Something Beautiful

 

I am now entering 14 weeks of online teaching and that is just since August. My school, being in Asia, is still completely online for the safety of the students and teachers. 

I often start my days doing a very difficult thing: walking into an empty classroom. A classroom void of students is an irony that I never hoped to encounter in life. I didn't think it would be so difficult to go to my empty classroom each day, after all, I am still teaching in there, right?

But when I open the door and switch on the lights at 6:02 a.m. I often find myself pausing to stare. To stare at the floors, clean and shiny as they never were during the rainy season. To stare at the desks, in rows that never need adjusting as they did several times a day last year. To stare at the empty cubbies where students were supposed to leave books but often left lunch boxes and water bottles. 

To stare at the great big room and know I will sit in it alone all day. 

And that may not sound difficult, but it makes me pause and feel at least a small bit of melancholy each and every morning. 

But what makes it so, so much worse, is knowing many of my students are doing the same thing: they are starting the school day alone. 

I know we are doing all we can as educators and as a school to keep everyone safe, but it still breaks my heart because the whole idea of school, of learning, is that it shouldn't be done in isolation. 

I find it more difficult than usual to find joy in my teaching. I find it hard to stay upbeat and smile at my students, even though I am overjoyed to see them because I know what they are going through. Many don't get to spend time with friends except through a computer screen. For some, online school is the only social interaction they get in a day outside of their immediate family. 

This year has, by far, been one of the hardest I have taught. Yes, first-year teaching is a hot mess, but I expected that. I expected the steep learning curve, the piles of things I would get confused over, the failure over and over again.

But year three teaching was supposed to be better. This was the year I was to find my stride. The year I was to find balance with classroom strategies and build better relationships with my new students. This was the year I was supposed to finally figure it out. And as long as we are being honest, this was supposed to be the year I didn't cry so much. 

Spoiler alert: none of those things are happening. I don't see that changing any time soon.

And yet, every now and again the storm clouds will break, and for just a moment I will glimpse a bit of something beautiful. 

Students who got endlessly distracted in class now actually turn in quality work that shows they can pay attention and read directions.

One student will ask a question on a class page and before I can get to answering it, another student will answer or point them to the answer.

Teachers are reaching out to each other in support, not just in the school, but from around the world.

Students who almost never talked to me before are now messaging me dozens of clarifying questions to produce better work. 

Parents are going out of their way to let me know they appreciate my working with their child and to offer encouragement. 

That last one is actually where the title of this post comes from. I had a parent tell me at parent-teacher conferences that they knew this must be difficult, but not to give up because "something beautiful" was still happening in my classroom. I wrote that down on a sticky note and placed it on my planner so I could see it every morning. 

The idea that something beautiful can come from something so broken makes me feel incredibly humbled. That what I consider to be the struggle of my life doesn't just come across to my students as learning but beautiful learning leaves me breathless. 

I have learned that expectations for this school year need to be managed. I can't expect what I got last year because this year is so different. Everything we do is different and the learning curve is steep for everyone. This year is the start of something different. Something beautiful even. 

And though it isn't ideal, and I would choose safe, in-person learning over online learning in a heartbeat, I need to remind myself that there is still learning happening. That I am still a teacher even if my teaching looks very different now. 

Something beautiful can still happen in an empty classroom. 

-Rachael

Found Faithful

As the quarantine continues and the end seems vague at best, many people, including myself, find ourselves at an odd place. If you are like me, you find yourself stuck at the odd juxtaposition of needing to quarantine and needing to work. The contrast of what is and what should be.  

As a teacher, I am eternally grateful that I can work from home. That I can, to the best of my ability, provide learning and encouragement to my students who are now scattered across the globe, trying to finish off the year outside of the classroom.  

But I don’t want it to be this way. 

I think you would be hard-pressed to find a teacher who said they would rather teach from home than in a classroom. For most teachers, teaching was a calling, not just a profession. We pour our hearts and souls into our students. I loved the goofy jokes my seventh graders would be bursting to tell me each day. I struggled alongside my eighth graders as we took on what it means to be creative writers. I cried with pride when my ninth graders got raw and real with their personal narrations.  

And now the classroom is empty. And as a teacher I find myself in the last place I want to teach from: home.  

I joke with my teacher friends that I am not a teacher anymore: I am an IT worker who answers emails and a YouTuber who records lessons. Yes, there are still lessons. There is still great work to be done. But the essence that called me to be a teacher, that daily work where I got to touch lives, make jokes, live in community, feels heartbreakingly absent.  

The motivation to keep going evades me and I know I am not the only one. Other professions besides teaching also relied on that human contact, that togetherness that is no longer there. I may be an introvert, but I have never wanted to be surrounded by 24 chatty seventh graders more in my life.  

I am in the last place I want to be. 

So where do we find hope from here? 

The Bible study I do with a few of my teacher friends is studying the story of Gideon. He has just three short chapters in the book of Judges to tell his story. But, my, is it a powerful one.  

When we think of Gideon, we think of the Mighty Warrior who defeated the enemies of Israel with just a blow of a trumpet. But when we meet Gideon, he isn’t what we might envision. 

Judges 6:11 says, “Now the angel of the Lord came and sat under the terebinth at Ophrah... where Gideon was beating out wheat in the winepress to hide it from the Midianites.”  

Why is he beating wheat in a winepress? The context of the story is that the Israelites were in their 8th year of being attacked by the Midianites. They would come, steal all the food after it had been harvested, and kill anyone who got in their way. So Gideon, instead of beating wheat on a hilltop where wheat was supposed to be beaten, where the wind could help carry away the worthless chaff, where the job was best done, was instead hiding in a dark, damp, windless space. He was in crisis.  

I feel a strong connection to Gideon these days. Instead of being the classroom, where I am supposed to be teaching, where the live-action of real-time learning helps my students interact and grow, where my job is best done, I am instead at home writing lesson plans from my bedroom. I am, like many, in crisis.  

And yet... 

This isn’t a story of despair. Gideon’s story is one of triumph and victory. But even if we don’t skip ahead to the end and see the victory, I think I learned a lot from just this one verse about how to behave in a crisis. 

You see, Gideon wasn’t ignoring his work. He didn’t give up just because he couldn’t be doing the job he wanted in the place he wanted to do it. He didn’t shrug his shoulders and say, “Oh well, I can’t be on the hilltop so I can’t do the work.” And he didn’t give that work to others. There was nobody else in that winepress even though the job was much harder now. No. Gideon was doing his job when the Angel of the Lord found him. He was beating the wheat to feed his family. 

He was found faithful in the crisis. And in that, I find my hope. 

From this verse alone, I take great comfort in the following ideas: 

1) This crisis is not powerful enough to place you out of the reach of God. God found Gideon in the winepress; he will find me at home. 

2) Just because the task is harder, it doesn't mean the work isn’t worth doing. The daily reward of interacting with my students is no longer there, but my work is still meaningful and helpful to others.  

3) You don’t need what you thought you would need when you have God’s help. I thought I needed my classroom, my teaching tools, my daily routines to teach. But it turns out, meaningful learning can still occur outside of the classroom. I am pleased to say students who normally were indifferent and forgetful have stepped up and been more active in their education.  

With these in mind, I hope you are encouraged, like I am, to move forward. As Gandalf wisely says, we don’t get to choose our time, “all we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” 

We have been given this time and place to do our work. 

May we be found faithful.  

-Rachael 

When Things Don't Go as Planned

If you had told me at the start of March this year that I would be writing lesson plans from my childhood bedroom before the end of the month, I would have called you crazy. To say that things did not go as planned this month is the understatement of the year. 

Not only am I back in my childhood bedroom, I am writing lesson plans from the same desk that I used to complete my work as a homeschooler. I cried over math problems at the desk where I now record videos for my 7th grade students. I will explain in a moment just how exactly full circle that is in a moment.

Two weeks ago, when we started the school week, I thought everything was normal. Sure that virus thing was making its way around but I wasn't overly worried. I am young and otherwise healthy, and by all accounts the young and healthy have little to fear from this illness that claims the old and the sick. My students were more worried about end of term projects and why I still wouldn't let them practice karate in my classroom (one of the many joys of teaching middle school is all the odd things that come out of your mouth in a day, like "No you may not use your friend to practice head kicks in my classroom" but I digress). 

The only hint of the chaos to come was that the week before, our school leaders had warned us that we might be switching to home learning if this virus thing got any worse. We were all given training and practical applications to use in the even that we would have to go to all online schooling for a few weeks while the virus blew over. Maybe I was just being overly optimistic that Monday morning, because the winds were about to shift in major way and I did not see it coming.

On Tuesday evening, it was announced that Wednesday would be our last at school learning day. That we would switch to all online at home learning for the next three and a half weeks (including spring break). 

If you know a teacher, send them some chocolate because it is no small task rewriting lesson plans and criculam in and TOTALLY RESHAPING THE FACE OF SCHOOLING in just a few days time. I was lucky in the way to have supportive leaders who gave us help and pushed back grading deadlines but I still spent untold hours fighting with my lesson plans to make it something I could be proud of. 

While you are at it, send those teachers some flowers because many of us are feeling personally and professionally disappointed with online learning. We have still so much to space to grow and many of us (including me!) are missing our students badly. I took my classroom for granted, thinking I would always have face time with my students each day only to have that one constant snatched away from me. I completely understand the decision to switch to online learning, and I don't really see how that switch over could have gone smoother, but that doesn't change the reality for teachers who just want to do our jobs. People don't go into education for anything short of the unbridled passion of teaching the love of learning and the love of life. I became a teacher to touch lives.And now, I feel like my greatest avenue to touching lives, my classroom, is lost to me for and undetermined amount of time. My school has announced that home learning will continue for the remainder of the school year. 

So here I am, lesson planning from the desk I used to homeschool at. It is crazy that my homeschooling is now a help to me as I get to teach my students how to complete their work in a way that is very similar to homeschooling. I know what it is like to be confused by directions, so I make my lessons as clear to follow as possible. I know what it is like to struggle with grasping a new concept with having almost no experts to talk to, so I try and be available via email as much as possible to my students. 

Technology is a life saver. Thankfully my students are well versed in using online tools and have even taught me a few things (that's how you know you are getting old, when they sigh and say "have you tried...?").  I am so grateful to the internet and online resources in this crazy transition time. I couldn't do it without them.While professionally things have changed for me, personally things have as well. I had plans to go to New Zealand with my sister over the March break. I had bought the plane tickets back at the start of October before we knew the world was going to fall apart. Then just 6 days before I was set to go, New Zealand announced a two week quarantine on all incoming visitors and nationals. Disappointed doesn't begin to encapsulate the emotions I had. I felt like I couldn't go one day without another world ending bit of news. 

I started that week thinking it would be a normal school week and that I was going to New Zealand on March break, and I ended the week with online learning and buying tickets to go back to the states. I decided if the world was gonna go crazy for a bit, I would like to be in a country where language wasn't a barrier to getting good care. 

So now I am in isolation in my childhood bedroom. I chose to self isolate for two weeks since I lived in Asia. Not leaving my room for five days has left me a little stir crazy to say the least. Now that we are on March break, I don't even have lessons to plan. At least not for a bit. So I decided to do something useful with my time and sew masks for the nursing home where my sister works. At least I can be of help in some way even as I practice self isolation. 

And it isn't all bad. I have already finished two books and I have started three more. I have caught up with friends via video chat, and I have gotten to eat all the American foods I missed so much back in Indonesia. 

As I watch the world shift almost daily, I rest in the idea that even though this is not what I planned, I am right where I a supposed to be. 

-Rachael