For a few weeks, I’ve been keeping a secret. I applied and interviewed for an administrator job in another district. After 15 years in the trenches, I was ready to hang up my CCC’s, give away all materials and set sail. I visualized it, I felt the heartache of leaving my students and my colleagues and I had conversations with my husband about what our lives would look like when I took this job. Except, I didn’t get the job....
So I felt all the feelings associated with that news. Rejection, sadness and a bit of relief, too, for not having to make that hard choice. But there was something more under that, a nagging “else”, that I couldn’t quite name. Why did I feel so bad?
And then it hit me, as it usually does when I take the time to listen, this job was my way out. It was my trap door.
School year 20-21 has been a lot and every day, it seems to get more and more complicated.
Let me rewind. This summer as plans for the school year were being made, I was on team Go Back To School. All I wanted was to see kids in person. I am not afraid of COVID, I feel safe with all my PPE, I am not high risk. This is not about fear.
This is about the weight of teaching in a pandemic. This is about trying to close gaps created by 6 months of no school. This is about juggling an every other day schedule from 6 feet away with masks on. This is about cleaning between groups of children. This is about making sure kids aren’t sharing materials, are washing their hands, are socially distanced. This is about the expectation of fitting 180 days of curriculum into 70 days of school. Fitting 45 day evaluation timelines into Tuesdays and Thursdays. Servicing a growing number of students in need without the time in your schedule or the space in your room. This is about the constant problem solving that takes place every day. This is about wondering how to provide services and education to the growing number of students who are quarantined for weeks on end. This is about the constant criticism and side line commentary from parents and the public in general.
Nothing has changed with our expectations- of students, of teachers and yet, everything has changed. How can it be that we are expected to do the same job in completely different circumstances?
And what I realized, just today, approximately 1/3 of the way into the school year, is I am looking for that trap door. A way out. I’m tired and I want to go home.
Now, please understand, I have every single support in place a person needs. I have friends to talk to, colleagues who lift me up, building administrators who care so much. I have outlets- like my CrossFit, podcasts and books. I sleep at night and I don’t work on the weekends. I use every healthy coping skill in my tool belt. So, if I’m feeling this way- then I imagine that there are legions of educators and support staff and therapists and nurses and even administrators who are looking for a way out too.
So now that my trap door has been cemented shut, now what? Now, it seems, I have no choice but to keep on going.
To continue to show up, every day, and do my job. To eat that elephant, one bite at a time. To look for the good, and laugh with the kids.
I can’t escape the challenge that is the 20-21 school year, I am in it, now. It’s not how I imagined. The burdens are so, so heavy. But I suppose it’s time to put down the expectations of myself and do my best, whatever that looks like on any given day.
This is hard stuff. If you know an educator, if you love an educator, please know how hard this is. If you’re inclined to pray for doctors and nurses who fight this pandemic, pray for us too. The fight we show up to each day may not be life or death, but boy it feels that way.
To the educators I love, we will only get through this together. And I’d you’ve found your own trap door- no judgment. I hope you land softly and with grace.
Thank you for your service.
