Donning and Doffing My Mask as a New School Year Begins

This week, like teachers all over, I headed back into school, after leaving at the end of a teacher workday on March 13th and never going back to finish out our year in person. Though I’ve been back in my room a few times since, walking in for the first time this week was a bit of a gut punch. 

The Vienna wall calendar my son gave me as a gift, still turned to its March page. Words on my white board, never erased: “Once upon a time…suddenly…fortunately…” (a reminder to use them in my never given next day’s planned lesson on storytelling through video). The bulletin board on the wall above my desk with trinkets and drawings from kids over the years, pictures of past advisory groups, all exactly as I’d left them. Tears may have fallen as the heaviness of this year came rushing back as it so often does.

I worked a bit on my room, moving furniture out of the way and putting tables into place so that it adheres to the new lower capacity of the space in preparation for that time in the future when we may have kids back in our building. I donned my mask and left my room and waved to old friends from a distance. I had my temperature checked, worried when it measured high, sighed with relief when the next try didn’t and answered the health questions with "no's." I took part in Zoom meetings, had Zoom conferences with parents. 

I sat down and looked at my MacBook to start putting all the ideas I’ve had swirling in my head the past two months into actual lessons for next week’s first week of remote virtual school, using the different apps we’ve had professional development for and training on all summer. I stalled a little and then stalled a little more and then finally got to work. For real. Creating lessons, activities and assignments for students to work through on their own in their own homes. Asking myself, “Is this engaging enough? Is it too much work? Not enough?” Recording screencasts, stuttering and stumbling through words for an embarrassing too many seconds, hitting stop, delete and starting over wondering, “Am I too energetic? Not energetic enough? Will they get my personality or humor over video? Talking too fast?” (more than likely yes to that last one!). Thinking about how to best use synchronous Zoom sessions to build relationships and start creating awesome content this year.

I’m pretty sure some version of that scenario played out in classrooms not just on my campus, but in campuses across the country this week. And you know what I think people need to know? Particularly the ones who don’t teach children for a living? Or the ones who think teachers are lazy and don’t want to work because they expressed concern about scary rates of transmission and percent positive Covid numbers and worry for their lives and those of their family members? Or the ones who feel the need to protest impossible decisions forced upon school administrators in a country plagued by an unrelenting pandemic, yet don’t want to do the hard work to help make it go away because of a misguided political agenda? Or the ones who call themselves “pro life” but at the same time publicly express, “Well, some live and some die, that’s how life goes?” The ones who hold elected office and are insisting schools open for in-person instruction, even while their own children will be attending school virtually this fall? 

They need to know that virtual school is absolutely real school. And it is an incredible amount of work to pull off and do well. They need to know that teachers everywhere would give anything to be with their full classes and do things the way they used to. That the safety protocols, while important and necessary, aren’t fun and will make school feel less like the “real school” some politicians are demanding when kids do finally come back. That they’re also all coming off a summer that wasn’t really a summer, where they’ve worked and learned and opened their minds to new ways of doing things, all in the service of doing what’s best for children and their learning, while also being aware that they need to be there to help with their social emotional needs, too. 

If they’re like me, they’re scared and excited all at the same time. Scared of the unknown, scared of the uncertainty. Excited for new opportunities and learning and growth. When I recorded one of my course introduction videos, I told my students what a college professor I had in a summer course a few years ago said: “If we always do things the way we’ve always done them, then we always do things the way we’ve always done them.” What a weird but necessary gift we’ve been handed to try something new and see if this can bring education into a more modern era. That instead of technology for technology's sake in the name of "21st Century Skills," using technology purposefully and gaining true skills 20 years into the 21st Century.

Doffing my mask as I got in my car after finishing a week of work at school for the first time in five months, I got home feeling that Friday night exhaustion that used to feel so familiar. I scrolled through my Facebook page, reading post after post from teacher friends (at my school, across the state, around the country), all mirroring what I was feeling. That prepping for in-person school is easier than prepping for virtual. That they’re doing what teachers do. They’re thinking about how to make learning fun and engaging for children. Different this year, to be sure, but finding ways to give them the best of themselves that they can. 

And so, here’s to the beginning of Year 17 for me, which is so different from how I started any of the previous 16.

#ArmMeWith...and More Thoughts About the Past Week

Here we are, just over a week since the news broke with the school shooting in South Florida. 17 dead. 14 wounded. They could have been you or me or yours and mine. Since then, the news cycle has followed the predictable path that tends to follow these awful events: shock and horror, thoughts and prayers, blame on everything with the exception of the actual instrument that is capable of shooting over 100 rounds in a single minute and is designed to do nothing but kill.

I have wanted to write about this for the past week, but didn’t know what there was left to say that hadn’t been said by others already. So many eloquent voices (from people I know personally, to ones I’ve just stumbled upon) speaking calmly and reasonably about viable things that can and should happen to help prevent more carnage like that school experienced last week.

I thought at first that I wanted to focus my writing on this question: How is it possible that this is an issue that has more than one side? How is this a partisan issue? Because it shouldn’t be. Right? There should only be one side. The side that values human life.

But then today I realized exactly what I want, and need, to write about.

I heard the head of the NRA’s vitriolic speech, where he stated firmly that the only thing that will stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. But what he forgot to add was, except for when the good guy can’t get to his gun, or misfires his gun and hits an innocent person, or his gun is stolen. No, the only thing that will stop a bad guy with a gun is for the bad guy not to have access to the gun in the first place. That’s just one of a slew of talking points that have been debunked solidly in many articles, including this one. Additionally, it was revealed that the armed deputy on campus at Marjory Douglas Stone High school failed to respond to the shooting happening inside. So the good guy with a gun failed to stop the bad guy with the gun in this instance.

Then, the presidential suggestion via Twitter that paying bonuses to teachers to carry guns at school might be the answer. I think, after this week, I can imagine better what it must be like to live in a dystopian novel, because the sort of talk that is coming from Washington just doesn’t have a place in the America I know. A place where the words of our Founding Fathers are misconstrued by some to justify their need to have all sorts of guns, whether that “right” infringes on others’ rights or not.

Put simply, adding guns to school campuses is just a horrible idea. Where would the funds come from to pay for such “bonuses?’ Government doesn’t fund basic supplies in a school, the state makes laws mandating class size, but doesn't offer funds to cover new teachers...yet, funds will magically appear to pay for all this stuff? If there’s surplus money floating around, then why not pay teachers a fair salary? The #armmewith hashtag has done a great job of stating what teachers really need in their classrooms and schools to help students. More resources to meet the needs of students with mental illness, more opportunities to allow teachers to develop deep, meaningful relationships with all children in their buildings, so the “lonewolf” doesn’t fly under the radar, unseen. Needed supplies so that teachers don’t have to stock their classrooms out of their own pockets or beg parents for them. Fund reasonable class sizes. Get up to date technology in classrooms. And so much more.

What arming teachers does do, though, is put money into the pockets of gun manufacturers, retailers and shooting ranges, which would be clamoring for lucrative school board contracts. But at what cost? I can assure you, the day they mandate arming teachers, or allow conceal carry on a school campus is the last day I work in a school and I know for a fact that I am not the only teacher who feels that way.

Arming teachers and many of these other "solutions" being tossed around are non-answers, designed to lull people into a false sense of security. "If you lock schools up really tight, then a gunman can't get in." But what about recess? Are we expected to keep children inside their fortress-like school in case a shooter decides to aim at the playground instead? Or for that matter, a person with a gun who wants to get into a locked building can use their gun to shoot their way in and go through the building just as quickly as they could have if they’d walked in. Band aid solutions and fear mongering may give people a sense of security or even hope, but they are mostly a false hope, as they don’t address the core issues.

I’ve read that there has been anywhere from 5 to 18 mass shootings on school campuses since the beginning of 2018. The number doesn’t really matter, does it? ANY mass shooting on a school ground...at a concert...in a church...in a synagogue...in a mosque...at a mall...in a movie theater...is ONE TOO MANY. Are we so broken that we really can’t come together in a moment of anguish and tragedy and have the courage to do the right thing?

And yet, through all of this, I feel a slight glimmer of hope. I’ve watched the surviving students from Parkland and listened to how articulately they discussed this incident and their strong desire to make history as the “last mass shooting.” How brave. How empowered. How courageous. How mature. These kids, as they organize marches and bond together as a future voting block, could be the answer. Shame on those who’ve chosen to disparage them for their passion. Shame on those who say they’re just kids and don’t have a voice. Shame on those who say things like, “the generation that eats Tide Pods wants to write policy.” How narrow minded to think that the mistakes of a tiny minority of kids represents these kids at this moment in time. I work with teens from 8th-12th grade every day and I promise you they are smart, articulate, passionate, caring. And they are the ones we are leaving this world to, they are the ones who can and will change things for the better. One thing I know about kids this age is if you give them an issue they feel passionate about, they will fight for it tooth and nail.

I really wish I knew what the answer was. I am much better at knowing what the answer isn’t. It’s a big, messy problem. And my deepest wish is that the “leaders” in charge will do the right thing, stop taking bribes from lobbyists and work to make changes in policy that would help us all move forward and work to prevent events and tragedies like what happened last week in Florida from happening ever again.

And Then There Were None (At Home, That Is)

Some rambling thoughts upon taking my son to college this weekend...

I’m not new to this game of taking a child to college. I’ve done it one time before, which makes me a veteran college mom. Two years ago, the first time I took one off to college for the first time, I felt like there was so much I needed to tell my older son...stuff that he needed to know right that second. For whatever reason, the most important thing the day before we left to take him was that I hadn’t taught him how to iron, so I made him learn how to iron.  As far as I know, he hasn’t ironed since.  

Two years later, we’re here. Though, this time, it seems I saved all the advice giving for the last day. A day where we were packing, joking, eating obscene amounts of unhealthy food together (looking at you Mini Vermonster), was also the day that I decided it was time to impart all my words of wisdom to him.  And impart, I did.  In conversation, in jokes, in a heartfelt email.  But really, there’s not much I felt the need to tell him (or his brother, for that matter), that hasn’t been said in the past.  Yes, there are laundry tips, housekeeping tips and organization tips, but the lessons they need and should be leaving with should really be the lessons they were getting from us all along, right?  Be kind.  Be true to yourself. Take care of yourself. Work hard. Do your best. Call home. Did I miss anything?  

And now, it’s happened.  This moment that has been looming over us for the better part of the past year, happened today.  I’ve looked at it with excitement, I’ve looked at it with gloom, I’ve looked at it with trepidation and I’ve looked at it with an insane amount of pride that my son knew exactly what he wanted and went for it with the same gusto he’s had for pretty much every other thing he’s wanted to accomplish so far in his 18 years. 

I have read dozens of articles, blog posts, memes and pieces of advice about leaving our kids at college.  I know no less than 120 other moms in the same place we are this weekend...I’ve scrolled through their drop off pictures (and posted our own) on my Facebook feed and realize now that, while my house has a sense of emptiness that it’s never had before, this is the moment we’ve been building toward since, well, since having kids.  They aren’t meant to stay with us forever….I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t even like each other very much if we kept that same mother/child relationship well into their adulthood, because they’re suppose to go off, with baby steps, spread their wings and develop their own lives with the hope that the lessons we’ve passed on stick.  The good ones, at least.  In good ways.

Even President James Garfield had these same sorts of rambling thoughts in 1879 when he wrote of taking his own children off to school, “It will require no little self-sacrifice on my part to see and aid them in the work of separating these precious home ties. I begin to see how it is that parents come to regard children as their own decorations, given for their own selfish comfort. The severe lesson must be learned that they are given to go alone--to leave the parent nest and fly to trees of their own seeking."

I remember both of my kids’ first days of kindergarten as if they were just yesterday.  I cried big as the bus pulled away with my oldest, his brother in my arms crying along with me that he wanted to go too.  I was teary when I dropped off my youngest a few years later, but he was ready. He was ready then and he’s ready now.  I’ve worked at his school either as a volunteer or as a teacher since he was in preschool.  This year will be the first time in his school life that we aren’t just down the hall from each other.  That’s kind of weird, isn’t it?  But he's ready. His look of confidence upon arriving on campus yesterday was reassuring and I know he's going to be fine.

So, yes...tonight, I am a little bit sad.  And yes, I miss him already. And ice cream did help while we were driving home (as it usually does).  But I am not permanently sad.  This is a temporary loss.  A loss of a past, perhaps a loss of the childhood that was.  Knowing that others are dealing with real loss right now probably helps put this transition of sending our youngest off to college into a different kind of perspective.  And what I’m starting to realize is that sending a young  adult to college is really not the end of being a parent, it’s the beginning of being a different kind of parent.  

And tonight, we are no longer "empty nesters in training," we are full on "empty nesters."

Life Goes On

I know I've said it before, but I am really not a great blogger.  I'm not even sure I feel right calling myself one.  I just have a site that I occasionally write on when I feel the need to write.  I read blogs of people who are true bloggers.  I'm not sure if I am able to open myself up in that way, either online or even in a journal, because the truth is, the way I have kept this blog is pretty much exactly the way I have journaled in my lifetime. And the funny thing is that I am a) a decent enough writer and b) reflective enough that I have enough to say. So I'm not sure why I don't write more often.

And what brought me back to my blog this week (for the first time since 2011) is the amount of reflecting I have been doing this monumental week of my older son's high school graduation.  The rational part of me says that the milestone that comes with your graduating child is exactly as life should be.  We were never meant to have our kids with us forever. We had kids in order for them to grow up and go out and follow their live's paths.  But it's really hard to be rational, isn't it?  I long for the days where I was begging my son to go off and play on his own (because I was worried that he was too dependent on me).  If those days were here, I promise I'd play with him and let him boss me around and tell me what to do. If those days were here, I'd read the Truck Book...AGAIN!  and I'd do it without a rolled eye or sigh.  If those days were here, I'd play Uncle Wiggly and not get mad at him for being too competitive.  I would do it all and I'd do it without complaint.

We are full of advice for graduating seniors.  I wrote my son a letter full of important words of wisdom and the words that I hadn't told him but needed him to hear from me and gave it to him on Graduation Day. But where is the advice for the mom of the graduating senior?  How to enjoy the time you have left before they leave.  How to not spend all your time worrying because they aren't home as much since they want to be with their friends and you just want to know they are home and safe in their bed at night.  How to be really excited for this next leg of their lives' journeys and mean it.   How to not argue with them and their sloppy ways or how to just be and prepare for moving onto this next phase of their lives. Or even how to figure out what your (and your husband's) path is when he (and in a few years his brother) are both out of the house and onto their adult lives. These are the things we moms need to know and I'm hopeful that since I know many who are in the same boat with me right now, we will figure them out together.