School is in Session: Teaching in a Pandemic

The first student day is in the books. It feels so good to finally say that. I meet a new rounds of cherubs in the morning, but for the time being, I can safely say, It went a lot smoother than I thought it would. Of course I had some hiccups, but I am prone to hiccups the first week and so with all of the Covid roadblocks, this is nothing new to moi.

I began the day by waking up at 3 freakin thirty. I was so nervous. Needed to meet that alarm. I did a work out and then began to cook the bacon. Because everyone wants their new teacher to smell like bacon grease on the first day right? I typically try to do so many different things at once before school that somehow I forget to eat breakfast or pack my own lunch. At one point I was french braiding hair, packing a cold lunch and putting on eyeliner. My husband woke up, showered himself and stumbled into our back-to-school photos. Ahhh the life.

My son, feeding off of and stomaching his own anxiety, asked eight times, if I would be back home at 3:30 to hear about his day. He batted away tears as he put on his new under armor shirt for the very first day.

This year, my daughter is headed to middle school and cares more about what she looks like and less about the mush that her brain has turned into. She now needs to be to school at 7 am which is hella early for the whole fam. I loaded her in the car after a back-school-pic and waited in the drop off line at the middle school.

You guys, the drop off line at the middle school is pretty elaborate. I don’t want to say it was like parking at Disneyland, but it was sort of like parking at Disneyland. Multiple lanes of traffic all headed to one shiny destination, one single lane of stardom, which is the yellow brick road of learning that my kid has missed since March. She reminded me before she hopped out, a nervous mass of muscles walking on converse, that I was not to cry or kiss her goodbye. I reminded her right back that I will do whatever the hell I want. Kids these days. It was so strange to see her walk into that building. I didn’t really get to see her walk out of her old building, so the compounding missing of the milestones really toy with my emotions these days. I can’t even watch Toy Story anymore. It’s like we are all fast forward growing up.

When I got to school, my team had given me a Dunkin gift card and an arrangement of flowers because they are basically the best. You might say your team rivals mine, but I would argue they can’t be beat. They are a cross between Stacey and Maryann in the Babysitters Club, Meredith and Christina in Greys, Rachel and Monica on Friends. They are like a pitcher of gratitude sangria, every. day. of. the. week.

As I waited for kids to come upstairs, it was the strangest of all strange vibes. I felt deja vue, like maybe I had been waiting for kids to come up those stairs for months and months. I guess I have. I took those sweaty palms and smoothed down my new Stitch Fix outfit. Damn this feels different than yoga pants I said to myself. This is the best I have looked in months.

No kids yet. No freakin kids. Maybe they aren’t coming, I worried. Maybe the Govna has called them off, maybe Dr. Shah said no more school. But then I heard a locker slam in first grade. A locker slam. You don’t realize the sounds you miss when you don’t hear them. The sound of the paper towel machine, the whir of the projector fan, the buzz of the intercom. The smell of new crayons. Suddenly, I could see him, a little red head bundle of fun coming down the hall toward me, disguising zero of his sweetness behind his mask. If he had nerves he didn’t show them.

“Hey Mrs. Grant.”

Hey Mrs. Grant. I have missed those words. Not Mom, not Taryn, not barking . Mrs. Grant. I have missed the heck out of that.

All of a sudden the nerves were gone. School supplies were everywhere, lockers were closing and the desks that had been so nicely sanitized and placed had kids in them. Real actual kids.

It only took one hour and fifteen minutes to get all nine of them in the classroom, from the bus and the drop off and the moon, but finally they were there. Some were coloring nervously, some were arranging their school supplies, others were looking bewildered at this place called school.

I didn’t look at my plan book once throughout the morning. Not once. It all came so naturally, even thought I hadn’t done it since March. I didn’t skip a beat. When I went the wrong way to get the milk, they zigged with me, when I forgot the straws they zagged back to the classroom. I think pivot will be our new buzz word, they are so freakin good at it. Too good.

Once outside, sitting in our circles, way faaah apart as Mainers do, I told them to take their masks off. Talk to each other I told them. They were still too quiet.

As the day progressed I did have hints of missing my other first days of school when the protocols weren’t so heavy, and when we used to rhyme words like cat and not sanitizer. The cat days. Those are in the dust peeps. But for the nay sayers that say school can’t be done. We done it. We have done it for one whole day and we will do it again. For the negative Nancy’s who say they won’t giggle and they won’t have fun, I ask you to peek in my room while we do Love Shack to go noodle, or I tell them how I can’t possibly follow the directional arrows at Hannaford and do my recreation of me playing bumper cars with the unsuspecting.

It was a good day and I needed it. I need to see little people, because big people have just been disappointing me so damn much lately. With their negativity, and their cruelness and their lack of empathy. I needed to set the timer for five minutes after lunch and watch them look at books, without any prompting or interrupting, and then to hear the timer go off and THEY KEPT READING. Be Still my heart.

I yearned to see them help each other with a worksheet and yes kids can help each other even when they are not sitting hip-to-hip. I am sure I will make mistakes as time goes on, but it is their mistakes that I hope to see the most. It is their imperfections, their first, second and third tries that will get me through the day, because I think after Tuesday, when I saw how flexible kids can be, how well they can pivot. I am able to see how much more I can grow from watching them. It was a good day, and I hope Thursday has just as many mistakes.