by Reflecting On The Spring
It has been a while since I have written. When spring arrived this year, as a high school English teacher, my world and everyone’s world changed. We moved from in-person learning to remote learning, from seeing our students every day to seeing our students only through Google Meets.
During this time, I experienced a plethora of emotions. While I designed instruction in which I was quite proud, the suddenness of this change was hard. I wanted my students to know that despite the change in our environments that I was still their teacher. I wanted them to know that I was still working for them and wanted them to succeed. That I was still designing lessons that I thought they would enjoy. Lessons, that I felt, still offered the components of voice and choice and relevance that I had worked hard to design in the months prior to our remote learning. In the days of remote learning, I sat behind the computer posting my lesson plans and grading their work in a timely manner, not only to offer feedback, but to show my students that I was still there- just as I had been everyday in the classroom.
Some might expect that as I head back to school this year that the only, singular thing on my mind is the worry of the coronavirus. To that point, I would share that I am actively studying safety measures, and that I am fortunate to work in a school district that has methodically planned for our students’ safety. And while I know that teaching in the time of a pandemic will feel new and, perhaps, even stressful at times, I find myself also doing what teachers do- focusing on the instruction.
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