It had never really been a matter of if, but always when. As far back as June, our district gathered a committee of educators to create a plan for virtual learning that would greatly improve on our efforts from the spring. This plan was continually evolving as new technologies were introduced and ideas came to mind that would streamline the student process in ways that didn’t even exist a mere months ago.
Even once in-person learning began in the fall, we never lost sight of the virtual plan. It didn’t just loom in the backs of our minds, our administrative team kept us tweaking it, making modifications that would help teachers, parents and students navigate a sudden shift in the learning environment from school to home.
Teachers were also required to complete significant technology training, all geared and focused on virtual learning models and programs that would help us provide more engaging and robust learning over the internet. There was significant grumbling about the training at the time. It was hard to see the purpose when we had a classroom of students and we didn’t have devices in hand for the students to even utilize should we make a virtual shift.
Despite all the planning, training and preparations, however, when the decision to go virtual for just a handful of days came, it felt fast and unexpected to many. As is often the case when change rears its ugly head, many staff escalated into panic mode. There were tears, and arguments. There was significant complaining in the hallways and behind closed doors.
And while it might have felt harried and chaotic, there was a plan and people to help implement that plan. Everyone stepped up. Parapros and Title 1 staff jumped in to help classroom teachers get all the necessary supplies in each and every backpack. Copies were made, lessons adapted and devices and all their accoutrements were unplugged, bundled up and loaded up with students. Teachers ensured each child had log ins, workbooks and even brand new social studies books that hadn’t even been numbered for each classroom yet. Resource room teachers ran through the building to find extra textbooks with just minutes before the last bell rang and students loaded up in buses.
It was right after that bell, right after I bustled my students out the classroom door with bags that weighed half their body weight and instructions still ringing in their ears about Monday’s virtual learning plan that I saw the note. Sitting on the table outside my classroom was a handwritten but photocopied note in cursive script that only grandmothers use now.
I sat in my classroom and cried. This note, while unsigned, most certainly came from a woman on our staff who works as a paraprofessional. Photocopied for each and every staff member in the building, this woman took the time to encourage us and to lift us up. Here were all were, scavenging about for all the things each student needed; venting about how hard virtual lessons would be; complaining about the fact that the shut down was caused by factors outside of the school and not inside; and yet, this woman, who surely grew up in much “simpler” times – who could probably never have imagined school or learning to look like it does now, was the first one to offer up a voice of hope. This woman, who could be at home, retired, but chooses to spend her days with the kids was calm, collected and ready to provide support in any way she knew how.
I wasn’t scared of virtual learning. I wasn’t panicked about what Monday would bring. My math lessons would go on pretty much the same as they had before. But in a year when I feel more disconnected from my class than ever – a year where we can’t hug, can’t stay in close contact, can’t even see each other smile behind all the masks – her reminder that these students still saw me as their leader and that all the things these students were experiencing were amazing life lessons if we embraced them as such – her note, struck a much needed chord in my soul.
I am not a hero. I am a teacher. Adapting to the changing environment is part of life and part of being a human on this planet right now. It’s what every single one of us is doing. No one has been untouched by this virus. No, I am not a hero for teaching under these circumstances. But if I can teach my little corner of the world, embodied in these ten year old bodies that we can adapt, we can embrace change with open hearts and minds and positive attitudes; if I can show, model and convince these children that life is going to be this way even when there isn’t a global pandemic going on, that change and adversity are an integral and necessary part of life; if I can help just one child to feel strong in the face of adversity, then maybe, just maybe I have done my job. But for this woman, this author of this note, she has already done that. She has empowered, she has encouraged, she has reminded us of the larger picture. She, with one quickly written and copied note, spread a sense of purpose and calm. She may not be a teacher by profession, but today she was most certainly, my hero.
Blessed Little Things 