COVID Positive

It was bound to happen. It's actually pretty amazing it hadn't already happened. Yesterday, my husband texted me while I was proctoring a standardized test for my students, who are in their first full week of the school year this week. My husband had tested positive for COVID. He'd been dealing with a scratchy throat since the weekend, but we had literal ash falling out of the sky on Saturday due to wildfires in our area, so we chalked it up to "attributable to another cause" until he also started feeling achy and fatigued.

As soon as I read his message, I called for another adult in the building to come hang out in my classroom, proctoring the test, so I could take a rapid test. A friend and coworker found a KN5 mask for me to wear. The antigen test result was negative, and I felt fine. So I went back to class, attempting to keep my distance from others and keeping the mask on for the rest of the day.

In the afternoon I began to feel a tickle in the back of my throat. I hoped it was psychosomatic given that I knew my husband had tested positive. Thankfully, the students had already been dismissed to "exploratory" classes, and I was alone in my room. After carpool, I felt a headache coming on, and the tickle had become a genuine discomfort that had me clearing my throat and dry coughing. I tested again upon arriving home. Still negative, but my symptoms were steadily getting worse.

Arranging for a sub in the second week of school, during standardized testing, without knowing for sure which class periods were going to come through my room took up all the energy I had left last evening. Thankfully I was able to get the teacher I replaced this year, who retired at the end of last year, to come in for me.

Sleeping last night was challenging. Congestion, achiness, and a severe pain in my left arm all made it nearly impossible to find a position that let me relax. Interestingly, my husband reported a similar pain in his hand the night before his COVID positive test. Ibuprofen helped ease the issues and I did get some good rest. 

I took a COVID test upon waking up this morning, and it was positive. I genuinely feel like I've been hit by a truck. Achy, fatigued, feverish (with chills when I attempt to cool down), constant congestion... A coworker called to ask for a password to get into the standardized testing site so my sub could proctor a test today, and she said she didn't even recognize my voice because I'm so congested. I slept most of the day, and although I tasted the yogurt I ate for breakfast, my lunch was completely tasteless. It was a very strange sensation. I am hopeful my case will be "mild" and I'll be able to return to normal life (though masked) on Tuesday... which is also my curriculum night.

With an overnight retreat the first week of school and standardized tests the second, my students really haven't seen how our classroom will actually operate this year. What a strange start to the school year.

Camp Colman

 For the past nine years the eighth graders at my current school have spent Thursday and Friday of their first week on an overnight retreat. I have watched the eighth-grade teachers and principal plan for this first week extended field trip with a slight sense of awe at how well it gets pulled together even though many details need to be arranged in advance of school starting, or even homeroom class lists being finalized. This year it was my turn to help plan and lead the retreat. I was glad I had a decade of experience taking fifth graders on a weeklong field trip under my belt. Waking up to the news that the other female chaperone slated to sleep in a cabin with half of the girls was sick and couldn't come and being handed medication by parents as we were walking out the door to load the bus was par for the course rather than reasons for major freak outs. 

Camp Colman is situated in Whitman Cove off of the Case Inlet and features high elevation activities to build leadership and teamwork. Students were offered the chance to participate in three high elevation activities. Sadly, there was not enough time for me to participate in more than one of them, but I was proud of myself for not only climbing up the catwalk (35 feet in the air) but also walking across to the other side 25 feet away before my students lowered me back to the ground.

In the evening our principal led the students in the songs they will lead at the all school Mass of the Holy Spirit on Monday morning. This was followed by an activity to identify one word that will help orient them toward a goal they set for themselves this school year, as a leader of the entire student body. Since it was my first year on this retreat, I participated in the activity and created my own keychain to carry with me throughout the school year.

Then it was time for a campfire and a little down time on the beach at sunset.

After a not so restful night's sleep in an exciting place, surrounded by friends they desperately wanted to chat with, the students woke up to complete the high elevation activities their group had not attempted the day before, attend Mass with our school's parish priest, eat a hasty lunch, and board the bus for home.

As a fan of outdoor environmental education and its strong community building impact on classes who attend in the fall, I can honestly say this was the perfect way to begin the school year. It's a shared experience we will be able to reflect on and build upon throughout the coming months as these students work to reach their academic, spiritual, and community goals. I can't wait to go again next year!

Back to School, Back to Middle School

 Today was the first full day of school. I am once again an eighth-grade homeroom teacher, teaching social studies to seventh and eighth grade students. It's been an exhausting couple of weeks, but tonight I am bone-weary tired. And tomorrow I am going with my partner teacher, principal, and the retired teacher whose classroom I took over on an overnight retreat with the eighth graders. I might need to sleep all weekend after I get home.

Yesterday was the Meet and Greet day, where parents and students come into the building to drop off supplies and see their new homeroom. I left my house, expecting to have time before families started to arrive to hang up a set of President cards I created over Labor Day Weekend. (The set I found in the classroom ended at Ronald Reagan and I decided I wanted to be able to update my set without buying a whole new one after elections.) However, the traffic gods did not approve of my plan. Normally when my commute is "bad" it takes me 45 minutes to get to school. "Terrible" traffic has taken me an hour in the past, but on the rare occasions when that happens, it's on my way home.

Yesterday it took me an hour and a half to get to school. I rolled in minutes before eighth grade students were slated to arrive to help families find their students' new classrooms. I ran into the second-grade teachers in the hallway and asked them to help me carry my new plants into my room so they wouldn't die in my car before I had the chance to get back out to it after the Meet and Greet.

The Meet and Greet itself was very fun. I spent most of the time hanging out in the hallway bantering with colleagues. I kept track of who turned in forms for our second and third day of school overnight field trip and chatted with my new students and their parents (and/or grandparents). Several students from my two fourth grade classes, now in fifth and sixth grades stopped by to say, "hi." At least one jumped up and down as she did so. Many parents were excited that I was teaching their child this year (I have taught an older sibling of at least a quarter of the eighth graders) or that their child will have the opportunity to be in my classroom again in the future. Only a couple of my former students totally ignored me as they walked past my new classroom. 😂

After families had departed and several of my co-workers left, at least to grab lunch, I sat in my principal's office for over an hour with my partner teacher planning the two day retreat. It was fun and necessary. But as I scarfed down my lunch after 1:00pm I decided to tackle tasks necessary for the first day of school rather than hang my President set as I waited for my 3:00pm meeting with the Learning Resource Director. 

My 3:00pm meeting started about 4:00pm and lasted until 5:00pm. Even though I hadn't written the first day schedule on the board or finished my slide presentation for the first day, I left when the meeting concluded. Thankfully, the evening traffic was lighter than expected, especially for leaving at peak commute time.

This morning traffic was light and I arrived with time to collect my thoughts before the day started. The day was fun. Middle schoolers are interesting people. Even when I realized I was scheduled to have two classes in my room at the same time (my own homeroom for Spanish and a seventh grade homeroom for study hall), I was able to find a place for everyone to be. I taught one of my first day of school lessons based on Ted Kooser's poem "Abandoned Farmhouse" to every seventh grader and gave them the class period to tell me something about their likes and dislikes using the structure of the poem.

I tracked down all the necessary paperwork to take my students away overnight, and put everything in order before I left for the day, again at 5:00pm. Maybe I'll get those Presidents hung next week...

The highlight of my day was when one student said, "I already have mad respect for you, but I don't know why."