Winter storm 2021

It's funny because 2021 has felt like a winter storm ever since it started, at least from a teacher's perspective. Now I sit here in my quiet, dark house (to conserve energy) with only candlelight by my computer, listening to the fire crackle in the fireplace, watching the rare Texas snow gently fall outside, and I feel calmed by the actual winter weather. 

It means I can stay home, I can extend my morning quiet time in the Word, I can talk some things out with God, I can rest by my purring little cat all curled up next to me, I can write this blog, I can catch up on school work, I can plan lessons . . . I can stop hurrying, I can think things through, and I can rest.

Truthfully, I will forever look back at the year 2020 as a gift to my soul. It reminded me of my need for quiet and solitude to really feel alive and regenerated, to feel like I am able to be my best self and give the best of me to others. Not everyone is wired like me, so the loss of physical connection with others and the forced isolation did a number on their social personalities. Not me. It refreshed my soul like no other year of my life. 

That's not to say people don't matter to me. I just connect with people in a quiet, deep way, and I thrive on spending time one-on-one with people or in a situation where we have opportunities to communicate often through writing. I am much better with my words when I have a chance to write them, and I tend to get choked up when there are too many people or my voice gets swallowed by noise and other voices louder than my own. I listen and observe most of the time, and then I find a quiet place to reflect and process all the information I've just taken in. I give my students 30 minutes of quiet, peaceful music every day to do the same, and they say it's their favorite part of the day. I may not be that fun, energetic, playful teacher that others are, but my kids and my colleagues know where to come when they need a moment of peace. 

This year has proven to be the polar opposite of 2020 for me, as teaching in this new reality has made me feel like a scattered mess. I struggle to concentrate, my mind constantly runs, and I have little to no time to be alone, to embrace a silent hour to thoroughly plan a lesson or figure out how to reteach a concept that my students didn't grasp well. Sadly, those re-teaching lessons seem to be necessary more often than not these days because trying to teach two separate ways (in person and virtually, sometimes both simultaneously) is nearly impossible and is just not effective. Nor can I be effective when I'm expected to do both in the same amount of time as I was once expected to just teach a full in-person class, and with students that change back and forth from in person to virtual on a weekly basis. We need consistency, routine, and daily practice to really internalize what we're learning. With this model of "choosing" what days I go to school and what days I learn online (when most of my materials are left at school), I, as their teacher, am left to meet expectations of what and how my kids are learning that are just beyond my control at this point.  I see the gaps get bigger, and no matter how much I problem solve, plan, collaborate, try new ideas, I still feel an incredible sense of defeat. I am a teacher, and I want to be effective in what I do. When something doesn't work, I go back to the drawing board and find a way that it will work. I've had difficult years where particular situations called for particular ways of teaching, and I've had successful years where all the dynamics just worked well together. But in all eighteen years of my teaching career, I don't know that any other year has left me feeling so defeated. 

Part of the problem is the model of teaching two separate groups, part of it is the time factor of having to teach everything twice (once recorded on video, and then again in person). Part of it is trying so hard to keep both groups fully engaged, part is the constant, never-ending interruptions with technology issues, part is the liberty that both students and parents have taken with the new "option" to stay home, changing the students' sense of structure and routine significantly from one day to the next (which has to be allowed because of the need to quarantine for either having symptoms of COVID yourself or being exposed to someone who does). But I think the biggest problem is that the expectations held over both students and teachers haven't changed. The rubrics that administrators are looking for are still the same. Student growth and achievement is still measured by the same scoring rubrics. The same tests that take away so much actual teaching time are still required and now take double or triple the effort to make those tests doable for our virtual learners, as well, despite the fact that we need MORE teaching time to even think about meeting the expectations over us. And besides that, our students are starving for attention, connection, and relationship right now, so I don't understand why anyone in their right mind would think the lost time and pressure of yet another test is going to benefit anyone. Especially when we know the results will be skewed because not everyone is testing with the same variables in place. Something has to give. We've got to let something go before we convince students that interrupting their already interrupted learning time in order to obtain a test score is the ultimate goal in education  or before we convince teachers that their own lives and mental health don't matter. 

IT. IS. INSANE.

Not a single rubric has been rewritten to give a teacher credit for how she handled the latest interruption, for how she addresses the current mental health pandemic in her classroom, for her innovations and changes to help students learn more self-sufficiency to prepare them for a possible need to quarantine, for her endless pursuit of learning new technology, for the hours upon hours she spends to make sure her students know how to access the digital resources to help them on the days they are not at school in person, or for the ways she lets her students know she loves them and cares about them without being able to hug them or work closely with them like before. Not a single rubric can measure all that these kids have learned in the midst of this pandemic. All we are measuring is what they have supposedly lost academically rather than all they have gained experientially. Our kids, and our teachers, are blossoming with creativity that's not measured anywhere. We've learned to survive and find a new way to teach and learn, but with that should come a new way to measure and define true learning and teaching. 

Teachers are stretched so thin right now, and perhaps the greatest issue I see is that all this chaos leaves no time for our own mental or physical health or to take care of our families' mental and physical health. I have friends and family experiencing huge losses, some related to COVID, some not, that I have no time to reach out to. I have two adult children who need guidance, and I'm not always mentally available to them. I have a husband and marriage that need my time and devotion. I have two elderly parents who have been hit by COVID, and I barely have time to check up on them or take them the things that they might be needing. I have family members I haven't connected with in months, definitely not due to not having them on my mind. I lose sleep, my heart races, my blood pressure rises, my mind races and mixes my thoughts and ideas all together, and then I get up and face another day. Some days I feel like I reached the majority of my kids, other days not so much. Like one of my little girls in class always says, "We just try our best, right, Teacher?"

So, I've been spending about 30 minutes of quiet time each morning of 2021 so far studying Psalm 23, one verse at a time, pondering over each and every word. My son, Juan David, gifted me a gift card for my favorite bookstore for Christmas, and God led me to use it to purchase this study on Psalm 23 by Jennifer Rothschild. I took interest in it a while back and then forgot about it, but I think God knew I needed it for this particular time. He has a way of leading me to just the right study when I need to hear something specific from Him.  

I think one of my favorite verses in this psalm is the second part of verse 2. He (my Shepherd) leads me beside still waters. Still waters are so calming to me, but I realized the verse means more than just the calming aspect of the waters. Sheep won't drink unless the waters are still. Still waters serve two purposes--to give us rest and to refresh us. I literally cannot get the refreshment I need until the waters are still. God knows my job has turned into a human hamster wheel this year, and He knew that I, along with all my fellow teachers, needed to find those still waters again. 

And He sent snow. 

And a snow day tomorrow.

I'll take it. I'll receive it as a gift, a day or two to stay home, to embrace the quiet, and to rest and refresh from the still waters of this actual winter storm.

And then I'll get back up and press on through the valley of this "winter storm". And remember I'm in my school for a purpose, teaching from my heart, whether it's measured by a rubric or not. 

On Friday we did a Valentine scavenger hunt during our Valentine party, and they had to think of someone they loved. They all ran to me and said, "We love Mrs. Alspaugh." They are my why, and God gave each and every one of them to me precisely at this time.