To help me be more critical and mindful of the bonds I’m forging in and out of the classroom, I write anonymous letters to some of my current and former students. This is the seventh post in the series.
Note: While all of my previous letters were written to individual students, given the COVID-19 crisis, this one is written to all of my current students.
Dear Students,
We’re three weeks in, and this remote learning thing is beginning to settle in. The Zoom sessions, mounds of emails, and teaching from my bedroom have somehow developed into routines. It’s all still quite strange, but markedly less strange than what it once was.
I wonder how you all are feeling about it. It may be hard to judge with many other aspects of your young lives evolving at the same time. Your stories are vastly different now than they were a month ago. Many of you are still picking up the pieces. Your families have been hit hard. Illness has gripped your reality, you have lost loved ones. For some, parents. Sadly, it seems that every day I learn of another one of you who has been wounded by this vile and unmerciful pandemic. Even though I have lost both of my parents, I simply can’t understand your loss. Others have had guardians lose jobs and are struggling to make ends meet, yet are still required to log on and fulfill empty demands. And for those privileged enough to have not been directly touched by this virus, many of you have expressed a sap in energy and severe lack of motivation. Through extended bouts of isolation and nothing but more bad news arriving each day, you are feeling helpless, alone, and uncertain about your future.
For these reasons and many more, being your teacher right now is hard. I mean, seriously, what am I doing trying to teach you polynomial long division? Is that what is important right now? And why am I having you drudgingly scan and upload your work to Classroom every day? So I can feel like I’m assessing your math thinking? Why am I tyrannically and insensitively pushing deadlines? I have cut the curriculum in half, but why have I given you so many grades? Am I leading with lessons — or love? Why am I attempting to recreate our in-person learning experience? Don’t I see that this will never be possible? I’m staring at a green dot!
I’m sorry, I’m just confused. And I miss you…and our classroom. I’m worried about not doing right by you and your needs. Right now, I don’t think I am. I haven’t been as sensitive as I should be during this time and it’s getting to me. I was already apprehensive about where I saw teaching and learning headed before this virus threw a tarantula on our lives, and now that it has, I don’t know what the hell to think. It’s hijacked our way of life and forced us to exist only as screennames on Zoom and Google Classroom. I’m sorry, but that’s just not good enough for me.
Speaking of Zoom, you have to excuse me each day as I plead with you all to activate your camera and share your faces with me and the rest of the class. I get that you don’t often want to be seen at a time like this (especially you, 1st period), but I find seeing you awfully comforting. Noticing you sitting atop of your kitchen counter eating ramen starts a conversation. It gives me something to hitch my floating mind to. It makes you human again. You see, I used to be able to walk up to you at any time and create a moment out of thin air. I could ask you about the essay you’re working on in ELA, your new hamster, or how your mom is holding up at her new job. Now I don’t even get to hear each of you speak unless you do it on your own (maybe that should change?), let alone see you. Even if you’re having a crummy day, please know my day will always be better after seeing you. It’s all I have.
I want to strike the right balance of compassion and accountability, but instead, I’m being held hostage by a screen and a keyboard. There’s a pressure — both externally and internally — to make things as normal as possible for you. Well, THIS ISN’T NORMAL. Putting those words in all caps — and this letter in general — is a self-imposed prick on my finger; a reminder of what’s important. Being aware of how ensconced I now am in remote learning is in itself a check for myself. With the school year now permanently severed and with us being detached for so long, I fear that the humanity that I tried so hard to solicit in our classroom is being drained out of me one Zoom session at a time. Gradually, over the last month, my settling into remote learning has pivoted my attention away from your struggles, hardships, and the state of flux that your lives have become. I’m getting comfortable staring at a green dot and it is getting scary. I apologize.
In lieu of that apology, I have nothing to offer you but my word that I will be more critical of how I serve you in the months ahead. I promise frequent non-academic check-ins and a greater emphasis on community and togetherness and less of a focus on the strictures of curriculum. I promise to remember that you are more than a green dot or screenname. I promise to do my best to lead with love, not lessons.
Sincerely Yours,
Mr. P