Teacher Grief

 Today I attended the funeral of a former student, who was in my fifth grade class four short years ago. It's only the second time I've attended an end of life celebration for a former student. Even though I attended today's Mass via Facebook Livestream, it was just as emotionally gut wrenching as the first.

Amos* passed away on the first Sunday of Advent, after fighting leukemia for over a year. I thought I was fine, that his death really didn't impact me because I had been outside of his community for the past three years. Even though I vividly remembered his bright smile and positive leadership as a ten/eleven year old, I felt on the outside. I hadn't been a part of the school and parish wide prayers for him or even known much about the progression of his illness. 

Of course my former co-workers (who are once again my current co-workers) had told me when he was hospitalized and gave me sporadic updates. When I came back into the building for the first time after getting re-hired this summer, his class photos were in every room with the caption, "Praying for Amos*." I think that's when I started to feel "outside" of the ongoing community wide support system for him and his family. While I had been his fifth grade homeroom teacher, I had missed his seventh and eighth grade years and his illness had not been a part of my daily consciousness.

Listening to his mom and sister, who is also a former fifth grader of mine, and his classmates, all former students of mine, offer up words of remembrance brought memories of his fifth grade year flooding back. I have been off and on crying ever since. This young man had his whole life in front of him, and by all accounts it would have been an amazing life. He was a talented soccer player, a natural leader, a brilliant student, who sang with a strong, confident, clear voice.

I don't know how parents cope with the loss of a child. I am barely functional and I hadn't seen this kid for four years.

*Not his real name.

December 2020

 Into this climate of fear and apprehension Christmas enters,

Streaming lights of joy, ringing bells of hope

And singing carols of forgiveness high up in the bright air.

The world is encouraged to come away from rancor,

Come the way of friendship."

~Maya Angelou (2005)

I am on the eve of the last week of school before the end of the calendar year. I have so many mixed emotions surrounding the end of 2020 and the start of a New Year. I know I'm not even halfway through the academic year. I knew I wanted to be a teacher from the time I started kindergarten, and I have a late summer birthday; the academic year has been a more important guidepost for me my entire life. But this year, the calendar year upstages the academic year. 

I have no way of knowing what 2021 will bring, and I am fearful that June will bring yet another transition in my career. My current school hired me to help reduce class sizes, enabling six feet of of distance between student desks in all classrooms. Thus far my grade level has not been in the building for instruction, but there are high hopes in my administration that we will be back in the building sooner rather than later. But come the end of the year, I will be a new hire in a school that will almost assuredly be looking to reduce the size of its staff. These thoughts had me scrolling through LinkedIn this weekend. But I cannot apply for jobs yet. I have to finish this school year for the sake of my students.

Building relationships with students has always been a huge part of my teacher identity. This year, building relationships has been markedly different, but it is still at the core of who I am as a teacher. I have introduced my students to my pets and used funny voices to introduce new topics and keep them engaged. I have scheduled weekly one on one meetings with each student and made sure to send missing work emails to students and their families as soon as I discover a missing assignment. I have sent postcards at least once a month with quotes and jokes to my students' homes.

I am rewarded with pictures of student pets, funny comments on assignments, and emails with information about their daily lives.

 

I have one student who sends me tens of chat messages a day and requires me to close my email when I am in meetings because my computer will ring with an invitation to a video chat. If I answer, the student invariable hangs up. But regardless of whether I answer or not, he will leave the Hangout and open a new one, and send another chat message, or even another request for a video call. It's draining. Incredibly so. But he is a very cute nine year old who is just reaching out for some contact, for a relationship with his teacher.

Students this year didn't do anything to cause the disasters that have befallen their communities or the additional stress that their teachers are facing. Even though 2021 doesn't look like it's going to be any easier than the current year these kids deserve the best I can offer. I'll deal with the next step in my career in a way that will not impact my current students.

Teaching Science From Home

 In the Primary Years Programme of International Baccalaureate Schools (and candidate schools) social studies and science units generally alternate throughout the school year in order to allow for enough time each day to take a deep dive into each Unit of Inquiry. My school had a virtual authorization visit in late October, and we are waiting to hear whether or not we will be authorized as an official IB school. As a candidate school, my grade level begins the year with a social studies based unit, and we just recently began our first science unit.

It's a very cool unit on the birth of rocks with a fossil find as an anchor phenomenon. This is why I was able to use my DIG Field School experience, a week in eastern Montana with University of Washington paleontology grad students, as an introductory teaser just before Thanksgiving. After each set of lessons students will return to three questions surrounding the fossil find:

1. How did the animals die?
2. How did their bones end up so far underground?
3. What happened to uncover the fossils, allowing them to be discovered after millions of years?

Students will revise their hypotheses several times as they uncover more information. Next week's lesson is about the difference between shield volcanoes and cone volcanoes and thick and thin lava. In a normal year all students would get a cup of thin "lava" and a cup of thick "lava" to blow into and try to shape into a mountain. Since the "lava" is water and a flour and water mixture, students can still do this at home. But just in case the experiments are challenge for some families, I recorded a demonstration of the process today.

My husband is amazing, and pulled out his camera gear to assist. We filmed less than five minutes of footage, but the whole process took at least half the day. I discovered after we were set up that I have no red food coloring. But I found purple food coloring. I decided that since Mrs. Conrow is known for her crazy purple hair and car, I could have purple lava for my demonstration. Hours later, I hope I was able to splice the video appropriately for the slide show that will be presented to my fourth graders on Tuesday.

It was fun, even if it was incredibly time consuming. I really enjoyed blowing into the thick lava. It was fun to try to shape into a mountain as well. I certainly hope the students are able to complete the activity on their own.

I am grateful I have a husband who is supportive of my career and a household that allows me to film science demonstrations on a Saturday morning. My son took his new kittens behind a closed door so they would not disturb the filming. My other teenager slept through the entire set up, demonstration, and clean up. How many teachers during the pandemic are facing much more challenging situations when they need to do something similar for their students? Even face to face teachers might have had to film a demonstration in order to do this activity in a physically distanced format. This year is so weird... here's to hoping that it gets better in 2021.

Kittens - My 16 year old's birthday present.

A Litany of Thanks

 I know 2020 is a challenging year for everyone on many levels. But November is the month to remember reasons to be thankful. It's a matter of where you choose to place your focus. I could focus on the recent spikes in COVID cases leading to another round of partial business shut downs, the crazy political climate of the country, or even the wet weather with the sun setting before 5:00pm. But what will that accomplish? Instead, here is a list of things for which I am thankful.

• My student who was missing over 20 assignments turned in all of her late work last week.
• The adult sister of my student whose anxiety prevents her from participation in lessons or asking questions has jumped into help. We have scheduled daily check ins that have already improved work completion and the student's comprehension.
• I picked up a new virtual tutoring student based on a referral from my current student's family. The email that connected me to the new family included the words, "my son's awesome writing tutor!"
• I received a set of fabulous thank you cards from my students this week (did you know it's teacher appreciation week?) - heartfelt and funny. They made me smile, laugh, and cry.

• I have been told by a couple of co-workers that they are hearing positive things about me from the parent community, including how clear it is how much I care about the kids.
• I got to share my DIG Field School experience with my students as part of the anchor phenomenon to our new science unit.

• There are no lessons to plan for next week because it is fall conferences followed by Thanksgiving.
• On the last day of restaurants allowing dine in customers prior to the current shut down, my oldest child requested dinner at The Old Spaghetti Factory. Just the two of us ended up a nearly empty restaurant for dinner and had fantastic conversation. My 18 year old is funny, observant, thoughtful, and reflective.
• The funny positions my 16 year old has always chosen for working or reading.

• Eight months into working from home during a global pandemic, my husband still makes me laugh nearly every day. 
• I get to hear my husband literally laughing and clapping during work meetings on a daily basis.
• Students posting connections between lessons and their real lives in Google Classroom.

• A friend recommended a mutual friend ask my advice on navigating the behavioral health system on behalf of their adopted child. My advice was well received.
• I have been reconnecting with my friends in California during the pandemic.
• Being told I'm having a "good face day on Zoom" by a parent during a meeting.
• Being told by a fellow teacher that she took a class on building relationships during remote learning and she kept thinking of me because she feels I do this well.
• Social media has allowed me to keep seeing the faces of family and friends in other states and countries.

Suddenly It's November

 My school has stopped giving projected dates for when more grades will return to the classroom. K-2 have been back for a few weeks, and we thought 3-5 would follow quickly, but the local case numbers have been on the rise ever since the younger kids went back into the building. We went from projecting end of October, to projecting beginning of November, and have landed at reminding families we won't be going back without giving them 10 days of notice. For the time being, coming on campus requires a daily individual health screening.

If I have to teach virtually, I prefer to teach from home. The lack of a commute is a bonus, but not the reason that my preference hinges upon. I signed up for the 10 miles of heavy freeway traffic when I took the job. But I have a great home set up. I'm lucky enough to have space in my bedroom for a large desk with a huge monitor and a purple gaming chair. The desk is even sit-to-stand. I have a nice enough chair at school, and I use the SmartBoard as a second monitor, but there's something surreal about being in the classroom without students. And the SmartBoard is showing its age, not always working well enough to be used as a second monitor, thus relegating me to struggle to navigate multiple windows, each with multiple tabs, on a small laptop screen while attempting to maintain student attention.

Did I mention that there's something surreal about being at school these days? I have one student who comes for an in person session once a week. It's the hardest thing to not walk up to her computer and help her navigate by pointing at her screen or performing the needed key strokes for her.  It's nice to hear the kids and teachers in the two classes that are in person on my hallway, but the sense of normalcy falls away when you peek inside the rooms and see the kids physically distanced, wearing masks, behind clear plastic shields.

I saw about a third of my students in person on Friday when our grade was invited to attend mass in person. It was so good to see them, and a good reminder to me at just how little most fourth graders are. Coming back down to primary after several years in middle school has left me working to find the right balance for my newest group of students. I am continually second guessing my expectations, looking to challenge my students without overwhelming them. Thankfully, many of my students seem to be coping with distance learning well, showing evidence of having fun and learning on a regular basis. They just turned in realistic fiction stories, and they were very cute. I enjoyed reading their short stories, smiling and laughing at quite a few of them. Thankfully, their parents appear to appreciate my efforts as well.

We are making the best of the situation, looking for creative ways to participate in the annual October activities. The jog-a-thon was dubbed a move-a-thon this year, but we still chose a theme and dressed up in costumes. My grade band team still picked a Halloween theme and made sure to take a picture.

November comes with the teaching interruptions of conferences and Thanksgiving. Thanks to "falling back" to standard time my area is now seeing the sun set in the four o'clock hour. It's traditionally a hard month. December is generally easier, with holiday festivities, a two week break, and reaching the solstice  which will mean we will begin gaining minutes of daylight each day once again. But first we have to get through this month.

The COVID case numbers in the county where my school is located are on the rise. There was more than 50% jump in target numbers (number of cases per 100,000) last week over the week before. After the weekly numbers came out, we got word that the earliest date my grade band might return to school will be November 2. 

My classroom still isn't quite ready to receive students, but it's close. It's incredibly difficult to find time to work toward setting it up now that the school year has already started. There's always something more pressing to do, like stay on top of my email, grade assignments, plan the next activities, and digitize assignments. I could stay really late or work on the weekends if I had to get it done, but I am already working on the aforementioned tasks during those times so I'm trying to continue to just do a little at a time. The room still looks stark, but rather than bringing in my classroom library and declaring it off limits, I'm leaving it in boxes at home. Rather than bringing in containers for shared supplies and having them sit empty, I've left them with the boxes of books.

Last week I was told my classroom will need to have plastic shields up on each student's desk. I got my set out of the workroom and brought them down the hall to my classroom, but haven't brought myself to set them up yet. The idea of each of my students sitting behind a plastic screen, not moving around the classroom is difficult to grasp. I'm told they are working well in the K-2 classrooms, but I do wonder what will happen with older kids who are bigger and work more often out of books. They may end up on the floor frequently in the older grade levels. 

In the midst of all of the crazy of getting a classroom ready to teach in the era of COVID-19, I am feeling very welcomed back into the building. People keep saying things like, "I'm so glad you're back!" and "We were lucky to get you back." When I was in last week, one teacher walked in with a gift for me. She said she was shopping and when she saw it, she had to buy it for me. 

While many things about teaching are different this year, some remain the same. I'm primarily teaching from a corner in my bedroom, but I'm still building relationships with my students and getting animated during lessons. While I'm not jumping up and down or standing on furniture as I would in person, my husband has commented about my lively tone of voice and arm waving as I teach. I'm pretty sure my neighbors have also noticed my arm waving. At least I'm teaching with the windows shut as the weather has shifted toward a cooler pattern.

Even over Zoom, students are making me smile and laugh on a regular basis. I have a few who contact me daily on Google Hangouts. Some send emojis, others greet me every morning, and one gives me regular air quality updates. Fourth graders are fantastic. I'm enjoying this year despite all the unprecedented challenges.

This was my favorite response to a Growth Mindset reflection.

How is it Already October?

 It's not like I'm itching to have 2020 continue to linger, but how the heck did we slide into October already? I still don't know when I will be teaching students who come into the building, but the time is likely inching closer. The school where I worked last year welcomed back K-5 students last week and my current school is welcoming back K-2 students on Monday. 

For those of you who have lost track, I'm teaching 4th grade this year. Now I can say I've taught every grade, third through eighth without the qualifier, except fourth. I guess it was inevitable I'd end up with a fourth grade gig. But I digress.

I had a co-worker ask last week if I was excited about the idea of returning to school. I told her I think "excited" is the wrong word, but there are several reasons I am anxious to get back in the classroom: 

• I have one student who has close to 20 missing assignments, and I have had zero response from the several emails I've sent to her parents. 
• I have another who has too much anxiety to turn on the camera  or mic, and only interacts during class time with a private chat, "here" during attendance check.
•  I have a few students who are off track in their brainstorming for our writing lessons, but don't appear to be reading my notes on their assignments or listening to my redirections during our Zoom sessions. 
• I have so many individual meetings on my calendar that I don't have adequate time to answer student questions that come in outside of their individual meetings.
• I am spending a shocking amount of time digitizing resources in a fourth grade friendly fashion so there is *less* chance that they will accidentally delete the instructions or formatting of their assignments.
• I know I would be doing a better job of teaching these kids if we were in person.

However, I also see many challenges to coming back in the building. Without considering the possible scariness of increasing my students' and my own risk of coming into contact with a virus that has caused a global pandemic, any form of in-person teaching this year will not be like teaching during any other time in my 20 year career:

• Entering the building will require daily health screenings and temperature checks. Those who pass will get a colored dot on the color of their uniform shirt indicating they have permission to be on campus.
• Desks are spaced as far apart as possible to still allow 15 students per classroom.
• Class sizes are capped at 15 to ensure maximum physical distancing.
• Students will only be able to interact with their "cohort" - homeroom classmates for the entirety of the school day. I honestly don't know what this will mean for recess.
• "Interaction" will be limited to that which can happen from a distance of six feet or more.
• Group work will be nonexistent.
• Shared classroom supplies of pencils, paper, erasers, silent reading material, etc. have been removed.
• Students will need explicit permission to get out of their seats and move around. Acceptable reasons for moving around will be limited.
• Everyone in the building will be required to wear masks which will 
• make it challenging to hear/understand many students, 
• cause my chin to break out, 
• and probably give me daily headaches (I can't even wear stretchy headbands for a full teaching day without getting one). 

COVID numbers in my area are on the rise again. The President was hospitalized after a positive COVID diagnosis this week. These are not just unprecedented times, they are uncertain times.

In the midst of all of this, I have finally been able to spend a bit of time getting my classroom ready to receive students. The science teacher finished clearing out as much as she could from shelves and cabinets, and the vent that recirculates air was repaired (the science teacher says she never heard it run in the decade the classroom was hers... and upon opening it, it was discovered that it did not have a motor inside). Getting those items checked off the list should put a stop to people needing to shove the physically distanced desks back toward one another. 

I have scrubbed off the fine grit that settled on every surface with the removal of a wall of cabinets and the subsequent wall repair and floor scouring. Nametags are laminated and waiting to be cut an affixed to desks. IB attribute posters are likewise laminated and are ready to adorn the walls. I have put up many of my own decorations, including above a window that required standing on the newly repaired vent.

There's still work to be done, but it's getting closer to looking like a cozy classroom. Well, as cozy as a classroom be with all the new requirements in place.