses about the future. The instructors of my summer workshop anticipated that their content would be needed, and I'm terribly thankful that our state board of education created a committee that would address multiple schooling scenarios. I appreciate that the workshop opportunity was shared with me and that there are, indeed, options for my twenty-fifth year as an educator.
But wow. My internal clock and calendar are all thrown out of whack this year, which is uncomfortable for me as a confirmed creature of habit. This week is supposed to involve classroom furniture, bulletin boards, decor, and year-long calendar planning, followed by a website update, parent communication, and copies for August, September and October being sent to the printer. Then I bake and take in cookies for our custodians, my first week of school crafts are prepped, I attend PD while regularly checking on my ever-evolving class list, have lunch with the team, start grade level planning, and sprinkle in lots of peeking into classrooms to catch up and see how everybody's' summer went. I didn't get to do much of this preparation in person last year due to my surgery and didn't realize how much I had been looking forward to getting back into the groove until May when I realized the normal back-to-school routine wasn't going to be likely. After all of this summer's upheaval, and hopefully, as a "remote learning" teacher, I am looking forward to the start of the school year, even with its uncertainties. I need a routine, even if it means creating a new one. My days require structure so that I can develop habits that make it possible for me to plan a schedule. I'll know when I'm working, and I'll look forward to my off-hours. My brain will disengage and allow itself some other pursuits because the foundation will be firmly built and I will be able to rely upon it.
Tick.
Tock.
