Wow. Hello. Hi, again. It’s been a minute or rather a month…or nine, and here we are yet still in quarantine. I’m not quite sure why I stopped blogging, but I know that every so often, my heart itched to write again, and I didn’t. A LOT has happened since I last posted. So much, I honestly don’t know where to begin. I’ve tried outlining how I wanted to post and thought about multiple posts, but here I am free-writing with no true outline (kids, do I as I teach, not as I do ;)).
Since March, I have only stepped onto campus three times. One, for a virtual graduation to see my babies drive by; another time to pick up a loaner laptop as mine was being fixed by Apple; and a third to package and deliver goodie bags to our SRLA students so that it made training for the marathon by themselves a little less daunting.
We started the school year in Distance Learning and the date of a hybrid model only continued to be pushed back as the weeks passed by and the amount of COVID cases only went up. We just finished the Fall Semester in Distance Learning (DL) and got news recently that we will continue the rest of the year in DL. I don’t think it’s fully hit me yet that I will NOT meet my new Advisory babies in person until they’re sophomores. It hasn’t hit me that I won’t know what half of these juniors and seniors truly look like unless they stop by next year and say hi and introduce themselves. Because honestly, I could probably recognize more of their ceiling fans and curtains than their faces at this point. It’s been a tough semester to say the least, but our Admin have been super supportive. I know they’re doing everything in their power to lessen the load on us and over-exerting themselves while burning the midnight oil (or is it candle?- I think it’s oil…I’m burning a candle as I type, so that’s why I just got confused…hehe). I digress. I’m glad that we got a schedule and stuck to it early on, so that both teachers and students could adjust, but even then, I know it was hard on a lot of our students. It was always in the forefront that I was teaching these kids during a pandemic and that my English lessons although important to their writing and reading skills, they were not as nearly as important as their survival and their mental health. My units that would have only lasted 6 weeks lasted whole semesters. Why? Because I chose not to rush. I chose to keep their mental health first and to not add unnecessary stress. My strict No Late Work Policy that previous students have come to remember me by was thrown out the window as I accepted late work after late work. Despite this, however, I lost some kids. They ghosted me. They ghosted school. I had names on my roster with kids who only showed up the first week. I had kids on my roster who stopped showing up mid-October. I had one kid who I never even met. That’s where it got hard because if we were in the building, then they’d at least come to class, but how can you force a student to show up through a computer? I joked tons of times about not being the girl from The Ring, so I couldn’t go through their screens to make them work. Bad joke, I know. Another hard part of DL teaching was ensuring that my students had time to chat with one another and not just me being the one always talking. The chat box came in clutch, breakout rooms, not so much. I’m still struggling with how to have them interact more and have them be comfortable with one another (especially my 9th graders), so if you have any tips, please share! Having cameras on was another battle I did not want to fight nor did I want to invade the privacy of my students as many of them don’t have their own private space. They still participated in the chat and other check-ins, but those that would login and be “in class” and then go MIA knew I’d call them out, so that didn’t happen too much. On a more positive note, I will say that I’ve become a pro at navigating not one, but three screens while I teach! Check out my setup below. This has been my “classroom” for the few months.
Peep the little pup on one of the screens- that was my first major update since my last blog. We got a puppy in June, which truly saved my mental health! Dodger is a Mini-Goldendoodle. We got him when he was only 8-weeks-old and now he’s 8-months-old! He was what I didn’t know I needed during this pandemic. He kept me company while J was at work and now he’s my office mate– although, he doesn’t seem to get the concept of work because all he does is nap. 🙂 He’s also been a handful at times where he’s made me cry, but at the end of the day, I know he’s just a puppy and plus, he’s just so cute, so I can’t stay mad at him for long! hehe. Follow him on Instagram at @Dodger_The_MiniGoldendoodle for more pictures and shenanigans!
I’ll end this here before it becomes a novel and continue to update y’all on my life in my next blog. I promise I’ll be more consistent!
Confessions of a 40-Year-Old Teacher Mom 