Teachers in the Modern World

So, I know that there are plenty of blogs and articles that exist about teacher experiences, advice, classroom management, etc. I'm just restating some of those and possibly making new points.

First off, let's all be honest that thus has been one hectic and long year. All of us have had a lot of change and newness that we've never had to think about let alone experience it. For me it was the new way of teaching. Specifically how COVID threw us teachers into google classroom and forcing students and teachers to operate digitally. I personally, disliked the idea of teaching school online and there were at least two reasons why. The first was that I knew that my students were not going to do the work or put much effort into it. Now, I'm not saying that all my students fell into that category but a majority did. Second, I knew that online learning doesn't work well for all students. I am a visual and hands on learner so I can only imagine what many students felt while doing classes online. Trust me, I feel your pain. Don't get me wrong there are advantages to utilizing google classroom for the classroom but it also made things difficult. Among those difficult things, at least for me, was trying to find good, free resources that were digitalized, and if I didn't find any I had to scan all the documents and email them to my work email so I could upload them as a PDF for my students. It was such a hassle. I also knew that the students could also cheat on my assignments and yes I could essentially, "lock" my assignments on chrome books and I knew that not all my students had chrome books and they had other ways of cheating. So that option didn't really work.

Furthermore, along with the struggles and successes of google classroom, I also wanted to talk about my personal health and well being during all this. I was never really the person to look at myself and take personal days. I was and still am a workaholic, essentially. Ever since I was born, I grew up with a mom that was always on the go. So now I find myself at times, not knowing what to do with myself if I have nothing to do, so I find work or more than likely, I play video games. However, my point is that now that I am on spring break, I have had some time to self reflect. If I'm honest with myself and you guys, I have had at least two emotional break downs this year. These two emotional breakdowns involved personal and work related issues. So I've come to realize that I need to start worrying about myself. I always want to make everyone happy, serve everybody, take care of everybody, etc. Sometimes it feels good to just breathe and think about yourself. That is still a skill that I am still trying to master.

The truth is as teachers, we are in a sense a parent and a first responder. What I mean by putting those two things together is that we are with our students for about 7 hrs. 5 days out of the week. We are essentially their "parents" because we try to make them learn in a safe and fun environment. We are "first responders" because when they have an issue at school, besides admin we are there trying to solve the issue and make it better. It is sad to listen to these kids stories. So many f them are filled with broken homes and hopelessness. I have a student who does minimal work and says that he is just going to end up in the street anyways. What?! School is so supposed to be fun, stimulate creativity and curiosity. Instead now we've made it about rules, grades, and standards. I believe that instead of grading the students on whether or not they got the right answer or met the standard proficiently, we should be grading students on their ability to compare it to the real world, whether or not they can complete the skill by theirs selves, if they can come up with a real solution for a real world problem, etc. Instead of cutting their wings let us show them how to use them to make the world a better place. I believe that our world is in desperate need of hope, and new ideas. If we help our students enjoy school and improve their attitudes about it then we are helping the future.

Thank you.