A Shout Out to My Fellow Teachers

It is the end of the 2020–2021 school year and what a fucked up school year it has been.

As fucked up as it has been, all teachers and educators learned that we have one thing in common and that is called resilience. No matter how much shit was thrown our way this school year, all educators did their best to educate all of the kiddos this year.

We have received a lot of shit from all quarters from both the left wing and right wing but we kept on going.

We trudged along and tried to our best everyday even though we were dealing with our own personnel shit during COVID. It seems like as things were become worse in the world and our own worlds, we were able to create a safe space for the kids in our classes in a virtual world.

Sometimes we cared more about the kids then we did ourselves. We made home visits to make sure kids had materials, internet and devices, We modified teaching styles and lessons to fit in a Distance Learning world, We worked hard everyday to come up with interesting ways to keep the kiddos engaged.

Remember, the students had choices- Engaging in classes or playing Madden or Fortnite is what we were up against. Sometime Playstation won but in most cases we were able to engage our students and real learning took place.

We were able to connect with others in a way that we could not imagine before.

Back in August, many of us were still doing Distance Learning on-line. During different points in the school year we had to come back for in-person learning during the pandemic with rules that changed by the day.

Some had to come back for in-person learning and then go back to Distance Learning and then go back for in-person learning. Sometime on a days’ notice. But somehow we managed.

Rules were changed all the time, what was good yesterday was not good today and there was a new policy about doing something different on a daily basis.

We established new classroom norms and new routines on a daily basis. They say that routines and norms take about three weeks at the beginning of the year to take hold. Shit, sometimes we had to establish these norms and routines overnight.

I know I had to come back for in-person learning with a month to go in the school year. They moved my middle school to a section of a high school in my district for that last month.

We all did the hybrid deal. What a fuckin’ nightmare. Half of your class was online and half in the classroom. But somehow we were able to have the kids learn.

A lot of us didn’t know what Zoom (I still thought it was a kids TV show) was or even how to use it. But we became masters of it within no time. We worked to make sure we adapted our lessons for the medium.

As Bruce Lee once said “Be Like Water”, we were all year along. Molding our teaching to fit the needs of our kids and to whatever the situation was.

Saw this on Linkedin and thought it was cool:

“Stop telling yourself you’re not qualified, not worthy or not experienced enough.

Growth happens when you start doing things you’re not qualified to do.”

I think that all educators were forced to grow this year.

And all educators were heroes even if the rest of world won’t give us props.