Now What?

An accurate representation of teaching right now

On the afternoon of August 21st, I breathed a sigh of relief. We had made it through a week of school and 
for the first time in a while, I slept through the night. Then we made it through a week of Track 1. We learned a lot, changed a lot, and some of us cursed a lot. The difficulties of tech issues, managing tracked out students, engaging virtual students in real work, and communicating with students and parents occupied all of our time and energy. So many of us left last week deflated and wondering if this was the new normal. Then this week came and while it certainly still isn't perfect, we seem to have found a bit of a groove. We tracked down most of our students and started to get something out of them. At the end of this week, I'm left with one question, "Now what?"

Now that we are settling down and finding ways to mitigate problems, we are getting back to the business of school. We have a School Improvement Plan to update, a testing calendar to review, and all of the usual things that schools do each year. In the hustle to create plans for change, those "normal" things slipped to the background, but they're back now. Most of those things that I listed are administrative things. They are not day-to-day teacher issues. So now what for teachers? I sincerely hope that answer is teaching. 

Your classrooms are smaller and while your kids are focused on completing Canvas assignments, I hope that each of you finds a way to take advantage of the personalized learning that smaller groups give you and uses it to teach your heart out. While we've asked you to get good as technical details and controlling the spread of the virus, please don't forget what you really are. You are teachers and now is the time to teach. The ultimate purpose for choosing to open our school on Plan B isn't to meet a political agenda or to provide daycare for children so that parents can work. Our purpose is to provide them with an education that we know that Canvas modules don't fully replicate. Now is the time to go and do what we are good at. Now is the time to teach.