Otto

The infamous 2020. Among the horrors and fears, the loneliness and the uprootings, we also saw a complete change in lifestyles. People were doing things they had never done before and doing things they had done before, but in completely new ways. I was one of those people.

After 9 years as a classroom teacher, the only job I had ever known post-college, I switched gears and joined a pod to teach a small group in people’s homes. Let me back up and explain 2020: the year of the pod. Deeply concerned about coming into contact with as many people as most of us do [thereby making it more likely to catch the virus], the “pod” was born. How it worked was, a few families joined together agreeing to see only those people in their pod until things got better. Though limited, this arrangement allowed families with kids to have some company for themselves and playmates for their children. Pods were also formed to celebrate holidays together and to learn in a safe environment. I joined up with a pod of four families with first graders. These trailblazers kids; after just getting used to school, they had been ripped from their norm and were now being asked to learn via the tablet.

For the families in my pod, it also allowed them to chip in to pay a full time teacher / facilitator (me) a salary while the grown-ups worked from home. The four families rotated “hosting” each week, and our classroom was packed and unpacked into bins every week for 10 months. Each house had things that the kids liked- an electric train set, hands-on science kits, a sister.

One of the kids had a cat named Otto. The kids quickly appointed Otto our class pet. Otto was the only “student” allowed to sit on the “teacher chair” (the family’s arm chair). Yes, a living room classroom can be too comfortable, if you know what I mean.

We bravely faced every possible challenge in remote learning that we could possibly face- dropped calls, coordinating individual meetings, multiple pairs of headphone wires nervously chewed on and thereby rendering the headphones defunct, materials forgotten at home, ornery neighbors scorning at childhood joy in the backyard, and on and on. My first graders were eager to learn, but Maslow would be shaking his head. Skills they had or could have gained were pushed back due to the stress of an unnatural learning environment, the school-home lines being blurred, and not enough stimulation. One of the challenges for one of my students was writing. Jackson firmly resisted writing. There were other complexities getting in the way, and not enough support available in our situation to meet his needs. We carried on, finding small joys wherever we could.

The kids loved our weeks at Otto’s house. Sadly, Otto was old and passed away two months into the school year. On the day after he was put down, we “cut class” and made cards instead. Jackson drew a beautiful picture of himself with Otto with the words “my favorite cat” spelled in some kind of cute 6 year old way. We oohed and aahed at the beauty, the sentiment, and the self-motivation that Jackson had.

After that, whenever there was a writing assignment, he would ease into it by drawing the illustrations first and build it out from there. His stories almost always starred an animal in the wild cat family. The secret to writing is, there has to be a story you want to tell. For Jackson, it was honoring the life of Otto. The love Jackson had for Otto unlocked an incredible imagination and future stories that he was proud to share.

❤️ Dedicated to Otto the cat ❤️