Annus Horribilis

It has been almost a year since I’ve posted anything online.  I feel badly about that.  I was surprised to learn I actually had subscribers, and I feel I have let them down.  I have a good excuse, several in fact, but still, I don’t like to leave readers hanging.

To borrow the words of Queen Elizabeth II, it has been an annus horribilis, a horrible year.  It began in January 2024 when I developed diverticulitis for the first time.  I was in quite a bit of pain but still trying to teach through it while I was visiting various medical professionals attempting to figure out what in the world was wrong with me.  That was followed by days and days of trying to teach with pain while sticking to a purely clear liquid diet (in other words, no energy).  I lost five pounds the first week and another five the second, which was great because goodness knows I need to lose far more weight than that, but as a weight-loss program, I don’t recommend it.

Then about the same time, my husband began to have a lot of swelling and pain in his right leg.  It became so bad that it was too painful to walk.  I’ll spare you the description of not one, but three, nightmarish trips to the emergency room and the series of mishaps and misdiagnoses on the part of our local hospital (another story in itself).  It all finally boiled down to the identification of a huge blood clot high in his right leg and a hospital stay of several days after the doctors performed a surgical procedure to try to break it down as much as possible, because by this point, the clot was too large to wait for blood thinners to take care of it.

The unspoken question between my husband and me then became, “Is the cancer back?”  You see, the only other time he has had blood clots was when he was first identified with colon cancer five years before.  He had gone to have a CT scan for the cancer when the doctors found blood clots and called him to immediately go to the hospital emergency room.  Fortunately, the cancer was in its earliest stages, and they were able to remove it with surgery.  Since then, he had kept every appointment, taken every test, and had come back clean.  He was coming up on the five-year anniversary of his original diagnosis and was expecting to be dismissed by his oncologist and released from his more frequent visits and tests.

The agonizingly slow-arriving answer to the cancer question was, “yes.”  It was now stage four.  It required chemotherapy.

As if that weren’t bad enough, the week after he received his diagnosis, my husband was laid off from his job.  In the blink of an eye, we went from doing better-than-alright to not-alright-at-all.  The loss of his paycheck meant a reduction in our household income by 75% and all of our health insurance, because men in the corporate world are compensated far better than women in the public education system.  No amount of savings could make up for that drastic loss, the first of many this past year.

Reality and a very frightening picture of our future came crashing in on us.  My husband and I had always planned to downsize as soon as all of our children were out of the house, but we hadn’t thought it would be anytime soon.  However, with his age and now the cancer to deal with, his prospects of quickly landing another job were very doubtful.  We could not afford our home on my salary alone, especially not with the rapidly mounting medical bills.  We decided to take advantage of the current housing prices and sell our home so that we could buy something much smaller, a lot cheaper, and a home that (hopefully) couldn’t be taken away from us as easily.  I needed that security.  I needed to believe that I wasn’t going to end up homeless.

A real estate agent friend of ours took the lead, almost before we were ready.  In the blink of an eye, our house was turned upside down with painters and handymen trying to get everything in the best shape possible for putting the house on the market.  He and his wife came into our home one day and decluttered every room while I was at work teaching.  I came home to discover my house turned completely upside down, topsy-turvy from top to bottom.  I couldn’t find anything.  It had all been put in boxes and taken to the basement.

We had an offer on the house before we had even put it up for sale, but we held out for a better offer.  We had that better offer within about 24 hours of putting the house on the market.  We accepted.  My head was spinning.  I was very grateful, but everything was moving so fast.

Now all of a sudden we were faced with having to get out of our house and find someplace else to go.  We started looking, but there wasn’t much to choose from in our price range and ended up in a small town duplex with no basement and five fewer rooms than the metropolitan suburban home we were leaving.  It wasn’t in great shape and needed quite a bit of work, but it was what we could afford and put me a lot closer to the school where I’d been teaching.  My commute was cut by more than half, which was nice.

The next challenge was lining up all of the work that needed to be done on the new house before we could move in, all with an eye on the imminent deadline imposed by the closing date on our old house.  Along with that challenge was the even more overwhelming need to get rid of five rooms of furniture and a lot of the stuff that was being stored in our basement.

We tried Facebook Marketplace, offering items near and dear to my heart (read: inestimable) for a tiny fraction of their actual value.  What we discovered is that there are a lot of people on Facebook Marketplace who aren’t actually interested in your stuff, only in trying to cheat you and steal your identity.  Thankfully, I don’t believe they were successful, but needless to say, we turned to other avenues to get rid of our things.

We didn’t have time to put a garage sale together.  I was trying to wrap up the school year by this time and get prepared for summer school, for which I had applied to teach in order to bring in a few extra bucks.  My husband had started chemo treatments.  Instead, we made many, many trips to Goodwill with the trunk and back seat of our car loaded to the gills.  However, that didn’t help us get rid of the furniture pieces.  For that, we called several charities, like Habitat for Humanity, that would come to your home and pick up items.  Even they wouldn’t take a lot of it, though we had nice pieces of furniture worth thousands of dollars.

In the end, we were forced to call 1-800-JUNK.  Yes, we actually had to PAY someone to haul away our beautiful things.  It was sickening.  We were simply out of time, cutting it right down to the wire, and had no other choice.

Next came the actual move.  I could write pages about this nightmare alone, but I’ll just give you the highlights.  My husband hired someone recommended by our agent, but we must have gotten the crew from hell.  I left that morning for an 8:00 dentist appointment and returned to find my hardwood kitchen floor covered with water and absolutely no one in sight trying to avert the flood.  The movers had tried to disconnect the refrigerator and had broken the valve on the water line.  A very kind neighbor had taken my husband to the hardware store to try to find something to stop the water line from flowing.  I ran around frantically trying to find anything absorbent, which wasn’t easy because by this time even the rags had been packed away.  Just as soon as our wonderful neighbor had fixed the water line in the kitchen, we heard a shout from the moving crew in the basement. 

My neighbor had just left to return to his own home across the street when we had to call him back, because when we got down in the basement, the sump pump, which had given us absolutely no problems in the six years we’d lived there, was spewing water all over the place.  What our neighbor found was that a part inside the sump pump was turned the wrong way.  All he had to do was turn it back in the right direction, but it was obvious that someone on the moving crew was messing around rather than working.

However, the day had just begun.  The crew couldn’t get the basement refrigerator out through the basement door, and they wouldn’t take the doors off the refrigerator because they hadn’t been trained to do that.  (That was the point at which we called in 1-800-JUNK.)  There were crashes in the driveway followed by “oops!” There was our solid oak kitchen table that they didn’t bother to remove the legs before they loaded it and then, unbeknownst to us, loaded on the truck right side up, after which they loaded as many heavy boxes as they could fit on top of it.  Needless to say, we no longer had a kitchen table at the destination end of our move, just a pile of splinters.  That was only one of several major pieces that were broken.

The day ended around 10:00 that night with the movers trying to get our kitchen refrigerator through the kitchen door, which was about ¼” too small to accommodate it.  Again, another lecture about how they couldn’t possibly remove any doors to help facilitate getting it through.  I sat down on my broken couch, looking at the gouges they had put in my newly repaired and painted walls of what was now my home and fought to keep back the tears.  This was not my first rodeo.  I’ve moved thirteen other times.  I know what to expect.  But I’d never experienced anything like this.

As the year has progressed since then, there have been many other losses, like the death of my mother-in-law at the end of the summer.  A lot of this is first-world problems, I know, but it has been a lot with which to deal.  So. Much. Loss.  To add to that, it has been an absolutely horrible year at school, as well, but that is another story for another time.

Parent-Teacher Conferences

When was the last time you attended a parent-teacher conference?  I’ve just come through another round of conferences a couple of weeks ago, our third this year.  I can remember when, as a child, my parents only had one conference with my teachers in the fall.  That was all.  The only reason anyone ever had a spring conference was if the child was struggling in some way, usually academically, because a behavioral problem would have already been addressed.  (Correct me if my experience has been different than yours, but back then, the behavior issues were far less serious and numerous than they are today, and they would have been dealt with swiftly and decisively by both the parents and the teacher.  The rule at my house was always: if you get in trouble at school, you’ll be in twice as much trouble when you get home.)

Then a few years back it became de rigueur to have two conferences every year, a fall and a spring.  I thought that was a little unnecessary.  As a teacher, if I need to meet with a parent, I just reach out and ask for a meeting, no matter the time of year.  If I don’t need to meet with you, I won’t bother you.  However, I complied, of course.

Then along came the pandemic.  A third parent-teacher conference was added (via Zoom) to the school calendar before the new classes began in August.  This one was to allow everyone to meet each other virtually and to allow the teacher, who had now also been given the task of acting as a kind of social worker, to check on the well-being, not only of his/her students, but of their families as well.  Additionally, it allowed the teacher to explain how distance-learning would be handled, a process new to both educators and parent-guardians alike.  It was not only understandable, it was absolutely necessary and quite helpful.

Finally, the pandemic subsided enough that in-person learning could resume, much to the relief of almost everyone.  For most students, distance learning left much to be desired and did not produce the same level of achievement as in-person, which should not have been a surprise to anyone.  We did our best, but it was not an ideal situation.  Strangely enough, however, the third parent-teacher conference did not go away, and to be honest, most of the teachers I know, including myself, while we wish we had that time to work unencumbered in our classrooms, appreciate the value of getting to meet our students and their families and allowing those families to begin to get to know us.  Everyone seems to feel more relaxed and prepared knowing a little better what they or their child are walking into on the first day of school.

But still…three parent-teacher conferences a year?  Couldn’t we get rid of the spring one unless we need it?

Now, come to find out, our state doesn’t even recognize the legitimacy of those before-school conferences!  We had quite a few inclement weather days in January this year, much more than the make-up days we had built into our district calendar, so we were trying to work with the state auditor to see how we could make up the missing required hours.  The auditor informed the school district that those conferences held before school starts in August don’t count because they don’t contribute directly to the students’ future success.  Like heck, they don’t!

The other issue I have with parent-teacher conferences lately is that it has become standard practice to bring the child to the conference.  Back in the day (yes, I sound like an old codger), the children were left at home with a babysitter.  That’s why they’re called parent-teacher conferences, not parent-child-teacher conferences.

I really needed to meet with a parent by herself last fall because her very clever daughter was trying to manipulate the both of us, and I felt it would be better if she and I could share information and strategize without her daughter taking in everything that was being said and trying to outsmart us.  I asked the parent if it would be possible for her to come sans child and unintentionally completely freaked her out.

Now before you jump all over me, let me just say that I recognize that paying for babysitters can be prohibitive.  If that is the case for any of my parents, I don’t want them to miss their conference because of the cost of childcare.  I teach in a Title I school, and I know firsthand that can be an issue. 

I am also aware that there are such things as student-led conferences, and they have their benefits, as well.  I’m not devaluing them.  It’s just that sometimes, as the old saying goes, “little pitchers have big ears,” and the grown-ups need the opportunity to speak freely without the child around to hear it.  Sometimes children misunderstand, sometimes their feelings are hurt, sometimes they’re given too much of a voice in the conference (in other words, more than the parents themselves).

I’m also tired of having to hurriedly clean up my classroom before the next parent arrives because some student’s younger sibling has destroyed it while the parent sits through our conversation ignoring the behavior, never correcting it, and leaves without making the child pick up the mess.  Does that sound familiar to anyone else?

True Confessions

As I was doing some routine maintenance to the website over winter break, I realized I had contributed absolutely nothing to this blog in 2023!  I can’t believe an entire year went by without me noticing, but then, it was a pretty rough year.

For one thing, my dad died about this time last year.  To make matters more difficult, his wife left me out of every aspect of my father’s funeral possible short of actually barring me from attending.  However, that’s a whole other story for another day…probably a novel…therapy to process it all.

Just before that, however, I was in the midst of dealing with the discovery of my dad’s neglected state of health when my husband and I visited him in his nursing facility hundreds of miles from our home, getting him to a hospital and finding out he had not only COVID, but pneumonia, too.  The week after that, I was laid off from my job, my corporate job, a job I’d had for 6 months and was working from home.

Yes, I confess, I was one of the statistics.  You know, those teachers who made the mass exodus from teaching after surviving the pandemic.  I had turned my back on my profession at the end of the school year in May 2022, left behind my thousands of dollars’ worth of books, teacher resource guides, math manipulatives, games, visual aids, and other files and materials for the new teacher that was supposed to take over my position the following fall, and walked out the door, never once looking back.  I also have to confess: it felt good.  Really good.

To be honest, I’d been looking for another job for years, an escape hatch for when I reached the point where, either physically or mentally, I wouldn’t be able to teach anymore.  Let’s face it, teaching is a rather physically demanding job, particularly with the elementary grades.  The younger the student, the more physically challenging, and I’d spent most of my career teaching either kindergarten or first grade, among the youngest.  Nothing had ever come from my intermittent search.  Nobody outside the profession wanted to hire a teacher.  I applied for a job with a textbook and educational materials publisher, and someone there actually said about me, “She’s just a teacher.”  Shame on you!

But one day out of the blue (and I admit, with the help of connections through my husband), someone from another company finally DID call, and they began recruiting me to be one of their trainers around the fall of 2021.  A few weeks later, they backed off, saying that they wanted to wait until they were sure they had enough work for me, that they didn’t want to hire me only to have to lay me off a short time later.  I respected and appreciated that, and I continued to commute to my classroom each day with nothing lost, nothing gained.

Then in March, the phone calls and emails started arriving again, and they needed somebody…quickly.  I was definitely interested, especially at that time of year when student behaviors start to crank up even worse, but I couldn’t in good conscience leave my position.  I told the company that I would love to have the job, but I couldn’t leave my teaching post until the end of the school year when my contract was up.  I couldn’t believe it, but they were willing to wait for me.  I had a new job! 

I was so excited and nervous and relieved.  Mostly relieved.  I was not going to have to deal with the utter mess that had been made of the feral bunch of kindergartners that were due to arrive on my first-grade classroom doorstep the following August.  I had already been tearfully begging my husband not to have to go back for the next school year.

I was excited about starting something new, but something that would allow me to use a lot of my teaching skills.  Plus, I was going to be able to work remotely!  I had always wanted to work from home.  No more commute.  No more falling asleep at the wheel.  No more risking my safety driving in hazardous conditions when our school district superintendent was too big of a coward to cancel school for fear of the backlash from parents (or was it an ego trip to prove he was a big man making his employees face the weather while he stayed nice and cozy at home?)

Anyhow, without belaboring the point too much, I had taken myself out of the education game.  I didn’t have to worry about it anymore.  I still had a lot to say, however, and could have written, tried to write, but most of it was so strongly worded that I was afraid to post it.  I’m not trying to incite violence; I’m just looking for intelligent discourse.

Circling back to my father’s death, we got through the funeral two weeks later, and about a month after that, my husband was laid off.  I knew my dad had put aside a life insurance policy with me as the sole beneficiary.  He had a separate policy for his wife.  I was grieving for my father, but I was also resting in the knowledge that the tidy sum he had put by for me would help keep my family afloat for a few months while my husband and I looked for new employment.  When I didn’t hear anything from the insurance company after a month, I called them to see what I needed to do to collect.  That’s when I discovered that my father’s wife had changed the beneficiary on the policy about two seconds after she had gained my father’s power of attorney and never had the good grace to even tell me.

Now I needed a job, and I needed it fast, and the fastest way I knew to get one was to go back to teaching.  As luck would have it, my old position at my old school was vacant.  It was so awful, they couldn’t find anybody who could handle it, and they couldn’t keep anybody in it.  Fortunately, there was a new interim principal, and also fortunately there were enough kind former colleagues who put in a good word for me, and I was hired back.

On my second day back on the job, the school district announced that it was planning to close my school.  I was given the dubious distinction of being hired one day and “losing” my job the next!  There was a whole new challenge, getting my students through that rough transition and finding a new place within the district myself.  Again, this is another story, several stories, for another day.

Suffice it to say, 2023 was not a good year for me.  I am glad to see the end of it.  Hopefully, you can see why this site has been silent, but I’ll try to make up for that now.  Here’s wishing you (and myself!) a much better 2024!

Seeing Stars

Teachers, have you ever used a 5-star chart as part of a behavior plan with one of your students?  It seems like a simple thing, at least it did when the SPED teacher gave it to me.  Her instructions were, “Every time your student does the right thing, give a star.  When the student has earned five stars, give the student a five-minute break.”   That seemed simple enough, and she had gone to a lot of trouble laminating the chart and attaching Velcro, so the stars could be moved over and over.  I was happy to give it a try.  Heaven knows, nothing else I had tried was working.  The things this child needed (medication and therapy), I could neither give nor suggest.

The first problem came with implementation.  It was very difficult, if not downright impossible, to catch the student making the right choices.  This student was so impulsive that she wasn’t still, not for a second, and every movement was the wrong one.  The child could find a million different contortions to use to perch upon her chair, but none of them the right one.  She blurted out constantly, always with something unhelpful, usually with something that would get another child riled up.  As a result, stars were earned infrequently.

The second problem came when I started the GEI process, the practice of online tracking of behaviors and/or academics that are of concern and meeting with a “team” of colleagues (classroom, SPED, and sometimes specials teachers) to brainstorm ways to help the student.  I really didn’t have a choice, because she was in a similar process the previous year, and we were told that we should continue with the GEI process on those children from the previous year.

I didn’t know what I was walking into.  I came armed with my data, because I’d already been tracking one of her behaviors on a different chart, and I had evidence of her academic growth, or rather lack thereof.  I knew we had an hour and a half for the meeting, and there were two other students on the agenda before her, both in another grade level, and one listed after her.  I listened as each teacher presented what was going on with their student, what they had tried up to this point, and what impact it had.  There were tales regaled of help they had already received from the SPED teacher and further suggestions of things they could try.  “This is great!” I thought.  “I can’t wait to see what they come up with for my student!”

However, despite the fact that we were told only 20 minutes would be allotted to each student, I watched the clock tick by, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, 40 minutes.  Finally, on to the next student!  The same thing happened with the second student, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, 45 minutes went by.  “Surely, they will table my student and have me present in the next meeting,” I thought.

But no!  I was wrong.  My student’s name was called, and I was told to present.  Well, maybe we’ll stay late, or maybe we’ll just start and finish at the next meeting, or maybe they know my student so well already that there won’t be much question about her, and we can jump straight to solutions.  Nope!  I was wrong again.  I was given five minutes to present and basically told I had to deal with it myself, but to keep tracking data.  Case closed.  I was stunned speechless as everyone got up and left the room.

The next GEI meeting was no different.  Well, it was, but it wasn’t any more helpful.  In fact, for me, it was worse.  The student’s mother had decided she wanted to attend the meeting, so they had to allow it.  They brought her in at the point where we started discussing her daughter, so the rest of the meeting was confidential.  I began to present my data on the behaviors I had been tracking.  I projected my graphs onto the screen for everyone to see.

Then it came time for the helpful suggestions.  One or two ideas were half-heartedly thrown out and then shot down before the SPED teacher that works with me more closely spoke up.  “I just have a couple of questions.  Have you been using the five-star chart with her?” [yes]  “And how many breaks does she earn per day?”  “At least one, sometimes as many as three, but probably on average about two per day” was my reply.

“Oh!  Well, that’s not nearly enough!” exclaimed SPED teacher #1.  At this point, SPED teacher #2 chimed in.  “If you want her to buy into the system, you have to give her at least one break every 30 minutes.”  It would have been nice to have known that when she gave me the now- loathsome chart!  I could feel my face turn fiery red.  They went on and on about how I wasn’t using the chart properly, making me look like an idiot in front of the child’s mother.

But even if she had told me, I would still have been at a loss to find a way to reward the child more often than I already was.  She just wasn’t earning them.  She hadn’t done anything to deserve them.  I struggled with how to express that in front of the mother.  “It’s not that she doesn’t buy into it.  She looks forward to her breaks.  I’m just not sure what it would look like for her to earn stars more frequently,” I lamely replied.

SPED teacher #2 jumped on the bandwagon again, happy to enlighten ignorant, little, ol’ me.  “Well, you have to reward her for every little thing she does correctly.  Like, oh, you are in your chair, not under the table, you get a star.  You picked up your pencil, you get a star.  You wrote your name on your paper, you get a star.”  ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME???  I don’t have time for that.  I have four other students with IEPs in my room, other students whose behavior I also have to track, plus the rest of my students.  Besides, I would feel like an idiot doing that.  “Oh, you picked your nose, here’s a star.”  “Oh, you hit your neighbor, but you half-heartedly and unconvincingly said you were sorry, you earned a star.”  No, absolutely not.  A thousand times, no.  I walked out of that meeting feeling completely beaten up.  This was not helpful.  They were acting like that stupid little five-star chart was the only thing in their arsenal to help my student, as if it were the ultimate antidote and her life depended on only that one thing, which I was administering so ineptly.

I licked my wounds, started over the next day, and tried really hard to find more things to reward without feeling like a complete sell-out.  In the meantime, there was a new diagnosis from a new doctor and new medication and new hope.  The child and I both did a little better with the five-star chart, but not because I lowered my standards to ridiculous levels, but because her new-found hope gave her the drive to work even harder to do the right thing, and I was able to reward her more often.

Then, the next GEI meeting rolled around.  I was so happy to be able to report that we were using the chart closer to their expectations and my student had been enjoying more frequent rewards for her efforts.  Then the speech teacher opened her mouth, and I couldn’t believe what came next.  “Well, I was checking up with the specials teachers, and they reported that the chart isn’t always coming with your student to specials.”  You were what?!?  You were checking up on me?  Who died and put you in charge of me?  Who the heck do you think you are?!  I was furious, but I was trying to calm my thoughts enough to answer.  I could feel my face go fiery red again.  What she said was true.  My student usually didn’t remember to grab her chart, because that is her nature, and I didn’t always remember to remind her, because I have a million and one other things to keep track of as well, but I had a system in place to take care of that.

I noticed that none of the actual specials teachers were in the room to either condemn me themselves or back me up.  Not once had any of them complained about the chart or its absence directly to me.  I simply asked them at the end of every class how the student had done.  I responded, “That is true, the chart doesn’t always make it to specials, but I always award my student as many stars as she earns tickets (another reward system our school uses), and I give her any breaks she has earned during specials when we return to the classroom.  I never expected a specials teacher to take time out of their precious 45 minutes to give one of my students a break.  They have the kids for such a short time.  Just today, when I picked up my students from music, the music teacher told me my student had earned a break during music, so I gave it to her when we got back to class.  Nobody has ever expressed a problem with this.”

It was at this point that both the media center librarian and SPED teacher #2 piped up.  The media center librarian explained that she never used the tickets, she was too busy to hand them out, and that she WANTED to give students the breaks they earned in media center.  Oh, really?  You can’t be bothered to use the school-district’s adopted method of positive behavior reinforcement?  I’m sure they’d love to hear that.  And if you felt this way, why didn’t you say something to me earlier in the year?  SPED #2 chimed in with “It’s YOUR responsibility to remind her to take her chart with her.”  If this were an old Batman episode, this is where the words “BAM!” and “POW!” would be exploding across your T.V. screen.

How many different ways can I be blindsided by a simple little laminated chart with such cheery-looking stars on it?  At this point, all I can think about is taking the blasted thing out on the blacktop and setting fire to it.  I feel like the cartoon character that has just had an anvil or a piano dropped on its head, and it’s sitting there with a loopy expression on its face, a wreath of birds and stars encircling its head.  I don’t know what I’ve ever done to incur the wrath of these ladies.  I don’t even know them!  How can teachers control bullying among our students when we are doing it to each other?

My student may be earning stars, but I’ve been verbally assaulted over this so many times, I’m the one SEEING them.

Blue Moon

There was a blue moon last night, or so my weather app tells me.  A blue moon, by definition, is the second full moon in a single calendar month.  They don’t happen very often, hence the old saying “once in a blue moon.”  In fact, this particular blue moon is the last one we’ll see for two years, according to the same knowledgeable app.

It’s also about how often I’m happy in my job anymore, once in every couple of years.

This past week, though, was one of those blue moons.  I didn’t get to experience it last year, because we were all still teaching remotely and many of our students didn’t come back in person at all last year, even after the school doors reopened.  I didn’t get to experience it for the previous two years, because I was the new teacher in the school and didn’t know anyone.

The phenomenon I’m talking about is the return of former students.  It started a couple of days before the first day of school, when my sweet Caroline stopped by with her mother on their way out of the building after meeting with her new teacher.  I had her in my class two years ago, and she’s a little taller, but other than that hasn’t changed a bit.  They went out of their way to come say “hello” to me in my Harry-Potter-like classroom under the stairs.  I gave her a distance hug, because I’m still not supposed to squeeze the stuffing out of her as I would like, as we’re, once again, donning our masks so we can be together.

Then, there was a “Hi, Mrs. Baker!” that floated in from the stairs as a boy paused in his ascent to his third-grade classroom.  I wouldn’t have recognized the boy because he was much taller, he’d lost his Anakin Skywalker padawan braid, and his grin was hidden behind his mask, not to mention that I hadn’t seen him at all in a year and a half.  But I would have recognized that voice anywhere.  “Oh, Sean!”  I almost cried.  “It’s been so long since I’ve seen you!  How have you been?  How’s your family?”  I could see his eyes crinkle with a grin above his mask as he patiently answered all of my questions.  “It’s so good to see you!” we called to each other, and he went on his way with a waive.

After that, there were a half-dozen or so different false starts, with children looking like they were about to bolt forward for a hug and then remembering we’re not supposed to do that anymore.  One girl finally broke through her self-restraint and actually followed through, grabbing me around my waist, her head now reaching my shoulders.  I even had some “I wish I was still in your class!” shouts in the hallways and outside on the playground.

When I asked my new, current students what they liked best about first grade at the end of the day on Friday, amidst the “recess” and “P.E.” answers I was shocked when one student said “being here with you.”  Several others followed suit after that, whether genuine or from the herd mentality that frequently happens in a first-grade classroom, I don’t know.  It doesn’t matter.

This is what I need to remember to get me through the coming school year.  This is what is important.  It’s not whether my lessons go according to plan.  It’s not whether I’ve completed my asynchronous PD.  It’s not about complying with all the time-wasting demands from upper administration who have forgotten what it’s like to be on the front lines in the classroom, or maybe never knew.

It’s about this, the relationships I have with my students, both past and present.  It’s about letting them know I care and that they are loved.  That’s what makes me happy in my job.

Masked

One of my biggest objections to returning fully in person to the classroom was the mask requirement.  I didn’t think my students could do it.  Correction: I didn’t think my students WOULD do it.  Plus, I knew I didn’t want to do it.  I didn’t want my breathing to be restricted by them.  I didn’t want to be even hotter than I already am when I teach.  Most of all, though, I didn’t want to have to be the Mask Police in my school.

That’s why I was surprised that, for the most part, our students came masked every day.  Not only did they arrive with their masks, they didn’t argue about it, at least, mine didn’t.  Maybe other teachers had a different experience (if so, please leave a comment).  I really anticipated a lot more push-back about having to wear a mask, but somehow my little ones seemed to understand that it was important and for their own safety. 

We even gave them the option of taking their masks off at recess to have a break from them for a while, as long as the students went out away from everyone else on the fenced-in school grounds.  They were even provided a clothespin and baggie that they could use to attach their mask to the chain link fence so they didn’t have to hold onto it.  However, we made it clear that they had to keep their masks on if they chose to play with their friends on the playground.  Do you know that every single one of them chose to keep their masks on and play instead?  Every single child.  Every single recess.

Our masks just became a part of us, like one more item of clothing.  It was more important to interact, to have friendships, to learn and cooperate with one another than it was to be comfortable.

It’s not that they didn’t have their drawbacks.  Masks made my job understanding what my students were saying ten times harder than normal, particularly my softer-spoken girls.  I’d have to position myself right in front of them to hear them.  Even then, I couldn’t always get it.  Often, other more outspoken students nearby would have to interpret for me what a child said.  It made me realize, to my shock, just how much I lip-read when I am listening.  Not only did the mask block the sound, it obscured the children’s mouths, so I couldn’t do that anymore. 

On occasion, when I was distanced far enough away from my students, I would have to lower my mask for a few seconds so that my students could see my mouth, particularly when we worked on phonemic awareness.  It was really difficult for them to understand whether I was saying an m or an n sound, or a th rather than an f or v.  A lot of kids have trouble distinguishing the difference even when we aren’t wearing masks.

While the students were really good about keeping their masks on, they weren’t always good about keeping them on correctly.  Many masks were ill-fitting, or expanded as they were exposed to their wearer’s warm breath throughout the day, and we got really good at figuring out ways to use rubber bands or twist the ear loops to tighten them.  However, I was constantly having to remind my students to “mask up” whenever the offending article slipped below the wearer’s nose or drooped around their chin.  The students would often forget to replace their mask after eating or taking a drink from their water bottles.  I got so sick of having to tell students those two little words, mask up, and they got really tired of hearing them.  To their credit, though, they always complied without complaint.

The odd thing is that as the school year drew to a close and the masking restrictions were being lifted out in the community, I was so grateful that the school district kept the masking mandate in place.  For one thing, my students aren’t vaccinated yet.  The vaccine has not been approved for anyone under the age of 12 at this point.  The younger children are still as vulnerable to the coronavirus as they ever were, so it would be foolhardy, in my opinion, to allow the masks to come off, but my superintendent has made a lot of foolish decisions with the blessing of the school board this year, so I wouldn’t put it past them.

I discovered, however, that I was relieved for another reason.  Much to my surprise, I find I am reluctant to let go of my mask, even though I’m fully vaccinated.  Despite the fact that I’m no longer required by my local government, I still choose to wear my mask when I’m shopping and when in a restaurant, although I’ve only just gone back to dining in twice, and that is because I was forced to do so when traveling.  The mask has become a sort of crutch, a safety net, so to speak.  I don’t feel “right” without it.  Truth be told, it has protected me, not only from COVID-19, but from every other germ the kids share with me.  This is the first year since I began teaching that I haven’t been sick, not once.

I still find the darned thing annoying.  My mask rarely coordinates with my outfit.  It is SO freaking hot with the summer heat wave.  It is making my face break out horribly.  But despite all of that, I don’t want to let the thing go.  Isn’t that strange?  Like Linus with his baby blanket, I’m not ready to put it aside.  I feel vulnerable without it.  I wonder if anyone else is experiencing the same reluctance.

Hot Dog

One day, my class was working on a Social Studies unit about economics.  We had been studying about needs vs. wants and the difference between consumers and producers. That brought us to our current assignment: to pretend that we were entrepreneurs opening our own business, a pet boarding business.  We were discussing why the community might need such a business.  Someone might be going in the hospital and unable to care for their pet for a little while.  Someone might be traveling and couldn’t take their pet with them.

That led to a rather morbid tangent when a child brought up the point that you should never leave your dog alone in the car, especially on a summer day.  Another child graphically added, “Yeah, you would cook your dog.”  That prompted a third child, who has a particularly well-developed sense of humor for a six-year-old, to hold his index finger up in the air as he had a “Eureka” moment and announced to the class “And that, my friends, is how you get a hot dog!”  (“Get it, Mrs. Baker?  A hot dog?  You cook it, and it’s a dog, and it’s hot?”)

Yes, my friend, I got it even without the explanation, because I was practically rolling on the floor with laughter.  First graders rarely tell jokes that make sense, so when they do, it’s completely unexpected and all the more hilarious for it.  It’s moments like this that keep me going.  Hot diggity dog, indeed!

Teacher Unappreciation

We were in the middle of eating dinner when the phone rang.  My husband, being the tech-savvy guy that he is, not only has his cell phone hooked up to our voice mail from the land line, it makes a written transcription of what is said, so he is able to convey the message immediately.  We were expecting a call from my father, so my husband checked his cell phone right away.  It was not my father.

It was a robo call from the superintendent of the school district where I work.  This is the man who has made my life more miserable than it already is for the last two years.  You know, the man who wouldn’t call off school until the last second when the pandemic hit, the man who pushed us into hybrid before the schools were ready to start, before they had a plan, before all of the safety protocols had been put into place because he was being pressured to do so.  This is the man who, in order to get what he wants, flat out repeatedly lies to the parents of the children for whom he’s responsible and the board that makes decisions based upon his guidance and leadership.  He is the man who makes decisions that are clearly not in the students’ best interests, contrary to the office and responsibilities that he holds. 

It was his minions, acting on his behalf, who ordered us to set up websites on Google sites, and after giving us a week to teach ourselves how to do that (no training was provided) and countless hours designing and creating and more time explaining our sites to the parents of our students, then told us to scrap them.  He decided after the fact that they presented a security risk.  (Shouldn’t he or one of his minions have researched this thoroughly enough before they wasted all that time and effort and…yes…taxpayer’s money to realize that risk?  Not to mention making his teachers look like a bunch of idiots in front of the parents.)

He’s the one who made all the teachers learn Zoom and start using it to conduct our classes remotely only to decide a few months later that it wasn’t secure enough and made us all switch to Webex (again, without any training or help other than the website’s own videos).  Then, come to find out, the fault did not lie with Zoom, which was a preferable tool to use for teaching than Webex.  It was with people who were posting their meeting links publicly.  (Duh!)  Therefore, the same issues were occurring on Webex.

This is the man who wouldn’t allow me to remain teaching remotely when I asked, who coerced other teachers instead to go remote when they didn’t want to, who forced me to be teaching in four different modes simultaneously.  (I’ve got news for you, bud.  This is NOT what they meant by the definition of “hybrid.”)  He also decreed that we would return to the buildings fully in person by March 15th while having no idea or concern about the details necessary to bring that about. He makes his proclamations and leaves the peons (a.k.a. teachers and principals) to sort it out.  He made us return, even though all of the safety protocols were not in place.  The masks he promised?  Only one was ever given to me these past few months we’ve been attending in person.  The face shield I was given was so flimsy, it didn’t hold up past the first week.  The students were given plexiglass shields for their tables, but there was a shield that only covered a third of the horseshoe-shaped table I use and none for my desk.  After we’d already been in the physical school buildings for several months, they finally installed some air purifiers throughout the rooms in the building.  (This is after he’d had his minion drone (dare I say, lie) on and on for over an hour one night at a very lengthy board meeting spewing numbers and data that were completely false, testifying to the adequacy of the schools’ ventilation systems to provide fresh, uncontaminated air throughout the buildings.)

He allowed parents anything they wanted.  I refer to this as “Burger King” education. Have it YOUR way!  If a parent yells loudly and threateningly enough, he’ll give it to them, even if it means going back on his word.  For example, parents were given a cut-off date to decide whether they wanted to return their child to the physical school building or whether they wanted to stay learning remotely.  After this time, he warned, no one would be allowed to change…NO EXCEPTIONS!  Except, after months of working with my current roster of students establishing routines and procedures and behavior expectations and truly cultivating a cooperative and caring class, when two of my students’ parents who had chosen remote learning decided they wanted to switch back to my classroom, he countermanded the principal’s decision and told us we had to let them switch.  It completely upended the classroom culture the children and I had worked so hard to create.

This man didn’t listen to his teachers when they begged him and presented logical, well-articulated reasons why it was too soon to return to the classroom.  The same jerk who, in a video speech sent out to the district, said with a nonchalant shrug of his shoulders, “Can I tell you that none of [the teachers] will get COVID?  No.”  His indifference gave me cold chills when I witnessed it.  He put all of our lives at greater risk needlessly.

So now, here he is, sending me a canned message about how much he appreciates me just because it’s Teacher Appreciation Week.  My husband asks if I want to hear the call.  Heavens NO!  I can’t even stand the sound of the superintendent’s voice anymore.  He’s already said enough to me this year, and he said it with every decision he made.  He told me loudly and clearly that neither I nor any of my colleagues mean a thing to him.  Contrary to his words, he does not value us.  Actions speak far louder than words, Mr. Superintendent, so I’m not listening to your words anymore.

Teacher Appreciation Week

Like many of you, this past week was Teacher Appreciation Week in my school district.  It was nice to have a treat each day.  On Monday, the staff lounge was supplied with Costco-sized boxes of various snacks paid for by the school or the principal, I’m not sure which.  On Tuesday, we were thanked for making our students such “smart cookies” and provided with a cookie of our choice, donated by the local Subway restaurant.  (Thank you, Subway!)  On Wednesday, two or three parents on the Parent-Teacher Organization (PTO) arranged for a lunch in the school cafeteria catered by a local Italian restaurant that was fabulous.  On Thursday, the nearby Sonic donated a large drink for each teacher.  On Friday, our Panera sent us donuts and coffee.  (Thank you, Sonic and Panera!)

If I hadn’t taught anywhere else, I would think this is great.  If you think about it, though, only a handful of parents had anything to do with expressing their gratitude.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t that long ago that I remember teacher appreciation weeks where nearly every child’s family sent in a gift.  It might be a gift card to Starbucks or a favorite restaurant.  It might be a mug or some lotion or a candle.  Sometimes it was a live plant or flowers that I could put out in my garden or hang on my porch.  We were given personalized items like reusable water bottles and key chains. Some teachers even received clothing items like skirts or scarves.  The best gift, though, was the year I had a particularly motivated room parent who organized the other parents and collected monetary donations.  She compiled all the money into one very large ($250) Visa gift card.  That was amazing!  It was a significant chunk of money that I could spend any way I wanted.  (Of course, I turned around and spent all of that and more on things for my students.)

A few schools had a schedule of things the students were supposed to bring in each day and give to their teacher.  One day might be a single flower, so that the teacher would end up with a beautiful bouquet representing each of her children.  Another day, each was supposed to bring their teacher’s favorite beverage or favorite candy.  The next day, it might be to bring your teacher a note of thanks from the child on paper provided earlier by the school.  They were inexpensive items, but it gave the children a chance to participate in the process of expressing their gratitude.

As for food, we were fed and feted royally by the parents all week.  One morning they would bring us the breakfast of our choice from any restaurant we chose.  Another day, they pushed around a cart loaded with snacks and soda or bottled water, stopping at each classroom along the way for the teacher to select her treat.  Every day lunch was provided by the parents, who signed up in advance to bring a dish, and each day had a different theme.  The parents would decorate the staff lounge to go with the theme of the day, and they would lay the smorgasbord out on our huge table in the teacher workroom.  The aromas and flavors that wafted from the workroom were unbelievable.  On Friday, we would be given a sit-down meal in the media center with table cloths and decorations and door prizes, catered by a very nice restaurant, all paid for by the PTO.  By the end of the week, the parents left no doubt in your mind that you, their teacher, were truly appreciated.

This year, not one family sent in a gift, not a single parent wrote a note of thanks, and no child made me a picture or card.  Okay, I thought, it’s a COVID year.  Many parents are barely making ends meet.  The parents probably all feel like they did most of the teaching this year anyway.  Why should they have to thank me?  But they didn’t do most of the teaching, did they?  I spent hours and hours of extra work preparing materials for them at home, researching new ways to deliver lessons, teaching myself new apps to communicate in new ways, reaching out to check on them and make sure they had enough food and medical attention and anything else that they may need.  I spent way more time in conference with the parents than I would in any given “normal” year.  And after all that, most of them didn’t sit with their child during their lessons.  They didn’t make sure their child completed the lessons I’d assigned, or if they did, a large percentage of them completed the assignment FOR their child!  Heck, if they attended at all, they didn’t even make the effort to get their child out of bed for remote class.  They just propped the iPad near their child or plopped it in their child’s hands while they were still in bed, pajamas, tousled hair, blankets, and all.  I got to watch children eating their breakfast.  I got to watch them sleeping.  All the while, I was diligently trying to deliver my instruction as professionally as if we were in the physical classroom.  If anything, I worked harder this year than ever before to educate my students.

Now in case you think I’m a completely greedy and selfish lout, let me say that this is not about the food.  It’s not about the gifts or the money.  I would have been thrilled with a quick email from a parent that just said “thank you.”  It would have cost them nothing but a couple of minutes of their time.  It’s about the attitude, the lack of appreciation.  It’s about the fact that these parents don’t value what their teachers do or the knowledge that we’re trying to impart.  In their eyes, we are nothing more than babysitters, a place to dump their kids so that they can get on with their day unencumbered.  The education doesn’t seem to be of any importance to them.  They don’t see the opportunity for their child to succeed, to have a better life, that education provides.  Nor are they modeling for their children the character traits of empathy, gratitude, and thoughtfulness.  Everything is taken for granted, expected as a right.  If things don’t change, these children could become an entire generation of ignorant, selfish, unsuccessful, entitled, demanding adults.  I keep hearing teachers say, if these children are supposed to become the adults that take care of us in our old age, we’re in trouble.  I fear they are right.

Absurdities

Every day is full of absurdities for teachers, at least, it’s always been that way for me and, seemingly, for my colleagues no matter where I’ve taught. We could all start our very own versions of “Ripley’s Believe It or Not.” Tomorrow is a perfect case in point.

Because I am an in-person teacher (now referred to as “brick and mortar” teacher, a term which I hate because it makes me sound either completely inflexible or as if I’m already dead and rigor mortis has set in), not a year-long remote teacher as I repeatedly begged to be, my district superintendent has demanded that I haul my sorry, sleepy little self into my school building for another fun-filled day (yes, that was sarcasm again) of professional development. The teachers who are teaching the year-long remote students are allowed to stay home. If you’re still waiting for the absurdity, here it is: I will have to get up an hour and a half earlier than otherwise necessary to get ready and drive into my “brick and mortar” building just to sit in my empty classroom in front of a laptop computer all day attending Zoom and Webex meetings! You know, those things that enable you to meet remotely?

To add insult to injury, they’ve announced 3 different times for the start of the first Zoom meeting. I’ve seen 7:30, 8:00, and 8:30. Let’s keep ’em guessing folks! Keep those worthless teachers on their toes. Won’t it be funny when they have to show up for the earliest time, just in case the meeting starts then, and watch them waste the next 30-60 minutes waiting for us to start? Yes, you’ve just enjoyed playing the latest round of “How Can We Waste Your Time Now?”

The main reason the elementary teachers are having to be further “developed” is because the administration has decided to adopt a new curriculum and demanded that it be implemented immediately. Yes, you heard that right. Three-fourths of the way through the school year, essentially two months before the end of the school year, one month before standardized end-of-year testing, we’re rolling out a brand new curriculum, as if THAT will fix all the problems.

In an attempt to “close the gap” between where our students should be and where they actually are because of the havoc that COVID-19 has wreaked upon our educational system, our administrators are willing to entertain an enormous amount of absurd and ridiculous ideas. Today provides another outstanding example. Wednesdays in our school district now involve an intensive intervention program of targeted instruction, specifically aimed at the most struggling students. However, does administration use the data that the classroom teachers have collected on those students? Are the teachers consulted about where the gaps and weak spots of each student lies? Are the teachers involved in deciding which students need the most support and what that support should be? NO! Why should we be asked any of these questions? We are just the teachers, you know, the ones who will be held responsible for the success/failure of these students. It’s not like we’re experts or anything. It’s not like we’ve been trained. It’s not like we’ve spent hours/days/eons in professional development after our adequate training. It’s not like we spend more of the children’s waking hours of the day with them than any other adult.

No, instead the P.E. teacher was sent into my room today to pull groups of my children out to work with them, first on their math, then later in the day on their reading. No, that isn’t a typo. No, your glasses don’t need a new prescription. No, you’re not hallucinating. I swear to God the P.E. teacher pulled my most struggling students to teach them the skills they are struggling to learn. Seriously, folks, I couldn’t make this up. It’s part of the latest initiative where they send in the “specials” teachers, to pull out the kids who need the most help in reading and math. I could see sending in the P.E. teacher to take the rest of my class off for some extra physical activity while I worked with my neediest students, but, no. Truth is stranger than fiction.