When Force Becomes Gift: Teaching During the First National Quarantine

 

Yesterday was stressful. I worked for 13 ½ hours (minus lunch and dinner breaks, which I didn’t time) on getting e-learning up and running. Mid-morning, after my team-teacher and I had worked for quite a while on how we could break the summative-grade project we had planned to do next into manageable pieces that could be accomplished at home by our students, we learned that we shouldn’t really be grading during these “Act of God” (I kid you not: this is the terminology used by the State of Illinois) days. I had a LOT Of angst about whether we are going the right thing. We have an impromptu unit in mind: “What does America do in a time of crisis.” We’re really excited about it. But, as I said, we worked for 13 ½ hours (and then she went and did her own homework for her master’s degree class,) and we couldn’t pull together a new unit at the last minute. I felt despair settle in. What if we are doing all of this work at our computers every day, and kids don’t even DO the work?

Then something interesting happened. Lessons each day need to be posted by 9am for that day. I posted my Tuesday lessons Monday evening. They were done, so why not? I went downstairs in my own home to find my 15-year-old son starting his school work. Huh. I went back up to my computer, and a dozen students had not only already completed my SEL/team-building activity, but they had made comments in the post about how it was “going to be epic” and how they had been worried that we wouldn’t keep up that routine. To the question “What is your favorite social distancing activity so far?” one student wrote, “I actually really like what we’re doing right here.”

When everything is normal, my students procrastinate. They complain. (Some of them.) I get frustrated that they act like getting an education is something forced on them that they try like anything to get out of. It turns out, though, that in times like these, our thinking shifts. What was once a barely tolerable routine becomes a privilege. When all you are allowed to do is…well, nothing, the “force” becomes a gift. In a time of uncertainty and fear, the old routines become sacred and beloved.

I’ll be honest. I’m terrified about the potential consequences of this virus. (Disclaimer: I’ve been pretty paranoid about illnesses for my whole life, so this is pretty much my second-worst nightmare coming true. I used to teach The Hot Zone if you’re looking for a worst case scenario.) I’ve spent a very uncomfortably large amount of time in the last few days trying to tamp down a lot of anxiety, and the people who usually are my ballast, my students and colleagues, are not with me. I need them. I’m not sure, then, why I’m so surprised to find out how much they need me. How much we all need each other. It’s one thing to be able to say that, and it’s another thing to see it unfolding in front of me. We are not there in the building for each other. I can’t say, exactly, “I’m here for you.” But if we are not exactly “here” for each other, clearly were are still somewhere for each other, separated in space but drawn together by a new appreciation for what we already had.