teaching during covid 19

Teaching During a Pandemic

October 13, 2020
One of my first assignments for a class I’m taking asked us to express how it’s been living and teaching during COVID 19. I figured I needed to give an explanation as to where I’ve been or why I haven’t been posting on here and thought this was a great way of giving you just a snippet of why.

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My experience teaching and learning during a pandemic has been one long, never-ending storm.  Just like the weather, some storms may cause damage, while others bring nature’s beauty, this storm is no different.

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However the storm, I was able to cope with the changes on a personal level quite well. I loved being able to stay home and work from home.  I had already started using pick-up services for groceries years ago, so I didn’t need to make any adjustments there. I shopped for clothing and most personal items online as well, so even that was my norm. Knowing the reasons for needing to be socially distant took away any urge to be social, so I had no problem staying home. I did miss getting to see my family during our yearly summer vacation. Missing someone for a few months, or in our case, possibly a year is nothing compared to missing someone forever because they are no longer here. So, even with that, I quickly put my feelings away knowing that my family would be safe and alive.

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Although I loved working from home, teaching from home was the total opposite feeling. I no longer had a separate space for work and home. What was once my sanctuary to escape the drama and stressors of teaching, was now the same space. I disliked greatly having to commute back and forth, but soon realized how much I needed that time to decompress. To cope, I stopped using the flexibility of working from any room in my house and only used my office. That way, my bedroom was still a place of rest and my living room was still a place to relax and be entertained.  My commute was cut down to just a few seconds, but I used that time to prepare myself for each workday and decompress when I was off. 

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Seeing so many people lose their lives during this pandemic, and having so much free time on my hands, led me to finally apply to Grad School. I figured this was the perfect time to go back to school and further my education. I took my first class over the summer and quickly understood what many of my students were going through learning virtually during the spring. I thought distance learning would be perfect for me, but quickly realized how beneficial it is to have a real-life in-person teacher teaching you. I can’t blame this on COVID-19. I’m a visual learner who wasn’t raised in the 21st century. We still used typewriters or word processors when I was getting my first degree. I thought that since I used technology for the past seven years to teach, I wouldn’t have a problem with using it to learn. By the end of the course, I had adjusted to online learning and also researched ways to make it more engaging for my students because I just knew we were going to have to teach virtually this Fall.

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I was wrong. My district decided to use Plan B and take learning back into the school building. Although teaching from home was not ideal for me, it was my first and only option going into the next school year with numbers continuing to rise and there being no vaccine. I have been so stressed and anxious, my back performs it’s on breakdancing concert for most of the day, every day. My heating pad may be permanently attached to my back by now. I am trying to go day by day. I wear a face shield over my mask and constantly use hand sanitizer. As a literacy teacher, I am an itinerant teacher pulling different kids throughout the day, so all I think about are all of the possibilities of being exposed. Sadly, I am still figuring out how to cope with being around people. I think that is my biggest struggle. I know that even though I followed the guidelines and stayed home, wore a mask if I needed to go out, and kept my distance, so many of the people I work around did/are not.

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xoxo Tish

P.S. Some days you just have to create your own sunshine. – unknown

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