May 4 – 8 is Teacher Appreciation Week, yet the teachers in my building are not here. They are working from home, learning how to teach long distance, connecting digitally with students and supporting families. Our school closed on March 13th. In the span of two hours, teachers went from being with their students in a classroom community of learners to struggling to connect with students. Now they work from behind closed doors, closeted from their families, so they can focus on students. They answer emails at any time of the day, spend office hours helping parents with new learning content, and make sure materials are ready to go out weekly. This is their job. This is what teaching looks like during a pandemic.
What’s difficult to see is the weight of worry that teachers are feeling about their students. Teachers feel responsible for the learning and the well-being of each one of their students. As students have become untethered from their classrooms, my teachers talk about how they miss seeing their students every day. They worry about their emotional welfare and if they are getting enough to eat every day. They build science kits in their garage for families, hoping to keep them engaged in learning. They wait for their own children to go to bed so they can record new lessons for math and reading. They hand deliver materials to front porches. They work in teams to learn new platforms and apps. They continue to reach out to families that don’t respond. They offer to pay for gas so families can find wi-fi. They call students to offer them words of encouragement and reassure them.
I am grateful for my teachers. To completely rework what teaching looks like, to work tirelessly to connect to students and families and to do it with passion, flexibility and grace shows me how deeply invested they are in teaching and nurturing our 360 students. So, thank you teachers, from a very grateful principal.
Penny Andrews, Cape Horn-Skye Elementary Principal
