A Year Ago #sol21

A Year Ago. #sol21

March 12, 2021

A year ago, I woke up to a new day. I wrote about that last day in this post, A Brand New Day. School’s were closed, we didn’t know for how long. There were so many things we didn’t know that day.

I had just been sick that week, the sickest I had been in my life. Days and days of fever to the point I couldn’t think straight. I called the doctor, but didn’t go to the office for the risk. A dozen teachers at the school had that same virus also sick for days. I didn’t know then that was possible COVID-19. We’ve speculated many days and months after, was that COVID? We don’t know. When I finally took an antigen test in late August, there wasn’t a sign of the virus.

I stood in the Literacy Center that afternoon thinking of just the current units of study and my current coaching cycle. I didn’t know then that the next twelve weeks I would create a hub, an office, a classroom, a refuge in my dusty, neglected basement office used at that time to warehouse books. I hesitated that afternoon in the literacy center, turning around slowly considering what I might need if…. I had no idea what that it would mean.

A year ago, I had never gone to a google meet or a zoom meeting. I had never made a youtube video, or jerry-rigged a document camera from magnet clips and tin cans. I hadn’t shared my screen or read a book on line considering how the students could see the picture. I had no idea what asynchronous instruction meant.

A year ago, Friday the 13th really felt like Friday the 13th . There were so many unknowns.

A year ago, I had my first pivot. That day before I went home, I had taught in person with a student practicing his name writing. That name stayed written on my white board for five months. The magnetic letters that he arranged and rearranged to spell each letter, his lop-sided name painstaking written in bright orange crawled across the board.

The white board, the books, the desk would sit for a week until I had my appointment to come in and empty off the surfaces so that they could be disinfected. I still hadn’t learned about wearing masks and gloves, about endless hand sanitizing, and plexiglass barriers.

Now, online teaching is second nature. I have 6 or more small groups, conferences, and meetings a day on line. I can make a youtube video on a subject or a strategy using a pear deck or a jam board, google slides or quicktime in a few minutes.

Now, I have masks in my teacher bag, in my car, in my sock drawer, ready to match my outfit of the day, an outfit that almost exclusively consists of jeans. I have hand sanitizer on my cart, in my car, in my bag, on my desk and on my mind.

I’ve learned a lot this year. I’ve grieved a lot. I’ve struggled a lot. Mostly, I have hoped a great deal. Hoped for a day again to snuggle next to a readers, to read a book on a rug with a group of students I just dropped in on, to see the smile on the face of lots of people in real life… just like a year ago.