Month: September 2020

Finding my joy

“Listen,” I say softly, “there are a lot of things that you can’t control right now, but there are also a lot that you CAN control. I need you to focus on what *you* can control.”

I’d swear I can hear this child nod. We pause, silent for a moment, letting this idea settle.

“Let’s make a list,” I say. “I’ll start. You can control when you take breaks. Are you taking breaks?”
“Um. Yeah, I guess.”
“So let’s start with that.”

We talk for over half an hour. I cradle the receiver to my ear and help one child take back a sense of agency, a sense that they are capable of learning even in a system that seems designed to take advantage of every weakness inherent in their learning disability. I hang up, exhausted but content. I know that the problems aren’t actually fixed – both parents and teachers are spiralling as they try to figure out how to help – but I also know that I’ve helped give this kid a little shelter from the storm. Hopefully this will be enough to allow him to find his footing, remember his strengths, and forge ahead.

This is the Special Education work I want to do. This is the work I’ve been missing at the beginning of this pandemic-infused school year. Lately, I’ve found myself remembering the words of my Spec Ed mentor from years ago: The kids always come first. The system will tell you that the paperwork comes first, but it’s wrong. Miss every deadline you need to in order to support the kids.

The last few weeks have exhausted me. I thought I was embodying my mentor’s words, but I’ve realized that, in fact, given the restrictions on seeing students and the system’s insatiable need for accountability, I have actually been putting paperwork first. Most of my phone calls have been about IEPs, not about helping. Oh, I thought I was asking about the kids, but I was actually working through a list, making sure I had checked all the boxes. I’m embarrassed to realize it, but the kids were coming second, the myriad phone calls really in service of a form.

What’s important to me are relationships and people. What’s important is listening, believing and creating space for growth. If I am going to thrive in this moment, I am going to have to find my joy – because my joy is what allows me to reach out, is what allows me to support, to help, to encourage.

I lean away from the phone and find solace in my lonely office, away from the colleagues and students. What can I control?I ask myself. Am *I* taking breaks? I stand up, stretch, don my mask, and head across the hallway to make myself a tea.

I can control how I interact with students: I will use the phone to connect with students who might not otherwise ask for help. (In fact, I am astonished by the kids who are reaching out now compared to the kids who came to the Spec Ed room before.) I will make time for long conversations when they are necessary. I will proactively reach out to students who I hear may be struggling. I will put students first.

I can control how I interact with teachers: I will use our new, complicated school day to offer a different kind of support for teachers. I can share Google classrooms with them and offer ideas for UDL when teachers ask me about this. I will offer breaks so they can breathe during these long days. I will find ways to teach that are not dependent upon having a class.

I love being a teacher. Teaching is written into my very being. I know what brings me joy. Now, even in the midst of this most unusual time, I can decide to pursue the joy available in this moment and remember that the deadlines are about systems and I am about people.

Later in the day, I learned that my student’s parent had called the principal. The storm winds continued to blow, but the parent also reported that my conversation with their son had been really helpful: “I don’t know what she said, but it’s the first time I’ve seen him smile in days.”

Ah, there’s the joy.

I’m on the phone

Photo by Alex Andrews on Pexels.com

The cellphone lights up on my desk. I glance at it: my colleague from down the hall has a question. I type in “I’m on the phone” while I continue to “mmmhmmm” my way through a conversation with a parent.

I don’t have any students assigned to me this quadmester. My colleagues are muddling their way through a convoluted teaching schedule that involves teaching one class for 225 minutes per day (plus a 75 minute at-home work period) for one week during which half the students come one day while the other half are online; then the two cohorts switch. As if that weren’t enough, teachers must deliver both synchronous and asynchronous instruction for the students at home while remaining masked and socially distant from the students in the room. Then the next week they do the same thing with a different class. And then they start again. While all of that is happening, I have been assigned to Spec Ed, and I am on the phone.

We have about 225 students at our school who have IEPs. Usually, we send forms – thorough, if impersonal – home to parents to ask for input; I would guess we average about a 25% rate of return, maybe a little more. Usually, we meet face-to-face with every student. We sit with them for five or ten minutes and look at their IEP, showing them what accommodations they have, asking what works, what needs tweaking. Usually, the Spec Ed room is full of kids coming in to pick up a Chromebook, get some extra explanation, figure out how to study more effectively. Usually, I interact with my partner, EAs, other teachers and guidance counselors every day. I squeeze in the occasional phone call and respond to email as quickly as I can, but usually my focus is on the students in front of me. Usually Spec Ed is the kind of job that asks me to juggle a knife, a fire stick and a teddy bear while standing on a beach ball. But 2020, as we all know, is not a usual year. So I am on the phone.

My partner and I are calling every family and every student about their IEP. We call on the days when the students are in the cohort that is working from home. We cross our fingers that we aren’t interrupting their parents’ workday, that we aren’t waking the student up. We leave messages, send emails and, most of all, we talk on the phone.

This is a completely different way to support students. I am simultaneously lonely and overstimulated. I find myself exhausted from listening – really listening – to the way each family and each child is experiencing our education system during this crisis. They are thoughtful about their needs, their child’s needs. They are alert to what changes have happened this year, how their students have responded, what might come next. They are hopeful and fearful and mostly they just want things to be good enough. Mostly they are hoping to muddle through. Almost always they are surprised, delighted, impressed that we are calling – as if this is entirely unexpected amidst the chaos of the school year. Most of the parents are kind. Most of the kids are upbeat. Almost everyone understands that we are part of a team that works best when we work together.

Of course, it takes time to build those teams, and right now I’m spending that time on the phone. I jot down notes as I listen, little memory jogs to help me remember what information to email teachers, when to call my administrator, when to give Guidance a heads’ up. I give out my email, my phone number again and again. I say, “don’t hesitate to call as soon as you sense a problem; this year classes are moving very quickly.” I say, “If you’ve tried to get in touch and I haven’t gotten back to you, please send me a gentle reminder. Sometimes I just get overwhelmed.”

I’m overwhelmed. I long to be in the classroom, juggling through the chaos of the class schedule created for us. I long to be reading and writing and talking with students as I try to convince them that their voice matters. I miss the physical presence of people in a room, of my colleagues and my students. I imagine that sharing their overwhelm will feel better, more present, than these voices on the other end of the phone.

But I am on the phone. And I am convinced that their voice matters. “I know this year looks different; please call or email right away if you’re struggling. We can work together to fix just about anything.” I listen for the silent nod on the other end of the line. I say goodbye. I hang up.

Then I turn to the computer and pull up another IEP. I read through the assessments, the accommodations, the transitions. I find the student’s timetable. Deep breath. I look at the student’s picture, call up a memory of the child from years past, hold tight to that connection, and then I pick up the phone. “Hello, this is Amanda Potts, calling from Canterbury High School. I’m your child’s Learning Support Teacher this year. Is this a good time to talk about their IEP?”

The cellphone lights up on my desk. I type “I’m on number 8. You?” and continue to “mmmhmmm” my way through a conversation with a parent.

https://twowritingteachers.org

Almost ready

I’m exhausted. I haven’t blogged for the last two weeks. I have plenty to say but no time to say it. I’ve put my entire classroom library into boxes and put all of the boxes onto shelves in the book room. I’ve cleaned classrooms and shelved more books than I could keep track of. I’ve thrown out papers and binder and, yes, books. Old books. Damaged books. Doesn’t matter because, as it turns out, we’re not allowed to hand out *any* books. For a week? two? the semester? No one knows. We are now teaching bookless.

I’ve been making up words.

With two colleagues, I’ve created a course shell, a course outline, and a Google Drive full of mentor texts to help English teachers make sense of how to teach for 225 minutes a day to groups that are in school every other day of every other week for a “quadmester.” I’ve copied and pasted and searched and linked and categorized until my eyes nearly crossed.

I’ve tried to connect to the internet, changed my password, moved to a new room, sent in call tickets to support staff. I’ve done the required PD in the early morning and late at night, sitting at the kitchen counter, grateful that my internet works.

I’ve argued about class novels and talked about racism. I’ve asked questions, said no, said yes, and said, “I have no idea” over and over. I’ve suggested changes. I’ve encouraged people to be kind to themselves. I’ve encouraged people to lean in to discomfort. I’ve publicly said, “We’ve got this” and privately fretted that we don’t have it at all. Then I’ve changed my mind. And changed it again.

I’ve limited my children to two hours of internet a day except when they took an online class that lasted 1.5 hours per day and taught them how to program, aka use the internet more than two hours per day. I’ve told them to play outside and said, “it’s just rain; you won’t melt” even as I opened the door and greeted them with towels. I’ve prepared them for classes that may or may not end up outdoors or indoors or on line for who knows how many hours per day.

I’ve baked banana muffins.

I’ve shamelessly taken advantage of my spouse who took two weeks off so that I could prepare for a school year unlike any other. He has magically produced three meals a day, done the laundry and managed to landscape our backyard. He has not complained though he has taken refuge in board games.

I have given up checking the news, drinking alcohol and eating ice cream, then changed my mind within a day or an hour or a minute when yet another new announcement arrived and all of the rules changed again. I’ve avoided social media and the news; I’ve allowed social media and the news to swallow me whole.

I’ve walked every day. I’ve laughed and cried and talked and raged and read and written. I’ve picked up the phone and sobbed; I’ve ignored calls from those I love because I couldn’t bear to utter even one more word about school. I’ve recorded a podcast. I’ve recorded a podcast that didn’t record. I’ve said things I wish were not recorded.

I’m exhausted, but I’m ready. Half of the grade 9s came today; the other half come tomorrow. By Thursday, classes will start. The IEP system isn’t working; there are no paper towels in the girls’ restroom; the class lists are still changing; no one knows when teachers get bathroom breaks; we still cannot hand out books.

And despite it all, what I want more than anything is to see the students. What I want most is to look at them and say, “Welcome! I’m so glad you’re here! I’ve been waiting for you!”

2020-2021 is going to be a year like no other. I’m exhausted and incredibly excited for the changes that it will bring.