First World Problems.  Yesterday I almost kicked into real life, not virtual teacher mode as two 20-somethings proceeded to have a long, LOUD argument complete with F-bombs outside on their balcony.  At one point I heard the young man yell (really, who DOES this kind of thing in public?) “I’m stuck in this @#% box!” I actually considered blowing my recess whistle and telling these two to take it inside.  What are they going to do from there, cough on me?  Anyway, I have to admit I understood what he was talking about as I have probably spent 7-9 hours per day on the computer this week, in my apartment, working on something or another.  Tonight is the usual Friday crash, but it’s a deep crash, on the verge of saying “I’ve had enough” mixed with a little “but this won’t last forever”.   It certainly feels like it will.

First World Problems.  I’m not on the front line of this insanity, unless you believe education right now is insanity.  Well, maybe it is.  We’ve taken a career, a calling, a passion that involves face to face relationship building so that other human beings get  excited about learning and we’ve shoved it all into this cold, metal tablet we call a computer. Sure, we can see their little smiling faces if we Zoom or Googleclassroom or some such nonsense, but they’re not coming in and heading straight for a hug or telling me all about their new pet or that they’ve lost a tooth.  In fact, as a specialist, I’m not necessarily considered a classroom teachers, so isolation is a real thing.  I have not seen any of my kids for weeks and quite frankly I’m afraid that if and when I do, I’ll just sit and cry.  It’s easy to hold it in when you don’t actually see them.

First World Problems.  Over the past nearly 30 years, I’ve been a fairly successful teacher.  I get standards and assessment, curriculum and essential learning outcomes, pacing and behavior management, as long as I’m in front of or in amongst  a classroom of kids.  For the last three weeks, mainly because I’m not technologically savvy, I have spent twice the time I normally would in learning and planning to teach in a new frontier.  I’m having to trouble shoot things without the proper terminology because my musical vocabulary now comes in second to my tech vocabulary.  If I had wanted to be the computer teacher, I wouldn’t have failed computer science in 1976.  That is not an exaggeration, by the way.

My colleagues are the best.  Seriously the best.  Everyone is kicking in and helping each other and showing much grace.  At least in front of each other.  I can’t speak for how it goes behind closed doors and they have a chance to vent. I’ve recently been hired to do a different job this next school year and while I felt like there would be some transition going from one position to another, right now there is more of a melding so that I feel like I’m doing two things at once – taking care of my current responsibilities with students while looking to the future needs of other teachers.  While I love a challenge and finding ways to fix things, that feels like all I do.  When someone asks how I’m doing I say, “good – how are you?”.  They say good, we smile and we go on but we’re both exhausted.  Not in the same way our courageous health care workers are exhausted, but in a way that we’re writing the job description as we go and that’s if it doesn’t change the next day.

People are depending on us.  Students are depending on us for continuity.  They won’t say it but it throws a lot of them off when they don’t have that routine they’re used to.  Just about every student has their favorite teacher or teachers.  I did.  And it makes a difference when you don’t get to see them.  Our parents are depending on us.  They have jobs to do too, most of them from home.  They need us to make their children’s work achievable and realistic so that they can get their work done.  Our teachers who are teaching AND taking care of their own families are heroes.  I don’t have any children at home anymore and I’m dying.  I can’t imagine what it would be like to have my own kids at home AND try to teach other people’s children too.  But if you ask them how they’re doing, I’m pretty sure they would suck it up, smile and say “Good.  I’m doing good”.

Maybe it’s just me but we’re not good.  We’re hanging on, but we’re not good.  Yes, I’ve seen all the memes about those who suffered through other events and I agree with them.  For so many of us it’s an inconvenience.  Oh wow, we have to stay in our homes.  I never imagined it would be this hard.  I’m grateful that I still have a job to do, I’m beyond grateful but I just never saw myself as someone who sees kids through a screen.  I’ve been fighting screens for kids for years and here I am, making kids use screens to learn.

Maybe this will bring a whole new appreciation for something other than screens when this is over.  Maybe when this is over we’ll understand and appreciate what feeling “good” really means and mean it when we say it.