I Am a Teacher

"A good teacher is like a candle - it consumes itself to light the way for others."   

~Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

I am a teacher.  More specifically, I am a Kindergarten teacher.  For 24 years I have been greeting our littlest learners in the fall and spending the entire school year teaching them their letters, how to count to 100, how to share, and so much more.  After so many years, one would think I have seen it all.  I've been through hard things in my career.

The 5-year old girl with a brain tumor who joined my class in July, but I was told she would likely be dead by Christmas.  I spent the fall talking to counselors and the school psychologist, visiting my student in the hospital, reading books about illness and death to prepare her classmates.  But then she lived.  Today she is a college graduate with a unique name so I can always find her and check on her with a quick google search.

The students, sadly more than one, who lost a parent to death, prison, or mental illness.  They are the ones who loved when I came to their ball games, or needed me to rub their backs at rest time so they could relax enough to just be still.

The many students, more than I can count, who were hungry.  I have always kept food in my room because Kindergarten students get to have an afternoon snack.  But some students also needed breakfast because they got to school after breakfast service had ended.  I learned which items had a long shelf life and were best for eating while working - cereal bars, granola bars, graham crackers. Never fresh fruit or milk or the things they really needed.  For many years, I kept money in my closet so that I could add it to lunch accounts for students who were depleted.  The ones who didn't qualify for free lunch, but whose parents could not send any money until payday the next week. 

Then there was September 11, 2001.  The day my colleagues and I felt shell shocked ourselves and wondered what was happening in the world beyond our school walls.  The parents who stumbled into the school and the classroom because they just knew they had to get to their children, even if we were not in any danger.

I've worked in schools where staff did not trust each other, where conflict was constant, where the principal was not a leader in any true sense of the word.  Those are the years when, unfortunately, my students did not get my best efforts.  I kept my door shut, didn't form relationships with my colleagues, spent no extra time at school, and counted down the minutes until the end of the day so that I could just go home and forget about my job.  But there is the problem for teachers...it's not just a "job".

Finally, I survived a flood.  The city where I taught experienced a "500 year flood" in 2008.  It was one week after we had dismissed for the summer.  I worked at a year-round school so we would be back to greet a new class in 6 weeks, but the river water instead took our school from us in one fast moving swoosh.  There was so much uncertainty, so many questions.  Where would we go for the next school year?  What would happen to all of our kids, many of whom lost their homes to the flood also? Would there ever be a time when our school family would be reunited and whole again?  When I think of those early days, the days when nobody had any answers, I am reminded of how much I cried.  I was sad for myself to lose the work family I really did love.  I was sad for my students and their families who lost their school, their homes, and most of their possessions in just a few days.  And I cried because I was just scared. I didn't know what would happen next and it was completely out of my control.

Today is like that summer of 2008 - something beyond my control is changing everything.

The governor of my state recommended that all schools close for four weeks, and my district followed that recommendation immediately.  I knew it was coming.  We all knew it was coming because it had already happened in other states.  I know it sounds petty and small considering people are dying from this terrible disease, but my greatest worry was "will we have to make it up?"  I imagined us still going to school, getting my own children up and ready and homework done, well into June or even July.  The end of one school year would blur into the start of the next year.

During her daily address yesterday, the governor announced that a waiver was being worked on and she would sign it as soon as it got to her desk.  The waiver would allow schools to complete fewer  than the state mandated 1,080 hours if the school closed due to Coronavirus.  I cried when she said it.  I felt a great wash of relief.  In that moment, I didn't think about my students and their lost learning at all.  I thought about me and my own family.  I want my children to have something to look forward to, the carefree days of summer.

The bill was passed at 12:01 am today by our state legislators.

I slept soundly last night for the first time in over a week.

I know there is hard work ahead for my school district and many details to still work out to meet the needs of our students.  Can we somehow provide food daily to our students who need it?  What resources are available to keep our students engaged and learning at home?  What can we do so that learning can happen despite no internet access or devices?  I know the administrative team is working on solutions to all of those questions and they will pass that information on to me soon.  I will have a role to play in the solution.  I will do whatever it takes to help so that my students can continue to learn while they are not at school.  I am a teacher.  I've been through hard things before in my career.  But I got through all of them, and I know we will get through this too.

For one night, I let myself relax and smile.  I let myself dream about summer...lazy days at the pool, family vacations, no schedule, my son's favorite sports camp, my daughter's favorite wildlife camp.  I didn't let myself think about the unanswered questions.  They will still be there tomorrow and they will still be out of my control.