LAUGH
Teaching in a global pandemic is pretty much the equivalent of riding a tricycle on fire while trying to juggle steak knives. Simply put: IT’S NO JOKE, Y’ALL. We have a dozen new safety measures to abide by while trying to differentiate, assess, and (oh yeah) teach. Here is going back to school in 2020, as told by “The Office”.
1. When your admin tells you that you have to teach students in-person and online at the same time…
2. When you spend the whole class time telling your students that masks should not be worn as eye patches…
3. When your district tells you that you have to provide your own PPE due to budget cuts…
4. When admin tells you that this year is going to be “exciting” and filled with “lots of wonderful changes”…
5. When your school is on their 5th go-around of a hybrid schedule that keeps changing by the minute…
6. When you are supplied with one small bottle of hand sanitizer, one mask, and one roll of paper towels that are supposed to last you for the entire year…
7. When someone asks you how teaching is going amidst a global pandemic…
8. What you say to yourself in the car mirror every morning in the school parking lot…
9. When your WiFi is terrible, Zoom shuts down, and your students are yelling that they can’t hear or see you…
10. When the alarm goes off for a fire drill and you have to keep students 6 feet apart…
11. When you are trying to hold it together, but it has just been a day…
12. When your own children at home keep interrupting your online lessons to ask for another snack…
13. When your state’s guidelines for re-opening schools change again…
14. When you absolutely slay one of your lessons and all of your online students are super engaged and participatory…
15. When you look at your jam-packed schedule for the first time…
16. When you are up to your ears in Zoom, Google Classroom, Seesaw, and Flipgrid…
17. When you are trying to have a positive outlook on the 2020-2021 school year…
18. When you FINALLY get to go back to your classroom with students for in-person learning…
19. At the end of each day, when you think about all you have been doing to keep your students engaged and safe…
20. When admin assures you that they will be doing a deep clean on the building at least once a week…
21. When a non-teacher friend asks you how you get through your teaching days during all of this…
22. When your district’s plans hinge on students actually behaving in ways they’ve never behaved before…
23. When you sit next to a first-year teacher who seems genuinely excited for the upcoming year…
24. When you roll into your classroom and start to get ready for the day…
25. When admin tells you they’ve figured out a great plan for the start of the school year…
26. When you reunite with your teacher BFF and forget about all the obstacles and look forward to the good times…
27. When you promised yourself you wouldn’t make a scene at the staff meeting, but all the uncertainty makes you snap…
28. When you get your class list and the number of students skyrocketed overnight with the new hybrid model…
29. When you and your coworkers count the days until the new plan changes again and you have to adapt your lessons all over again…
30. When you’re leaving school on Friday night and anyone tries to approach you in the parking lot…
32. When no matter how overwhelming this start of the new school year is, you’re so excited to finally be back in your classroom with the kids…
