School Closure: A First-Year Teacher’s Point of View

I graduated college in May of 2019 and jumped right into teaching. Seriously, I went right into co-teaching the last 2 weeks of school at the end of May 2019. While it was a crazy experience, I was thrilled to be able to jump into my career so quickly.

I proceeded to spend the summer coaching basketball, taking Masters classes, and going to new teacher trainings. I was ready for the school year and excited about finally having my own classroom full of students after years of preparing.

Fast forward to August. I take my first day of school picture, and I head out to start my first year of teaching.

I had big dreams for year.

I had dreams of all these fun activities we would do, successes my students would have, and relationships that I was going to build with my students. Let me just say, reality hit HARD.

Teaching is HARD.

Those fun activities I dreamed about? They take so long to plan, are hard to match with curriculum, and students sometimes just don't seem to care.

The student success that I dreamed of? I had more students than expected failing my class, and I was struggling to find what they all needed to help them be successful.

Those relationships I wanted to build? Some students skipped class so much that I never got the chance to know them, and some students were too shy to open up. There were other students that I just didn't feel like I could connect with.

All in all, I didn't feel like ENOUGH. I often felt like my students deserved so much better than having me as a teacher. I cannot tell you how many times I was in tears because I felt like I had failed my students.

August to March were hard months. By the time March rolled around, I was coming off of my first season as a basketball coach while I was also a new teacher. Oh, and I had gotten married in December, so throw a wedding into the mix.

I was mentally and physically exhausted.

I am sad to say that when they first announced that we would be taking 3 weeks off of school for the pandemic, I welcomed it as a sweet vacation. I thought that this was just what I needed to get myself back on track. I hate that I was looking forward to the break from school when I knew it was for a serious health reason and that many students were going home into the unknown of what life looked without school, but that was my truth in the moment.

Slowly, the 3 weeks turned into 6 weeks, and then the new return-to-school day was pushed back to May 4th.

As I write this, we are 5 weeks into this "break" from physically going to school, and my school district is two weeks into Non-Traditional Instruction. These last 5 weeks have been eye-opening for me.

I began to realize and acknowledge that my tears and frustrations were because I cared about my students. I cared about their well-being, and I wanted them to succeed.

As we began NTI, I got a message from a student last week that really stood out to me.

"I miss you!! I hope your doing well. And you were always my favorite teacher."

I started to think that maybe I was enough for these students. Not because I made the best lessons or because I had the best behavior management plan, but because I cared about them.

Being enough isn't about being perfect.

The short break from school did seem to do me some good, but it began to sink in slowly that our May 4th return-to-school date was becoming less and less likely. The pandemic wasn't going anywhere, and there were no signs pointing to a safe return to school this year. While I knew it was coming and that it was the safest option, it was still a weird feeling when the news was announced yesterday on April 20th.

Kentucky schools would remain closed for the remainder of the 2019-2020 academic year.

Here is the timeline of a first year teacher's reaction to school closure.

1. Stand in the shower with little to no thoughts. Hot showers always wake me up when I am tired, so maybe this shower would wake me from from this weird dream?

2. It starts to sink in that students were missing out on the rest of their year. Students aren't going to see their friends or teachers, play sports, have prom, or participate in any of the other end-of-the-year activities that they deserve.

3. This emotion hits. I will let Sadness speak for the both of us.

4. That 3 week "vacation" that I originally welcomed is now greatly extended, and this is what I went to bed thinking about that.

5. In the end, I woke up this morning like other teachers around the state with this attitude.

Why? Because my students still need me. Our students still need us.

Teachers all across the state today woke up and got to work because that is what our students deserve. We are not just trying to impart knowledge, though we hope to share some of that along the way. We are trying to add normalcy to the abnormal. We are trying to support students through the unknown. We are trying to help our students through a global crisis.

BECAUSE WE CARE.

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