Unprecedented: Teaching in a Pandemic

 Once again this spring, I know a teacher who is leaving teaching — another great teacher is leaving teaching. It has become so common this year, I’m no longer surprised. And I can totally understand. For the first time in twenty-five years, I had that thought go through my own mind — what else can I do? I love teaching, but the past three years have been exhausting to be a teacher. I’m not sure non-teacher people understand why. We all went through the pandemic. We all had to adapt, right? But here’s the thing about teaching — it’s normally exhausting. It requires a large dose of different energies — physical energy throughout the daily teaching process, mental energy to plan and craft what to teach, reteach, and how to teach, and emotional energy to deal with all the young hearts and brains we encounter every day.

So, what is different now? Our energies are totally out of whack and totally spent. When the pandemic first hit, we had to completely change how we taught. For several months our mental energy was in overdrive trying to learn all sorts of new techniques and technologies so that we could reach our students. In year three, we are still learning and working on transforming our teaching to all these new ways so we can reach our students. Because of those changes, we are also physically doing twice the work, since we need to create lessons which are taught in person, as well as those taught online, if needed. And then there’s the emotional energy. If you are around any kids, you know that kids have been profoundly changed by the pandemic. They are broken. At the beginning of the pandemic, I wrongly thought that teenagers would be fine having school online since they spend so much time on there anyway. Nope. All the time alone, without real interaction or intervention, really hurt our kids emotionally. They are more immature and less able to cope with difficulties right now. And academically, they lost the knowledge of how to be students. They just won’t do assignments and don’t have the drive to succeed. I have never had to spend so much time coaxing so many students to just do normal assignments. Of course, the top students are still top students, but everyone else is flailing. Last week I had a student try to turn in an assignment from October. It’s currently the end of May. Our students are so different right now, teachers don’t even know how to help them. Our emotional energies are depleted too.

Today was the last day of school. My grading is complete, my classroom is clean, my school bag is ready to be put away for summer. I’m home on the couch, exhausted. I’m looking forward to recharging my batteries this summer by not doing much at all. I am not leaving teaching, but for those who are, best wishes in whatever you choose to do and thank you. I know you tried to do your best.