We've been moving top speed as teachers to keep up with the daily changes to our career that there hasn't really been a lot of time to take it all in. That's what we do. We jump when they say jump and do whatever it takes to meet the needs of our students. They're our kids for the year they're with us. We're used to being with them more than their own families.
And this class.
Wow. This class has my heart wrapped around it. Seventeen years of teaching, and this class has captured my heart almost like my very first class did. For starters, I taught the majority of them when they came to school for the first time at age four. I gave them their foundation. And now they're back with me at age seven, many of them now eight. We went from learning letters, shapes, and numbers to now writing about the best day in their life or making their own fiction and non-fiction books as budding authors. Now they're not just counting to twenty, but adding and subtracting with regrouping and anxiously wanting to learn multiplication.
And now here we are doing remote learning, me teaching them by audio and video and them creatively showing me what they learned by making videos, drawings, or taking pictures. And it doesn't surprise me that my quietest students are the ones jumping right in to this new way of learning, probably wondering where it has been all their life! I look forward to seeing where this takes them, as I know that for some, they will absolutely thrive, while I am sad to know that others will fall behind even further. But I will do my best to cheer them on and teach them from the sidelines. Once I actually do my hair, I'll try to do a daily read-aloud or something of the sort.
Today I set up "posters" in my virtual classroom to let them know that school is just a place to learn, no matter where that place may be. I set up all their favorite parts of class (Reading station rotations, Math station rotations, Fun center/manipulative activities, Jobs, etc.) and let them know that they can still do all that stuff from home. If they can learn to take charge of their learning at home and constantly make connections to learning and their daily activities, they're set for life. Sure, there's a lot to be lost in this unfortunate reality, but there's also a whole lot that can be gained.
When I went in to the classroom on Monday to get a few supplies, my heart sank and the reality hit hard. I missed them, especially not knowing when I will get to see their little faces again. So while I allow myself to grieve the loss of time that I assumed I'd have with these kids in my care and in my classroom for the remainder of this year, to grieve that they don't get to use all those fun materials and supplies that we have sitting silently in the classroom, I'm looking up, too. While it's hard to even wrap our heads around how quickly life came to a halt and changed in ways we never could have fathomed, we keep moving forward--whether it be for a few weeks or for the remainder of the school year.
It is what it is.....so rather than ask why at this point, our best bet is to just keep taking one step at a time, doing the next right thing in front of us.
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