Perspective

Sitting in my empty classroom, looking at 20 empty tables, 20 empty cubbies, not a pencil on the floor, not a stray place value cube under the bookshelf in the classroom library.  This isn’t unusual in August, but it is surreal in February.  There are tiny reminders of March 2020, the birthday poster that I always hang too high – and realize not one student can actually see their birthday displayed, the calendar, still showing March 13, 2020, our schedule for Friday March 13th still hangs in the blue plastic pocket chart, and the class picture prominently displayed on our “Welcome to Our Class Wall”.  I look at that picture, 11 months later and still have a pit in my stomach.  I still grieve the loss of the second half of the year with those little students, I feel ashamed, a failure, I feel like I let those children down.  

I open the computer screen, put on my blue light glasses and join my Google Meet.   Muting myself and turning my camera off, I notice I have three minutes before my small group will join me.  I close my eyes and rub my temples, I know the lesson I have planned is mediocre at best,  I can’t get a rhythm with virtual teaching, I hate it.  I am 45 years old and became a teacher with chart paper, markers, and a great mentor text –   I never thought I would be in this space.  I think back to June the day our administration told us to return to the building for one day.  We were sent into our classrooms, in face shields, masks, gloves armed with Clorox wipes in hand – we looked like Walter White and Jessie Pinkman from Breaking Bad.   Our mission, should we choose to accept it, to clean out our student materials, and put all their belongings in labeled trash bags.  These bags were to be put outside and if parents wanted, they could come pick them up.  Over 100 days of school, slides into a clear trash bag with a little human’s name on the front in a smeared Sharpie pen.  Math notebooks filled with new ideas, the progression of a third grader moving from the ideas of groups to solving multiplication problems.  Writer’s notebooks filled with ideas, hopes and dreams, dumped into a trash bag like dinner scraps.  Part of me prayed these students never came back for these things – they looked so unloved, so unappreciated, like their teacher gave up on them.  100 days.  In.  A. Trash Bag.  Another part of me prayed they came and got this work, it meant they didn’t forget our time together, the family we created, that even though our time was fleeting, we all left our footprint, we all mattered.  

“Ding” the computer chimed.  Back to reality, time to put on an Oscar worthy performance that I love teaching students through a tiny, computer screen.  

“Hi Khai”  I say in my happiest teacher voice. To a black screen with a purple circle with the letter “K” typed in white in the center.  I can’t hide my eye roll, another class teaching to a blank screen.  

“Bing” the chatbox chimes.  I read the word “hi” written by my student.  Wonderful, I think to myself, she isn’t speaking on mic today either.  

I let Khai know we will wait a few minutes for the two other students who are supposed to join our small group time.  However, time passes, one, two, three minutes and no one else shows.  

“Bing,” the chatbox chimes again.  Khai types “do u think they will come? I have all my work done, I am ready to share.”   

“I just don’t know Khai, but I think they must have something else going on.  That’s ok though, we are going to get started, we have some work to do looking for patterns in our characters”  I say, again sounding like a chipper Disney princess.  

As I start my mediocre lesson, already hating this, the camera pops on.  I see the chocolate brown hair, donned with a JoJo Siwa hair bow first, then I see the eyes and face of my student.    Seeing her face, I am lighter, I wish she could sit at the tables in my classroom, explore our classroom library, hang her best writing on our wall. Khai navigates the lesson, switching between the Google Meet and the Jamboard with the ease of a seasoned computer whiz,  I notice her use her finger to track the words, and she whispers quietly to herself as she works.  What I wouldn’t give to have her in my classroom.

Suddenly, my eye notices Khai’s surroundings.  The lighting is the flicker of a fluorescent bulb that is on it’s last leg.  There are metal shelves with boxes stacked floor to ceiling.  Floor to ceiling.  I quickly realize Khai is sitting on the floor.  She is balancing her computer in her lap, and I see her left arm is moving while she works.  She is rocking a baby carrier.  Khai, my third grade student,  is in my small group, working on Jamboard, rocking an infant in what appears to be a supply closet.  Shame fills my body like a wave. It starts in my legs, rises up to my stomach and finally shows itself in my face as it becomes hot, red and blotched.  I am reminded of all that this pandemic has done.  School is now a supply closet for some, a learning pod in a swim clubhouse for others, and for some, it is gone, the tech demands too strenuous for some families to navigate.  I think about Khai and how she hid behind her camera turned off letter only displaying the  “K” until she felt safe to put her camera on. That she trusted our “classroom” to learn with her camera on, with her baby sister beside her.  Maybe the connections are different between student and teacher this year, but maybe they still are there.  Maybe all hope isn’t lost, maybe, like Glennon  Doyle says, we can do hard things.  Maybe it’s time to leave the grief and rebuild.  

I finish my session with Khai and close my computer screen.  I look at the white board with the date, March 13, 2020 written in purple expo marker.  I walk to the board, glancing at the class picture of my last year’s class.  “Goodbye, I am proud of you” I whisper to their faces, frozen in the 5 x 7 image.  I pick up the eraser, in slow, deliberate circles, I wipe away, March 13, 2020.