This Year – April Means Back To School

~ Lauren

I can’t believe we are going back to school in April. We’ve been off for an entire calendar year. We missed most of the second semester last year and most of the current school year. (Teachers think in school years more than calendar years.)

Overnight we were forced to instantly become experts at online schooling. Our norm disappeared leaving us wondering how to help our students. We immediately faced a myriad of problems. One by one we conquered the issues. Our devotion to our pupils meant we once again proved to be masters in flexibility. With the assistance of our erudite co-workers, we pushed forward with amazing success. Our hope was that we could keep the kids engaged with the learning process without the physical classroom.

On one hand, I have happily modified what was my norm. I must admit, I have learned to covet my time at home. I enjoy not having a commute any longer. I don’t want to be antagonistic about this new situation, but I would be lying if I didn’t admit that I am worried. Even with the plexiglass barrier installed for my protection, I will still feel the need to come home and shower immediately. Covid has left all of us with deep seated fears.

On the other hand, I miss the real interaction with my students. I’ve never met my class of 2020-2021 in person. I am unsure of how the zoom teaching has influenced their impression of me. The reverse is also true. I have been unable to get a real feel for their personalities with this virtual teaching. It will be nice to have half my students one day and the other half the next. A small class will hopefully help with getting to know them quicker while being safer at school.

April will be like the first day of school in many ways. I know my emotions will be all over the place. I will need to take many deep breaths to prepare for this new world. We will begin with our typical teacher’s meeting in the library before school starts. The principal will probably do her rah rah speech with naïve comments about how everything will be great.

One thing is for sure, I will not be accepting any apples from my students as I have in the past.

This work of fiction was written for these daily prompts: Three Things Challenge (disappeared/unable) ,  Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (myriad)  (emotions), Ragtag Daily Prompt (impression), Word of the Day Challenge (flexibility) (erudite) , Your Daily Word Prompt (covet), The Daily Spur (home), (antagonistic) (apple) and MMA Word Of The Day (shower) (library).

 

 

Published by Lauren

West Coast Nana to 4 gkids and 1 fur baby

15 thoughts on “This Year – April Means Back To School”

  1. I’m glad you shared that it is fiction. But it did sound exciting to finally be meeting your students.
    🙂

    Great job with the prompts.

    Liked by 1 person

  3. I’m no longer a parent of school-aged kids, but I can image what having schools reopening will mean to both students and their parents. Good use of all of the prompt words, Lauren.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Thanks. Evidently the governor has just stated that all kids should be back in all classes in April. It is psychically impossible to fit them all in even with the new CDC requirement of having them 3 feet apart in classes instead of 6. My blood is boiling for the lack of safety for the adults and students. 😦

      Liked by 1 person

      1. At the near beginning of this whole thing, there were a few (Trump fan) people who talked the talk about having care concerning public health. But they only gave it a week or two; not that they said they were giving it a week or two, but it was shortly after they had said how important it was (even accepting some self quarantining) that they then suddenly were acting like we’d all already done all we needed to do. Looks like some other people are being about as illogical now.

        However, it was sensible to think that we could quarantine and have a coherent plan of contact tracing and testing. But that never materialized (because of the horrible person and his cohort who had been in charge and mismessaging for the whole country). It’s basically too late now; the horse is out of the barn. But we could care about educational settings. And that’s a bigger story. So many ways we should support education as we used to do — or think we were doing for everyone.

        Liked by 1 person

      2. I mean “used to“ like in the seventies and eighties, not simply before the pandemic. Since “way” back, it seems to me too many interests are trying to dismantle public education… in tricky ways, of course, to see if they can look like they care when they’re really serving themselves.

        I’m not sure I’m being clear. To get to now, more specifically, I’m thinking it’s another symptom of the bigger picture of not enough funding and so forth that there isn’t a comprehensive decision in every district to really get things planned ahead of time rather than just making it sound more possible by going to three feet.

        Liked by 1 person

Comments are closed.