I Smiled A Lot Today : Teaching in the Pandemic

I smiled a lot today and no one was really the wiser.

I cracked a ton of jokes and nodded at all the right moments and muted myself on the computer and in real life. I laughed it off when I didn’t know what Jamboard was yesterday and still didn’t know today. I thought it was a clothing store in Freeport or some kind of arcade game? No, I think we are supposed to know what it is and get to clicking the virtual post it notes. The virtual post it notes for when we go to red everyone keeps saying. If we go to red. Be ready for red. Red is my panic color.

I grabbed a real life post it note on my desk and felt the smoothness of the paper under my skin.

If we are supposed to be learning Jam Jam , how will I learn See Saw and Second Step, but also a whole new math program. And how will students access the new math program for only two days a week? Or should they access it five days a week? Or two days a week and three days a week they will simply absorb it? How will I tell students it’s okay to go slow and hang out in the shallow end for a bit, if I feel like I am drowning in the deep end with all the new information and new questions.

Then I came home and rage walked my dog and looked around at all the mess and all the dishes that my 11-year-old and 9-year-old had made and I sat on the porch steps and sobbed. So many dishes and so much mess and school hasn’t even begun yet. Then I made dinner and sobbed and then I rage cleaned the fridge and sobbed.

I smiled a lot today and I want to keep that up.

Because I want this thing called school to go off without a hitch. I want students to feel cozy and warm and welcome. I want my room to still have that North Pole vibe and happy sounds to emanate from it. I want the learning to take off at whatever pace it does and support wherever I am needed. I thought this afternoon, when the printer ink wouldn’t work, and my technology brain wouldn’t fire, that if other people felt my smile, they would think it wasn’t so bad. That we all could do it. That we could do anything.

I didn’t fake smile because I am afraid of the virus.

I am not afraid, not of the virus. I am more afraid of putting too much on my 11-year-old while I am working. I am afraid of asking my 9-year-old to suck it up by himself when he can’t figure out his chrome book problems while I am supporting someone else more earnestly and compassionately in my classroom that is almost his size. I am afraid I am asking them to do more than they signed up for , simply by being my kids. I am equally terrified I am going to give more attention to my cohorts than my co-habitants. I am also afraid at failing at everything I so desperately want to achieve this year.

So I have been keeping up the smile, the empty smile all day long.

I decided at 7:30, that other people may also be operating on empty smiles and so I want to take more note of the people around me and if they are operating on empty or only a quarter of a tank, or just on the fumes. This is all worth it, this school experiment/adventure, but it is hard and I want to let all my parents of my students know, that no assignment, no google meet, no Jamboard sesh is worth emptying that tank completely. Let some of it go, what you don’t know, what you can’t control. That way when you do smile, it won’t be empty, and your whole body will feel that smile. It won’t be fake, like mine was today and that moment will be worth it.