For the Teachers who are Not Okay Right Now...
For the Teachers who are Not Okay Right Now...
Over the past few weeks that I have been using Twitter, I have been exposed to the inner thoughts, feelings, and opinions of teachers from around the country. Many are providing positivity and new techniques and tools to try with virtual learning. But many are also struggling and looking to see if others are feeling the same way they are.
This week I listened to the most recent episode of Angela Watson's Truth for Teachers Podcast, " For the Teachers who are Not Okay Right Now..." This episode is so important to listen to if you are one of those teachers who is struggling.
Watson reminds us that it is okay to feel overwhelmed in this time. She says, "We are still in a pandemic. This is still crisis distance learning. This is emergency hybrid teaching. Regardless of how much districts want to pretend we can replicate normal, we cannot."
It seems like many schools and districts want to pretend that the conditions we and our students are living and working in right now are normal. They are not. We are trying to adjust and doing the best we can, but we cannot forget that our teachers are people, too. Just like our students and their families, our teachers are worried about the state of the world around them, as well as their own and their families health. We need to stop and remember that the mental health and wellness of our teachers matters.
It continually feels like there are more and more expectations piled on top of us, and as Watson says, these decisions "have nothing to do with what is actually best for kids or sustainable for teachers." If we want our teachers to be the best that they can be, we need to stop and listen to them and make sure that they are okay as humans first.
Watson uses the analogy of teaching in a pandemic to treading water. But, she says, "treading water and seemingly not going anywhere is part of the process." It is okay if we feel like we're not making progress every moment. It is okay if sometimes we feel like we are floundering. But we cannot ignore those feelings. When we feel hopeless and helpless, we need to take time for ourselves as people. We care so much about our students and their well-being, but we cannot be the best versions of ourselves as educators if we don't care about our own well-being first.
Responding to "For the Teachers who are Not Okay Right Now..."
I read an article about "toxic positivity" and it was all about teachers drowning in their workload and saying, "...but it's all good." We've turned the drowning into a norm, and it's not. And this -- 2020 -- this is the furthest thing from anything normal. I have appreciated every administrator that I have met this year that has acknowledged, "This is NOT business as usual and I don't expect it to be." Those are the administrators that I tip my hat to. They get it.
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