It’s hard being a teacher.

I had a committee meeting today. (That’s right, even a deadly global pandemic can’t stop committee meetings.) And it came up, more than once, how hard the teachers at my school are working; because, you see, we’re doing distance learning. My school is — lucky? prescient? — enough to have 1:1 Chromebooks, so in theory, we should be able to reach all of our students with new curriculum.

Heh. I thought it would be easy. And in some ways it is: I don’t have to dress fancy (Though I will say, albeit without judgment of others who make different choices, that I do wear pants every day), I don’t have to drive to school and home, I don’t have to be away from my wife and my dogs and all of my creature comforts. As a lifelong struggler with bashful kidneys and public restrooms, it is a great relief to be able to use MY bathroom in between classes.

But teaching online, it turns out, is goddamn hard. It’s a mental shift, and not an easy one, and so it makes me doubt all of my choices, choices that in class I would be confident in. I’ve been doing this long enough and I have enough ability and knowledge to think that I do it well; but the signals that I’m doing it well, which I’m used to getting from my students, are completely missing. And so, for that matter, are about half of my students; because they may have access to the curriculum, but that doesn’t mean they want it, or can actually show up and take advantage of it. So I just don’t know. Is it working? Is it not? Should I change? Today, for instance: one of my usual central methods is to get input from my students. I give them options about what they want to do next when we finish a unit; I ask them if they have any questions or topics they’d like to ask about or discuss before we get to the work I want to give them. I don’t assign them due dates, I ask them how long they think they’ll need to do something, and I let them decide when they want to turn it in. Today my AP Language class finished early, and so I asked them what they wanted to do: get some new material, or end class.

They couldn’t tell me. Two students said they were fine either way; two others said if we ended early they’d be bored, but that they didn’t really want to do new work, either. And the rest of them said — nothing. Nothing at all. For fifteen minutes. I’m used to students not wanting to make decisions; they prefer when I tell them what to do. It’s a lot easier and they don’t have to take responsibility for the decisions. That’s why I make them do it, of course. But usually they come around to the fact that they have to make some kind of decision,  take some responsibility, and then they do it. But today? Nope. They just sat there. I have no idea what to do with that. It makes it very hard to keep trying to figure it out and do it.

So that’s what came up in the meeting: that the teachers are all working as hard as we can. My principal said that hopefully, after all of this, more people will have an appreciation for what teachers do, and maybe so. Though my immediate knee-jerk reaction was to scoff at the idea; teachers have always worked this hard, and people that haven’t gotten that yet aren’t going to. But hey, since there are many, many parents who are trying to fill teachers’ shoes, maybe I’m wrong; maybe they will have a better idea. I’ll tell you, though, our problem as teachers has not usually been that parents don’t appreciate our abilities and efforts: it’s the people above us that are the bigger problem, and I don’t think that’s going to change. But maybe. Hopefully.

The reason I’m not sure that things will change is because this isn’t a simple shift of teaching responsibilities onto homeschooling parents. If everything else was normal, and parents just had to step into teachers’ shoes (Or again, it’s not really parents; though it’s nice to think that there are many, many administrators and school board members and state education department bureaucrats and elected representatives who suddenly have to teach their kids, and I appreciate that thought very, very much), then maybe the sudden increase in the difficulty of dealing with their kids would help to make the point. But that’s not what’s happening here. The world is on fire: all of us are trying to do our best while also running around trying to beat out the flames with our bare, scorched hands  and feet. Parents aren’t just homeschooling their kids, they’re also dealing with working from home, or not working, and all the financial worries that come with that; along with the health worries; and they are also dealing with their kids as kids, not just as students. It’s too much. Now, teachers are doing the same, as all of us are — I’m trying to teach while also worrying about everything from my every cough, to the health and wellbeing of my loved ones, to the long term financial impact of this; because my world’s on fire, too — but the point is, the hell that we’re all going through is not likely, I believe, to translate into, “Man, that teaching thing is hard!” I think the lesson we will all learn is “EVERYTHING ABOUT THAT WAS ABSOLUTE HELL.”

I also have to say that the toughest thing about teaching is not something that homeschooling  parents have to deal with, at least not in the same way. The toughest thing about this very difficult job of mine is going through some tough situation, an ugly class, a troubled or troubling student, and you deal with that, and it takes a lot out of you: and then the bell rings, and they leave — and a new group of students comes in. And in three to five minutes, you need to put away everything you were just feeling and dealing with, and be mentally and emotionally ready to teach the new group, because of course they had nothing to do with whatever just happened; they can’t lose out on their education just because that last class was awful. That’s the hardest thing. That, and starting over again with the terrible class/student/whatever the next day — and the next, and the next, and the next, for the entire school year. I know how trying children can be, and of course they’re even worse with their parents; but you love your kids. I like my students just fine, but I don’t love them. I just have to put up with them. Day after day after day. And keep trying to teach them, regardless.

And you know what? Sometimes I get those same kids back the next year. And the next.

So no, I don’t think that people will have much of a new appreciation for teachers after this — though I genuinely hope we will have a greater appreciation for a functioning government and leaders who understand their role and who carry out their responsibilities — but that doesn’t matter. Teachers will be fine. We’ll be so happy to be back in our classrooms that for at least a year after this, we probably won’t even complain very much — and believe me, that will be a big change, because the only thing teachers love more than our job and our students is bitching about our job and our students. We’ll be okay.

But there’s someone else who is being forgotten in all of this. Someone who is struggling just as much as the rest of us, though for the most part, we aren’t noticing. Some people notice, of course, and some even acknowledge the difficulty; but mostly, we’re treating them more like game pieces that we move around the board. Or maybe livestock, which we feed and water, groom and shelter; but never ask how they’re feeling about all of this.

The students.

As I said, teachers are struggling, but so is everyone else, and with the same things; parents are struggling, workers are struggling, everyone is struggling: and so are our kids. They have all the same worries, all the same fears, all the same guilts and frustrations. They also have no idea how to handle any of this. They don’t know if anything they’re doing is the right thing, and they have no idea who to ask, or what to do with the answers even if they got them. They may not understand all of the financial implications, depending on their age and awareness; but they certainly understand that their parents are worried about things, and that there’s danger, and while they may have the shelter of ignorance and innocence, they have absolutely no power to affect anything, no control, no opportunity to even try and make things better for themselves and the people they love.

As much as I may be struggling with online learning, my students are having an even harder time of it: and just like me, they are afraid for their health, and for their loved ones, and for the world around them that is on fire, and they can’t escape and they can’t put it out.

And yet they’re trying. Just as hard as me, and probably harder, in most cases. Sure, half of my students are not coming to my online discussions or doing the readings I’m sending them; but half of them are. Despite all of their worries and troubles. They’re still showing up, and still trying to pay attention, and learn. Think about that. Think about trying to follow along with a literary novel right now. I don’t know about you, but I can’t pay attention to anything for longer than about 45 minutes, let alone six weeks. And math? Freaking math?! People are supposed to be learning calculus right now? Now?! It’s insane. It’s impossible. I could barely get past my own problems to learn anything when I was in high school, and I had a comfortable, sheltered, privileged life, with a complete lack of the world being on fire.

And yet they’re trying. I have students writing essays. Good ones. Listening to me reading a novel, and asking questions, and raising points of interest, making observations. Good ones. They’re showing up every day — and when they can’t, they email me and apologize because their internet was down, or because their parents needed their help at the family business that day, or because they slept until noon because they were up worrying until 5am.

Sure, they had trouble today making a decision about whether they wanted to end class or keep going, but that’s because making a decision when your entire soul is one giant Rube Goldberg anxiety machine is almost impossible: I shouldn’t even have asked them to do it. I should have known how hard it would be for them to take responsibility for even a small choice like that, when they have so much to worry about already. They couldn’t do it. Not their fault. Just showing up today was enough. I want them to know that I am pleased with them for that, and proud of them for what they have done over the last four weeks.

My students are amazing. They are hard working  and dedicated, and they are talented and brilliant. All of in spite of what they have lost, and what they are losing, and what they are risking, and what burdens they are having to shoulder, right alongside the rest of us: helping with childcare, and with paying bills, and with taking care of their loved ones and keeping people’s spirits up, and trying to figure out what the hell they can do, what they should do, to make things better, now or in the future. They are doing all of that: and they are doing their assignments. They are inspiring. I am so very grateful to them, and so very proud to know them.

That’s what I want people to learn from this, and to remember after this is all over. That as hard  as it is and has been on us, it is as hard if not harder on these kids, who have fewer defenses and adaptations to difficulties, but who are still, still, doing their best. Let’s try to do our best for them, too.