COVID – Teacher Truth

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.

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 15^th 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.