Instead of trying to approach things differently, many school leaders have gone full speed ahead, putting their reopening focus on recovering as much “learning loss” as possible, as if everyone could just do the teaching and learning more quickly and get caught up at twice the speed. Unfortunately, it appears that not everyone felt that way. Many of us were determined to never go back to that frantic pace once things started opening up again. The worldwide shutdown prompted lots of people to reflect on how busy life used to be. This has happened despite all the lessons we should have learned from the pandemic. Now that schools are transitioning from fully remote back to in-person classes, the problem of teacher time has reached epic proportions.
I’ll say that again: Before COVID, teachers already didn’t have enough time to do their jobs well. Pre-COVID, there was already no margin for error, no extra space or time for most teachers to thoughtfully plan, collaborate, and assess student work. This has been a problem for generations, but it’s gotten worse in recent years as standardized testing has become the end-all-be-all for measuring success. Historically, teachers have never had enough time to do their jobs well. The root of the problem seems to fall into one of three categories: time, trust, and safety. So what’s going on? Why is this the worst school year ever? I put the question out on Twitter and got hundreds of responses. So if you’re still hanging in there, but you’re about at the end of your rope, hear this: The problem is not you. And yet I wouldn’t do it, because I know how much non-teaching is required of teachers, how much unnecessary and unmitigated crap is being piled onto teachers’ backs right now, and I feel 100 percent certain that I wouldn’t be able to handle it. I wasn’t half bad back in the day, but knowing what I know now? Forget about it. It stressed me out in 2005 I can’t even imagine what it would do to me in 2021.Īnd that’s a real shame, because I know I would be an incredible teacher. But equally important is the fact that I really don’t want to invite back into my life the stress and horrible imbalance that comes with a teaching job. There simply wouldn’t be enough time left. My most compelling reason for not taking on a full-time teaching job is that it would require me to stop doing what I do now, researching and sharing good teaching practices through blog posts and podcast episodes. Still, the question comes up often, from curious friends who ask if I’ve ever thought about going back, to people who actually offer me teaching jobs, to readers who dislike something I’ve written and suggest that my voice has no merit since I’m no longer in the classroom. Ultimately, other opportunities presented themselves, then I launched my own website, so I never ended up following the original blueprint. I was going to stay at home with them until they were in school, then I’d return to the classroom. I had a few more kids, but I always planned to go back. No Child Left Behind had started infiltrating schools, but back then we had no idea how bad it was going to get. That was 2005, before all the nonsense really got going. After giving it a try for a semester with a newborn and a lot of support from home, I decided to step away from the classroom for a few years, knowing there was no way I could be a great teacher and a great mother at the same time. Gone was the ability to go into my classroom on a Sunday to catch up. Gone was the ability to tolerate a staff meeting that ran over an extra fifteen minutes. Gone were the after-school hours to plan lessons and grade papers. Granted, I brought home at least two hours of work every afternoon, got about 5 hours of sleep a night, and was accused on the regular of being a workaholic, but I managed. When I was a lot younger, with no children of my own, I managed to pull off teaching middle school language arts well enough. I am not a teacher anymore because I know I couldn’t handle it if I tried.Īt one time, I was able to. My thoughts are not well-organized right now, but I want to get them out, so I’m going to break them into eight loosely linked parts. So much worse than 2020, which should have easily held the title for “worst year ever” in every category, for a long, long time.īut for so many teachers the worst year is turning out to be this year, and that really grinds my gears, because it shouldn’t be.Įvery day I see a new post on social media from a different educator shouting at the top of their lungs on this topic, so what I’m going to say here is nothing new, but I’m hoping that if I add my voice to the very large chorus, maybe it will reach some new ears. The 2021-22 school year is off and running, and what I’ve been hearing from teachers over and over, from every corner, is that this is the worst school year ever.
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