As a first-year middle-school teacher, I had all of the normal fears: what if my students don’t like me? How will I learn 187 names in a school year, let alone in the first week? Will I ever really know my way around the school? What if a student has a question I don’t know the answer to?

This year — my first year — I met all of those fears and more. I learned all of the names. I can [mostly] get around the school. I learned how to manage thirty 15-year-olds in one room. I learned the new slang, and to never start a day of reading on page 69, and that students don’t really notice if you only own one pair of dress pants, and that if a student asks a question I don’t know the answer to, then hallelujah, because they are engaged and now I can show them that even adults need (and like) to learn things.

I figured out when to tell a student to go get a drink of water so they could breathe a bit before coming back to finish an assignment without frustration. I made up secret hand signals that specific students could use to let me know they were feeling anxious and needed me to come stand by them. I mastered the “teacher-look” that could make a paper airplane leap into the recycling bin. But most of all, I learned that this is what I was meant to do. Sure, there were many days where I came home, collapsed on the couch, and slept until my husband came home from a late shift at work. There were days that I shut my classroom door at 3:20 and wept from exhaustion and frustration and feelings of inadequacy. But there were more days that I felt joy and excitement, and triumph, and love. The most surprising thing I learned was that these students – the ones I so desperately wanted to impact for good – had instead taught me how to be a teacher.

I was finally starting to feel like I knew what I was doing. I could manage my classroom. I could contact parents with confidence. I could differentiate for both gifted and struggling students. I could sense when a lesson wasn’t going well and change it on the fly.

…and then we moved online due to the Covid-19 pandemic. 

I’m grateful to schools and governments for prioritizing the health of students, staff, and the community. But if you think that teachers see “online teaching” or “distance learning” as a break, you are wrong. This is not online education. This is academic triage.

I’m told to maintain the integrity and rigor of grades and academia and push students to be college and career ready… while simultaneously cutting 45-minute in-person lessons into 5-10 minute daily assignments.

I’m told to have regular video conferences with students, but not to expect or require them to attend.

I’m told to make sure every student is getting assignments but to keep in mind that some don’t have internet access.

I’m told to document all extra support I provide for my students who need it – IEPs, 504s, ELLs – but how can I support these students when I can’t get in contact with them?

I truly believe everyone is doing the best that they can and that this is an unprecedented situation. But that didn’t stop my heart from breaking a little bit more when it was announced here in Utah that school would not resume on May 1st, but would remain online until the end of the school year.

I don’t get any real closure from my first year as a teacher. I don’t get to do the fun end-of-year activities with my 9th graders. I don’t get to attend the school play, or the band performances, or the choir nights that many of my students would have been showcased in. I don’t get the last 3 months of the academic year with my students. I don’t get that sweet “last day of school” with the kids I’ve spent every weekday with for months. I don’t get to say good-bye.

This is not what I expected my first year to look like. This is not what I wanted my first year to look like.

Yes, I know we will recover. And I know that today’s youth are strong and brave and wonderful and that they will come back next year more resilient – and so will I. But for right now, they are not okay. And I am not okay. And we are not okay.

But we will be.

Also Read:

Thoughts of a First-Year Teacher during COVID-19