The Hidden Pressures of Remote Teaching

Besides the obvious components that really stink about not being in the classroom, like missing your people, feeling purposeful, getting the latest gossip at the copier, leaving your heathens at your own home to go teach a new crowd at school, there are smaller but more gut wrenching blows to be felt. But to be clear, I am not a lay down and get stepped on kind of girl. I like a challenge and kiddos are an awesome puzzle to be solved. Struggling with reading, we can work with that, can’t solve two digit addition, I’ve got blocks for you, don’t have lunch money: thats what the cafeteria is for, angry every time you get back from a long weekend at Dad’s house? Come join me at the horseshoe table and we don’t have to say anything, you can just fume until you feel like it. With remote teaching however, the puzzle becomes a little harder to solve. It could be because I don’t have access to the pieces, or I don’t have all my tools for puzzle piece assemblage, or not all the pieces are there, or some of the pieces are behind the couch or don’t want to answer my email. It could be that. But it’s other things too.

For example, differentiation is a big thing in education. I have told many a new teacher at my school, don’t you dare go into your formal evaluation without using that word. Admins love that word, but really we all automatically do it without asking. Teachers were doing it long before it was a big buzz word because it just makes sense. If a kid can’t read a level M text, then it makes sense to provide them with a level D text that they can’t read right? If Jerry can’t sustain writing workshop for 35 minutes, it makes sense for him to take a motor break after 15 minutes and come back and do the remaining time? The difficult part about differentiation from afar is that the window of differentiation becomes so much broader and so much more complex. Now teachers are not just trying to differentiate for a kiddo that they can’t see, hear or interact with on the daily. They are also trying to differentiate for a working mom who works at a senior facility and isn’t home all day to assist Bobby with his work, teachers are trying to differentiate for a Mom who has a family of five ranging from 2 to 18 and the 18-year-old needs the computer first. Teachers are trying to differentiate for a Dad who just lost his job and says the f bomb every other math page. Do you see where I am going with this? And I know it is easy to bitch about the packets, I bitch more than anyone I know about anything under the sun, but when you consider all these variables, its really difficult to create a semblance of the classroom that is geared toward the individual child, geared toward the mental and emotional state of the family, feasible enough for the child to finish in a timely manner, but engaging enough so they don’t put their middle finger up to it, but also demanding enough so people don’t email the principal and say this is just busy work. Ahhhh it really is a tangled little problem when it comes right down to it. I know I will solve it after a few long runs, so stay tuned.

The other part stems for the ugly stepsister that is facebook, pintrest, instagram and twitter. I both love and hate her at the same time. I love her because she gives me great ideas, but I hate her because sometimes those ideas just don’t work for me personally. For example, have you seen the videos with the teachers who are wearing their power outfit, (I set mine on fire out on the front lawn already) , with perfectly curled haired, beautiful lashes and concealer? They are posed in front of some kind of teal book shelf that has four books, a mason jar with colored pens and a book of the week. Now let me zoom you in to my household. I am wearing a three day bra, a bathrobe, I have roots for days, my mascara is in the trash along with my perfume, pride and sanity. I am perched at my kitchen table which is still littered with easter eggs and an old cup of coffee. Sometimes I reach for the coffee, sometimes for the Reeses egg, it depends on what time of the day it is. Behind me is a wall with a dead plant and a sign that says I miss you world. I will tell you every time I wake up in the morning and I work out and I do some writing, I write somewhere just for me , you are enough and I repeat it to myself. But it is hard to believe it when I scroll through and see Tina looking picture perfect doing an hour long lesson for kids who don’t ever interrupt. Its pretty freakin discouraging. But Yesterday, after I showered and hung up that bathrobe, gave that dead plant some water and went for a run it came to me. Have my parents once accused me of ever being a bad teacher? Have they ever messaged me and said these packets suck worse than bog water? We are throwing in the towel at anything you send home. The answer to that , teachers and readers of parents who are doing the best they can is no. They don’t expect you to tailor it perfectly for them, because guess what , every time we tailor the day and we think we have it on lock down, the universe sends a brand new dumpster fire problem at us and we have to completely throw the the play book out and draw a new one. My parents know I’m a mom , a wife, a constant worrier. They also know I’m a damn good teacher, regardless of perfectly set hair or not. I think they set their judgement aside in March and I need place it into a corner at my house too, right where I put my container for anxiety.

My basic message of this post is that what you are doing right now is what you can manage. If google meet isn’t working, tell your parents that you are working out the kinks, sign out and go take a walk, do downward dog yoga style, turn on that episode of SChitts Creek where Davids closet is filled with termites of some sort. Take care of yourself , regroup and come back to the drawing board. If you are a parent, disrupt your classroom work and go give your own kids some attention that you have been reserving for other peoples children. If you are a Mom or Dad go sit on the porch by yourself if you can and consider how much you have tried that was new, discouraging or confusing. None of this you went to college for, there was no class on teaching through a pandemic. If you don’t post that video within the next twenty minutes, people will understand, they will get it. If your google meet sounds like the opening of Elton John in the Lion King parents get that too. This is all unchartered territory and anything you try , anything that is successful or not , anything that is appreciated or not, is still more than what was expected of you a few months ago. Keep at it, do the best you can, but don’t be afraid to put it in reverse, park it in the garage until you. can do the best you can. This is not your new normal, this is you breaking out of your comfort zone every single day because you miss your old normal. I see you and you . are . doing. great.