I Didn't Eat It

 What?

You heard me: I. Didn't. Eat. It.

I came up with this phrase at some point during my eleven years teaching fifth grade. Kids continually complain that they can't find their belongings (pencils, markers, glue, homework, binder, textbook, sweatshirt... the list is endless). Often they outright ask their teacher (or parent) where it is. I can't find my...? Have you seen...? Where is...? Some are quite demanding, whether in tone or frequency, or both. One day, in response to one of my more insistent students, the words that came out of my mouth were, "I didn't eat it." It stopped the kid in his tracks. His mouth opened, but he had no idea how to respond. Of course, the other kids laughed. Seconds later, he found whatever item had been misplaced. It stuck. I've said it multiple times to every class I've had since - which now spans fourth through eighth grades.

Over the years it has also become a constant refrain in my home. My husband and I say it to each other and to our kids. My kids have long since stopped being amused. I remember clearly my then middle schooler saying one day, "Mom, I know you didn't eat it, but have you seen my...?" But more often I get, "Mom, will you STOP saying that? It's NOT helpful!" Over decade later, the phrase still amuses me. 

I said these four words to my current class of fourth graders for the very first time yesterday. One of my more dramatic students misplaced his pencil between our last activity before lunch and our first activity after recess. A spectacular search ensued, with opening and closing of his desk, crawling on the floor, and lots of shifting items around, all with wildly waving arms. An accompanying distracted monologue topped off the show, to which 95% of the class was glued. "Where's my pencil? I know I had it. I put it here. I can't find my pencil..." The spectacle lasted less than a minute before I casually responded to one of the "Where's my pencil?" questions with, "I didn't eat it."

At the time I said it, I was walking toward the computer with our lone Zoom student to reposition her view for the next lesson. She snorted. Other kids giggled. The child with the missing pencil said, "What? That doesn't make any sense!"  Seconds later, he found his pencil.

Nothing is Automatic

 These weeks are long. My sense of time has been "off" for quite some time, but in a new way now that I am teaching in person four days per week. On Thursday nights I find myself forgetting that I have to prepare my presentation for the morning Zoom check in and that the weekend hasn't started yet. I seem to always be end-of-the-week tired. Even this week, after a teacher work day (no student Zoom last Friday) followed by a bona fide day off on Monday, was a long week.

One of my co-workers put it this way: Nothing is automatic. Everything is brand new. Teaching on Zoom at the same time as teaching in person, while trying to be engaging and keep everyone physically distanced... Nothing is automatic. Everything is brand new. There's snow on the ground, but I have to open the window and turn on the fan. I have to remember to open my Zoom room and check in with the remote learners while answering questions and allowing the in person learners to go refill water bottles (from our hands free fountains with the drinking spout taped over) or use the restroom... but the protocols in place for those normal in-person routines, are all new and therefore not automatic.

I leave my classroom to pick up my kids from recess without my mask at least twice a week. Thus far I haven't made it more than a step or two outside my classroom before remembering. Even though I have no problem ripping my mask off as soon as I am alone in my classroom, it certainly isn't a habit to put on a mask after my breaks.

The kids really want to do the right thing, but they need constant reminders about physical distancing, keeping their noses covered, physical distancing, not touching their masks or faces, physical distancing, changing their masks when they get wet (from saliva), physical distancing, putting up their plastic shields before they take off their masks to eat snack or lunch, physical distancing... Walking out to recess and lining up at the end of it is when they are most likely to clump up. They run to their friends and engage in conversation, as they should! And really, most of what they want to say, have been dying to say for several hours (or at least minutes), I'm sure they don't want to broadcast to a six foot radius. I walk out to recess and back in chanting, "Six feet! Six feet! Six feet!"

I got my second dose of the Moderna vaccine last weekend. Two school parents work for a local medical group and offered vaccines to the entire school staff just before MLK weekend. We weren't told the specifics of their reasoning, but the prevailing hypothesis is they had "leftover" vaccine after all of their phase 1A appointments and either wanted to ensure a full compliment of their 1B doses by getting all of their first set distributed, or they were running against the clock, worrying about how many days the doses had been at a certain temperature. 

The first dose hit me like a ton of bricks. Most of my co-workers had mild to severe pain at the injection site. I had severe injection site pain but also was pretty much non-functional for 48+ hours due to fatigue, fever, dizziness, and achiness. I spent the three day weekend on the couch, feeling grateful that the second dose was also on a three day weekend. My husband made sure I ate and reminded me that making COVID antibodies was a very productive use of my weekend. In anticipation of the second dose, I cleared my calendar and to do list. I made sure there was *nothing* I had to do for the weekend. And then the snow came. The clinic texted everyone scheduled for their second dose saying they would be open despite the storm, but that we should call on Tuesday (after the President's Day holiday) to reschedule if we couldn't get there for the Saturday vaccination clinic.

Unlike most of my co-workers I live fairly close to the clinic that was offering us the vaccine. It's only 10 minutes from my house. But I live 15 minutes from the freeway, and 10 freeway miles from the school where I work. I knew I was going to brave the snow to get my second dose because I knew I needed a three day weekend to recuperate.

I asked my husband to drive me and we elected to see how our minivan handles in the snow since our AWD vehicle has been in use by our 18 year old since October and was iced over, covered with about a foot of snow in our driveway. The minivan failed the snow test. We got out of our driveway just fine, but then got stuck blocking TWO of our neighbors' driveways. A different neighbor saw our predicament from his window across the street, and literally came running to our rescue. First he dug out our tires enough, and helped to push so that we were able to re-position the minivan so that it was only blocking our own driveway. (It stayed there until Monday afternoon.)

But our neighbor's real heroism came when he discovered why we were trying to leave the house in the middle of a snow event. He said more than once, "Oh, you can't miss that," before offering to drive me to the clinic for my second dose. Not only did he have a 4WD truck that was in his garage, but he was a cool, experienced snow driver. In the 20+ years I have lived here, I have never seen the main streets outside my neighborhood so covered...possibly because I have never left my house at the height of a snow event before. No bare pavement was visible anywhere. I felt like we were driving on at least six inches of snow pack. As a California native married to a California native, even with the right vehicle we weren't cut out for driving on that. But I felt completely comfortable with my neighbor, a retired state patrol accident investigator, at the wheel. I love my neighborhood!

That was all six days ago. I needed a nap that afternoon and spent the next day on the couch, even though I woke up full of energy. A shower and breakfast sapped it all out of me. Monday was better, much better, but my arm felt like it was on fire and/or it was going to fall off. I still did laundry and swept the kitchen floor. The second dose wasn't a picnic, but for me, it was not as bad as the first.

I know I still need to wear a mask and stay six feet away from others whenever I am outside my home. But I do feel significantly less anxiety teaching in person now that I am "fully vaccinated" (...and am I the only one that thinks that makes me sound like a dog??). 

What is Age?

Modern social media has shown me glimpses into the lives of young adults who are former students of mine. I have been in the classroom long enough that former students (fifth graders, mostly, but a few third graders) have earned advanced degrees, gotten married, died.

This week a former student reached out to me to ask if I could attend a rosary for a classmate of his who passed away four years ago. I taught them both fifth grade over a decade ago. Even though I couldn't attend because the rosary was happening at the same time as the accreditation initial visit for my current school, I haven't been able to stop thinking about that class and the life that was cut short. I have always strived to do my best by my students. I have always done my best by my students. But there are specific memories that make me cringe, going all the way back to my student teaching days. I have fallen short over and over again, and known - FELT - it. How many times have I fallen short and not even known?

Okay, this isn't about me. There is more to say than I will be able to encapsulate in this post. I have all the feels tonight. I feel guilty that I couldn't attend the rosary today. I feel vindicated that a former student I had "a knock down, drag out fight" (words spoken by the person who held a point of view different from mine on the student in question) to be put in the regular math class over the remedial one, is now an oncology nurse. I feel humbled that a former student said I am "the youngest teacher out there," "really are Wonder Woman," and that I "haven't changed at all since fifth grade" in comments on a thread where she is the original poster.

After I mentioned that I have now taught every grade level from third through eighth, one of my former fifth graders asked me what my favorite grade level was to teach. I think I have a special place in my heart for every grade level/subject area I have taught. Every year I have had a new teaching assignment, that new assignment has become my favorite. Just ask my husband. Third grade was exactly where I was meant to be, until I left and found another position in fifth. I distinctly remember thinking the fifth graders were "big" and "beyond me" when I taught third grade. But then I spent more years teaching fifth graders than fifth graders have been alive, and loved every year.

Fifth graders are the mushy middle of the K-8 school system. They are definitely not primary students anymore but neither are they middle school students. For a majority of the years I taught this grade level, we ran on the middle school schedule, even though we weren't considered part of the middle school. In the same classroom kids can be losing their teeth right and left while others are knee deep in puberty, wondering what in the heck is happening to their bodies. On my first overnight field trip (four days of outdoor environmental education at a YMCA camp) the first year I taught fifth grade, one of my students got her first period. Thankfully her mother was a cabin leader on the trip, and had older daughters. 

When I took a long term sub job teaching middle school ELA I knew I was in over my head. Except, from day one, I wasn't. I developed rapport with the kids and discovered a knack for storytelling the right story at the right time for the kids in my room. They were hungry for information that might smooth their path into high school, and I had stories from my parenting experience as well as my own memories of high school that eased their anxieties. As an eighth grade homeroom teacher I had a student tell me I was a powerful motivational speaker.

Now I am teaching fourth grade, in the middle of a pandemic. Of course I love it. But I love what I do. I know I am good at it. I strive to be great at it, and am aware that some days I fall short. But I always have energy and enthusiasm for my students.

I have grown as an educator, but I pray that I keep growing. As a first year teacher I kept myself afloat with the thought, "If I ever feel like I have done the best, and can't grow anymore as a teacher, that's when I'll need to get out of the classroom." More than 20 years later, it's still true. It's not the overt thought it once was, a lifeline to cling to as I kept my head above water in a new profession, but it still remains at the core of who I am as a teacher. What can I do better next year? next week? tomorrow? 

Two Weeks of In-Person Learning

 Last week was Catholic Schools Week, complete with days to appreciate families, teachers, students, and the larger community that supports each Catholic school around the world. It's a fun week with spirit days, gifts, and activities. I was overwhelmed with the amount of cards, candy, flowers, and Starbucks gift cards I received from students on the day designated by my school as teacher appreciation day.

On student appreciation day there is generally an assembly. After attempting to organize a drive in movie night that fell through, my principal was able to arrange for a Zoom interactive assembly with a local children's entertainer who calls himself the Zaniac. He put out a list of items the kids should have on hand to participate in the show: a light jacket or hoodie, a yardstick, a deck of cards, and a set of juggling balls (with a tutorial for making some out of household items). My fourth graders gave the show *glowing* reviews afterwards. 

Every single one of my homeroom kids came into the building every day last week. That makes my job much easier than that of my colleagues who must deal with online students at the same time as in person students. I feel very lucky that I don't have to host a Zoom as I am teaching, and glad that none of my nine and ten year old homeroom students have to sit in front of a computer from 8:30-3:00 every day. Indeed, online learning models that mirrored the school day is why one of my students was pulled from his local public school and put in mine shortly after the school year began. There are four students in my partner teacher's homeroom that are learning online. Two of them have parents that don't feel comfortable sending them into the building, one of them is suffering from extreme anxiety, and one's parents are worried that wearing a mask and staying six feet away from others will be too much of a challenge for their child who is on the spectrum. My partner teacher and I agree that the last of these kids probably wouldn't have more trouble with masks and staying six feet away from others than the average fourth grader, and that we are up to the task of building good COVID safety habits in all of our students. But given the craziness of the world, we respect all of the different reasons families are keeping their kids at home or sending them to school

The switch to in person learning has shifted my locus of concern from the quiet kids to the ones who lack impulse control. I am no longer worrying about the student who refused to turn on audio or video and concerned that the majority of my students were happy to let one or two classmates answer every question. Now that we are in the building they are all finding their voices and raising their hands to participate. Different concerns have come to the forefront. I have spent two weeks dealing with recess problems spilling into instructional time, and continually re-teaching the rules to four square. One of my students drew blood from another during one of our first recesses. 

Did you know that four square must be played underhand? Did you know that fourth graders don't really know the difference between underhand and overhand? I took screenshots of both hand positions from a video of four square rules and told the kids that raising your hand is overhand and sticking gum under a desk is underhand. The idea for the second example came from my 18 year old. Four square has taken a surprising amount of my time and energy over the past two weeks.

I was super excited to wear my Donald Duck hat, complete with tiny body hanging off the back of the oversized head on crazy hat day. When my principal saw it, he said he has the same one! I enjoyed Catholic Spirit Wear day, when I wore my Seattle U sweatshirt and one of my current fourth graders wore my old school spirit sweatshirt that I gave to her mother after leaving the school three years ago (and gaining weight.) But the best spirit day was crazy hair day. I am usually stressed by crazy hair day because I have lots of hair that I should be able to do something very crazy and fun with... it's too much pressure for me. I have great hair, but I am not great with hair. I can't even French braid. But the student teacher has a daughter who loves cosplay, and she had the best idea. It will be my go to crazy hairdo henceforth.

I Love My Job

 

The last 10 months have been crazy for everyone, no matter their industry. As my husband reminded me at the start of the school year, everyone is at their wit's end. Schools are in a very difficult position these days, possibly more so than most other industries because of competing concerns regarding online learning vs. returning to buildings. 

Many students are learning less of the curriculum designated by districts, states, and the country. Most parents are more responsible for helping their kids with learning those prescribed curricula. Teachers are dealing with students not showing up to Zooms and getting little to no response when they send messages or make phone calls trying to chase work or offer assistance. Everyone wants kids back in classrooms.

But teachers and school staff are understandably nervous. COVID numbers are much higher than when schools shut down in March.  Many people who are making decisions about re-opening schools are still working remotely and will continue to do so. The science has progressed and we know more now than we did when everything shut down, but there is still so much we don't know. We don't know how well kids carry the virus even if they don't show symptoms. But most of us work in old buildings with ventilation systems that are in various states of disrepair.

I'm back in the classroom, four days a week. I am excited to be back. Someone posted to one of the teacher groups on Facebook this weekend this question: "If you consider yourself a pretty 'happy' teacher, what's your secret?" This is a common theme in these groups, even pre-pandemic.. Teaching is a hard job, and often thankless. Parents send emails at all hours of the day and night, and a few of them act like they expect immediate responses. Questions that have been answered over and over again are asked again and again by students and families alike. Outside of planning, teaching, and communicating with parents, the number of job requirements seems to be climbing. In the best of circumstances, it's a lot. With the demands of providing a hybrid learning model and the increased stress of society as a whole, this year has taken the expectations to a while new level.

Still, I had no hesitation answering the question posed to those who consider themselves "pretty happy teachers." I love what I do. It helps that I have a supportive husband. Another factor that I believe has saved me from teacher burnout is the number of times I have moved to a new school and a new grade level. I have made the choice to leave schools twice and was pushed out twice. I have taught every grade level 4-8 and worked on teams that value my input and with those that seemed to ignore me. I have also worked without any real team, at a school that was small enough to have only one class per grade level. 

Moving between schools, teams, grade levels, and subject areas has been challenging and stressful. But it has kept me actively, continually choosing to do this this job. When I try to imagine myself outside of this profession, I can't. It's a part of my identity and a source of inner pride. I love my job.

Back to the Classroom

I have taught students inside a classroom this week for the first time since the middle of March 2020. My school is offering a remote option for families who are not ready to send their kids back to school, but only one student in my homeroom is using this option, and not because of a fear of the virus. Her older sibling's grade has not yet returned to in person learning, and her family is keeping all the kids home until they can all return to school. As far as I know I'm the only teacher in my building who has such a high percentage of in person learners..

These kids are so excited to be back in the classroom! It's visible in their sparkling eyes and the tone of their voices. It's only been two days, but they are working hard and following every rule to the best of their ability. It is very hard for them to stay in their own space, especially when walking to and from recess, but even in the classroom. They keep forgetting that they are supposed to stay at their desks and have me bring the trash can around for their lunch garbage or take their pencil to the sharpener and back for them. (I had 10,000 steps before 2:00pm both days.)

It's only been two days, but I am exhausted. It's a good kind of tired, but if I'd been out of the classroom for six more weeks, it would have been a full calendar year. The extra safety measures add to my daily tasks, and I haven't had a single moment where I've had the time and brain space together to grade anything since the middle of last week.. Did I mention how tired I am?

By and large the students are doing great with their masks. I have one student who has trouble keeping his face covered. I have to continually remind him to cover his nose or pull his mask up. But he's also the kid who bounces in his seat or gets up and stretches or does a little dance every so often. I sat him in the back of the room by the door where he would be able to move without getting into someone else's space on purpose. I was forewarned by his previous teachers and saw his wiggliness first hand via Zoom.

My husband asked me tonight how I feel about everyone's safety at school. Everyone (students and staff alike) certifies their symptom status on a jotform before coming onto campus and everyone's temperature is double checked. The kids have plastic shields that they sit behind when they take their masks off to eat. They are cleaning and I am disinfecting their desks before snack and lunch every day. They have a specific area of the playground to use and their own set of color coded playground equipment to use and keep separate from the equipment of other classes. (My class has purple playground equipment.) The hallway is marked in six foot increments and everyone's hands are squirted with sanitizer before they enter the building, every time.

I don't think there are any more COVID safety measures we can take, but if someone thinks up some more, I'm sure we'll implement them. But to answer my husband's question, do I feel everyone is safe? Well... as safe as we can possibly be. I try not to think about the threat of asymptomatic carriers or shedding the virus prior to showing symptoms. I know that's how this virus operates and the reason it's still wreaking havoc across the globe a year after it was discovered. I try not to dwell on the what ifs and what I can't control. This is a big uncontrollable mess.

Here's to hoping the 2021-2022 school year is easier to navigate and much less anxiety provoking.

Reopening Plan

 My school has released an updated reopening plan. It is still subject to change, but if all goes according to plan, my fourth graders and I will return to the classroom by the end of the month. I am nervous about the possible negative outcomes, but the preschool students have been in my building since the first day of school, and the K-2 students were in for several weeks before the holidays. There haven't been issues, in part because our community of families is largely adhering to guidelines. While I do know of families of my own students who have traveled, I haven't heard of any COVID cases among them and I would hope that travel would diminish with a return to the classroom.

Instead of worrying about the idea that I might have to deal with having a student, co-worker, family member, or myself becoming part of a statistic, I want to focus on all the positives that will happen once I am teaching in the classroom again. 

First, I will be better able to elicit student participation. I have three students who always participate and the rest stay muted, waiting for one of the three to respond. A couple do put relevant comments in the chat, but a solid class discussion is very difficult over Zoom. I have one student who claims his camera is broken, even though his parents did get him a new computer early in the school year, and I have seen his camera on for a few minutes here and there. Technical difficulties are the biggest challenge: audio quality during student responses, unstable connections that have kids re-joining all throughout the class, videos buffering on my end as I try to show them, videos that are laggy or have poor audio quality on the student end even when they are smooth on my end... the list goes on and on. But I also have a student who hit a huge milestone when she participated in a class discussion with a direct message to only me during class this morning, and then wrote "bye" for EVERYONE to see after 90% of her classmates had dropped off the call at the end of class today. Her camera is never on. I can't wait to get these kids back into the building!

Going back into the classroom will give me my evenings back. I am done with teaching Zooms at 11:30 every morning. However, I have scheduled 1-1 meetings with students or staff meetings on my calendar until 3:00 or 4:00 every day. I also meet with one student and her family *every* evening at 5:00. In between scheduled meetings I am fielding Google Chat messages from students and trying to stay up to date on my email. There have been many days when I haven't had time to eat lunch. Grading and planning don't even begin to happen until after I eat dinner, and there have been evenings when grading and planning have been interrupted by a slew of email. During a normal year I don't respond to emails that come in after about 4:00pm until the next day, with very few exceptions. But this year, everything is different. In order to make the next day run more smoothly or alleviate family stress, I find myself responding to certain messages until 8:00 or 9:00pm.

It will be cold. We will be teaching with our windows open and air purifiers running. My classroom's vent is LOUD, and hearing timid fourth graders with their masks on or even ensuring I am heard in the back of the room with my mask on and students spaced six feet apart, feels daunting. But my school did purchase air purifiers for each classroom. I did get new bulletin boards installed and aides looking for additional hours are putting up butcher paper and borders for me. My principal got a grant for technology and new Smart Boards that don't use projectors are on order, and should be mounted in place of the old model before I return to the classroom. In working to make my seven year old school issued laptop work with the new Smart Board, my principal sat on three tech support calls with me today, and even though we did eventually get my computer connected to the sleek new board, promised to order me a new computer. 

I can't leave without saying that cutting the parents out of the loop on some assignments will make teaching things like pre-writing much easier. I have spent more time than I could have predicted this week explaining free writes to parents and reminding students of what they already know - free writing is about the flow of ideas and not about worrying about spelling, grammar, or structure of any kind. Over my 20 year career, I have learned to live with the reputation I earned in my first year of teaching, expressed by a student in my second year with the words, "Mrs. Conrow assigns a boatload of homework!" But the problem with remote learning is parents don't see the distinction between what would have been assigned as in class work vs. what would have been brought home to finish if their kids were coming into my classroom. Free writing would never be an at home assignment if we were in the classroom. I wouldn't have parents sending me emails about how much time they spent helping their child edit and revise the free writing assignment or asking for examples of free writing (which were provided in videos the students had access to watch again and again, but parents didn't "have time" to watch to see what I was looking for).

It's important for me to remind myself that the parents of my students are awesome. They are very involved and want their kids to succeed, even as we are redefining what it means to "go to school" during the pandemic. I'm grateful for their support and the fact that they care so much about the success of their kids. But writing instruction would still be easier for me if the students' writing notebooks resided only in the classroom.

I wish I was in line for the vaccine earlier. My state released guidelines this week that put me in a group that they hope to get to by April. It's disheartening but doesn't change my school's plan to bring me back by the end of January. I'm doing my best to remain positive even in the midst of an ongoing pandemic during the week that saw the second ever attack on the U.S. capitol. There is something supremely surreal about living in the midst of historic times that seem to be continuing to unfold.