Tuesday, September 1, 2020

Mental Health Math

 



Welcome to the hardest year of every teacher's career. I think we can all agree on that. The most fun thing about that statement is, for many of us, the year hasn't even started yet. For the rest of us it's still as fresh as a Prince of Bel Aire. And yet, if you asked 100 random teachers what the hardest year of their teaching career was, 98% of them would say the 2020-2021 school year. Two percent would kick you in the shin and walk away in a huff.

I, of course, can only speak for myself. I have found, through this blog and through my books, that my experiences are often more universal that I give them credit for. So while I don't pretend to know for certain how everyone is feeling and coping, I can tell you how I'm feeling and coping (read: pretending to cope) in hopes that you find some common ground and at least feel less alone. Teaching is a solitary pursuit, no matter how good your grade level team, your staff, your extended community on social media, we're all in this alone. Just us and the kids. I would bet that's how most of us prefer it most of the time. Sometimes, though...sometimes all that does it make it hard to tell if we've gone right round the bend or not. When there ain't nobody in here but us chickens how do you know when you clucking eggs are scrambled?

So how am I feeling? And, by the commutative property laid out in the previous paragraph, how might you be feeling?

I am of two minds. Two minds that are actually three. Picture, if you will, a circle. Hold that image in your head. It could be a square or a rectangle if you must be that kid. Draw a line down the diameter of the circle, perfectly bisecting it. (You square/rectangle people- just cut it in half.) You now have two halves. Hopefully I'm not leaving anyone behind yet. Now, perpendicular to that line, draw another line, breaking one of the halves in half. You should have one full half, and two quarter sections. 

Let's start with the full half section. I want you to label that section the title of this post. Yes, I see you writing "The Title Of This Post." You're very funny, everyone laughed. You know what I meant. Call it "Free Fallin'" please. And let's shade it in blue. You know, like the sky that we're falling through. 

I feel overwhelmingly like I'm free falling. My district has a strong leader at the top, and many strong links in the chain of command from the top all the way down to the school level. Nearly every link is strong, competent, and capable. That is not enough for this year. This year, even with a great team at the top, excellent coaches, and principals who are doing their level best, things are not coming together like they should be. I know we are not alone in this. I do not know why every district feels the need to make the same mistakes as their cousin districts. I feel like most of us could be watching the districts that opened first while taking copious notes and asking many questions in detailed emails, then taking that information back home and not falling into some of those same pits. I also do not know why some districts have not involved teachers in the planning process from the beginning. I want to be clear again here that I like my district very much and I respect much of our leadership and I know this is an impossible position they have been put in by Cheeto Hitler and Dolores Umbridge (Hey, what's the difference between Betsy DeVos and Dolores Umbridge? At least Umbridge wasn't scared to walk into a school. And Umbridge was written to be an awful human, Betsy comes by it on her own.)

But because there hasn't been much teacher feedback and input into the process a lot of the information we're now getting feels incomplete or unfeasible. Much of it doesn't seem like it will survive that first week with students. Now, I am not a person who expects something new to work the first time. Or even the first few times. But I am the guy who will be standing in the front, along with my fellow teachers, when the fecal matter strikes the ventilator. And I'm not looking forward to clean up on aisle 14 for however long that takes. 

I think things could have been done better. What things is a different post and requires a much deeper level of specificity than I'm willing to get into right now. I also acknowledge that "I could help do things better" is an amazingly egotistical thing to say and I do not in any way know what would make things easier for middle or high school. Those worlds are mysteries to me. But I would bet that there are teachers at those levels who feel like I do and with our powers combined we could create Captain FigureItOut. 

Without all of that I'm in freefall. Freefall without a chute that I packed myself. Someone packed it. I saw bits and pieces of how it was packed. It's not how I would have packed it. Now I'm falling and starting to think about grasping for that ripcord and I don't know what's going to happen when I pull it.

Which leads me to the first of the two quarter sections of our circle. Let's keep getting negative so we can end on a positive note. Color this section red, please. Name it "WTF Am I Gonna Do?"

This part of my brain is overwhelmed with What Am I Gonna Do? I keep stumbling over my pre-planning because everything I do, my entire classroom environment, is built on being in the room with the kids. Giving them access to the materials and time they need to learn how I believe they will learn best. Allowing myself to drift free on the winds of whim and inspiration. Surfing atop piles of cardboard as we take the boring story in the Journey's book and turn it into a week-long build that allows for deeper learning than we would have gotten otherwise. Starting the year with spaghetti and marshmallow towers that immediately sets the tone for how groups will work collaboratively and how every activity will be tied to deeper and more complex educational ideas than they can even glimpse on that first day, but I know what's coming and how the project will echo all year. 

I can't do that from home. Some well meaning person on twitter suggested I make regular packets of materials to send home to kids so I'm not burdening the parents to buy things or have things and that's great. Completely unrealistic, but great. Because yes, if they were in my room I'd be buying these supplies. I'd be supplying them (see what I did there?). But I'm not paying bi-weekly postage for thirty-something kids. I can't. Cheeto Hitler has stolen all the mailboxes anyway. 

So what am I gonna do, man? How on Earth can I pivot my class to completely online and do anything like what I normally do? Be anything like the teacher I am? Build relationships, establish bonds and trust, read the body language that kids speak fluently (but each one speaks differently, and it takes time to learn to translate). How, man? I'm panicked. I'm freaking out about a lot right now. And let's not even bring up that my parent brain is also freaking out about my second grader and my kindergartner going through the same thing downstairs with my wife while I'm upstairs doing it with my class. Let's pretend that that hooey about "leave your personal life at the door" is a real thing people can do. Even though for distance learning the door is my house. So the metaphor falls apart immediately. 

Let's look at that last quarter of the circle. Yes, or square or rectangle, I didn't forget about you I was just ignoring you. What do we label this possible saving section? The only part of my teaching brain that is keeping me from full blown DEFCON One hiding under my desk and rocking back and forth. Let's call it "I Thrive Under Pressure."

I've never encountered a year like this. None of us has. Anyone who says they know what they're doing is lying. *Looks back a few paragraphs when I say I could help solve this* I said "help solve", not "I know exactly what to do." Anyone telling you they know how to teach and build relationships and weather this distance learning storm, anyone who says that with full confidence while looking you in the eye, is a liar and should never be trusted to petsit a goldfish. They don't know.

What I do know, though, is that I'm a good dancer. 

In my head that's how I think of what we do when we encounter a bunch of unknown problems. When the classroom is going to hell and nothing is working. We dance. I dance. I search for any beat, any flow, and I try to follow it. I stay light on my feet, I listen for the changes and watch my (thirty-something) partners for clues to when they want to lead. This year I'm gonna have to be Ginger Rogers. Yes, Ginger. Look up what Fred Astaire said about what she was doing when they danced together. This is a quote you should know. 

I can, too. I'm good under pressure. When the room is going bad and the coffee isn't working and the air conditioner is broken and it's the week it rains randomly right before recess every single day and I forgot my lunch at home and the kids have had enough, I know how to teach. I can find a way. That's all I've got right now. 

Faith.

I've got faith that I know what I'm doing. I know I don't, not this year. But I know I can figure it out because I have to. I know it'll be bad. I know it won't go right all the time. I know I'm gonna be banging my head against my desk and I'm going to be working myself silly to be sure my parents don't hate me and hate what their kids are being asked to do and to be sure my kids don't hate this kind of school. I don't know how yet. I have glimmers. Sparks. Embers. I haven't chased them yet because they're still formless. I'm in freefall too. Nothing on the classroom level can be planning with any detail yet because I'd be best laying plans like a mice or a man. Man plans, unpredictable wifi laughs. 

But I'm pretty sure there are some rabbits in my hat. (There was one of two places I could pull an idea out of and I went with that one. You're welcome.) I don't know where the rabbits are, what they look like, or how fast they'll run off. But every year I doubt my ability to teach and every year I can.

I was telling my therapist that I have anxiety in a lot of situations. I wrote about this too, not long ago. I have helpless anxiety nearly everywhere except in my classroom. I do not get anxious in class. Ever. I'm clinging to that right now, my friends and readers. Holding tightly to it. Because I am anxious. I'm not sleeping. I'm snappy. I'm stressed. I'm way more negative about way more things than I'd like to be. And I know the why for all of that. I bet we're all feeling it. Yours might be manifesting differently than mine, but I bet it's there. 

So I'm going to cling to the rock of Faith in Myself in the middle of these rapids. I'm going to get dunked and half drowned and rolled and bruised. But all I've got right now is that rock. 

I hope you have a rock. If you don't you can borrow mine. We can do this. It's gonna be rough. It's just starting. But we're good teachers. So we can feel our feelings, but inside hold that rock tight. It's only a quarter of my brain, but it's all I've got working for me right now.


If you like this post and the other posts on this blog you should know I’ve written three books about teaching- He’s the Weird Teacher, THE Teaching Text (You’re Welcome), and A Classroom Of One. I’ve also written one novel- The Unforgiving Road. You should check them out, I’m even better in long form. I’m also on the tweets @TheWeirdTeacher.

1 comment:

  1. Somewhere in all this, I started hearing Buzz Lightyear and the phrase "falling with style". It probably won't ever be flying - not like this - but maybe it can get us... somewhere?

    Great post. Nobody keeps it quite so real.

    ReplyDelete