Most Exhausting Year Ever

I have had the most intense headaches this year of anytime in my life.

If I have a headache, perhaps once every two years, a single Tylenol will eradicate it — or sometimes all it takes is a cup of peppermint tea and a rest.

This year, poor nutrition, reduced hydration, and limited exercise probably caused my headaches so I adjusted my habits. Knives of pain kept me up at night, and a dull throbbing went with me through the day and through my skull. Could it just be the stress? 

The doctor could not find any cause for the headaches. The blood draw gave no reason. I hadn’t banged my head. To all intents and purposes, there was nothing wrong with me. Job stress cannot be the cause of them. 

Okay, this year does feel more exhausting than ever. I feel like I am walking along the edge of a cliff balancing spinning plates with more hands than I actually possess, yet….there has got to be something else. 

My colleagues also complained of headaches. Plants in a green-thumbed teacher’s classroom were visibly dying.

It turned out that the night custodian, by directive of the school district, was spraying classrooms which had students missing due to COVID-19. (At one point or another every classroom had at least one student’s family call in to say their child was out due to the virus.)

One of my students was out approximately every 8 days due to the illness. (Really? The quarantine is ten days, plus add on a handful of days for verification testing… COVID-19? Right. I scoff harumph, then sigh…I wish I had a job for which I could call out sick whenever I felt like it… How could the parent justify not sending her child to school to do her job of learning?)

Some classrooms have had to be shut down completely or had increased cleaning and masking requirements due to the number of students out. One classroom of at-higher-risk students was shut for two weeks because the teacher and the aides had not been vaccinated, so when too many students/adults called out, everyone had to stay home. (Curse my work ethic and responsibility! I’ve stayed up on my health precautions, both injectable and wearable.)

I have not had a cold all year, which I am attributing to wearing a mask anytime I am on school property. (I do not wear my mask when I am alone in my classroom though, and once a colleague felt affronted when I hastily put it on when she poked her head in. A mask can also help me not spread something to colleagues, you know. Jeesh.)

Another school district employee, who I respect for her determination and skills, said once, “You know masks don’t work, right?” 

Oh? I feel a little disappointed in her. Maybe masks are not completely effective, but the only time I have felt ill this year is when I slept only five hours for four days in a row. On night five I made myself sleep instead of think about work, and fourteen hours later I awoke feeling refreshed, and so much better — even despite the headache. 

I did not share my cold-less experience with this staff member or ponder aloud why doctors and nurses wear masks even in non-COVID times if they are ineffective…? I can use my energy for so many other things than trying to discuss where who gets what information.

I asked if the custodian could not spray my classroom with the disinfecting and sanitizing agent Brulin BruTab 6S, and she said sure. I can only assume that the district chose this hospital disinfectant purposefully, knowing that it is not detrimental to the students. I wonder if the district thought about the teachers being in the classrooms for many more hours each day than the students… I don’t know if headaches are a side-effect of exposure to the bleach alternative, or if there is any correlation at all between the disinfectant and my health. All I know is that my headaches reduced and then disappeared entirely after the custodian and I chatted.

This has been such a long year!

This school year should be easier than last — after all, students are back in the building like a ‘normal’ year, and the masking requirement is sure to be lifted in January based on the opinions and temperaments of the sitting school board members — no matter the COVID-19 case count.  So, why is this year already so exhausting?

Perhaps it is the change in school start time, pushing the work/school day back a half an hour, so that officially my day starts at 8:30. I’m a morning person, so I arrive at work about 6:30 every morning, just as any other previous school year. Many teachers in the building did not adjust their arrival time from previous years either. It’s just half an hour after all, right?

The After School Program, for which I teach fencing and fiber arts classes, while shorter by fifteen minutes this year, still ends at the same time as the virtual classes did last year and the in-person ones from every year previous. This cannot be what is making the year so hard. I am used to long days.

Perhaps it is the apathy and lack of social skills of students (and some parents). They seem to think that school is a place to be, not a place to work to gain knowledge. School should, as it for some reason seems to be believed to be, a “fun” place. Most students don’t want to work hard, or even work. I assign a task, and many look at me in stunned astonishment, their little eyelashes blinking rapidly, and ask, “Do we have to do this?” Older, more experienced teachers, and ones with fewer years under their belts, have both commented that their students ask them, too, “Do we have to?” 

Yes! Yes, you have to! That is why you are here! To learn! How can you expect to learn if you don’t work at it? Your brains won’t build new connections, new synapses, if you don’t put in the effort! I don’t say any of this aloud, but I do wonder why — no, I know why they think everything comes easily. After all, all you have to do is Google it or watch a YouTube video…! 

I use these resources too, Company websites and videos are how I learned to repair bathroom drywall holes last summer. I had no illusion about my work being perfect. It takes a lot of time to build up skills. And my drywall repair and subsequent paint job were not perfect. But it was mine and I take pride in this, and next time I will do better.

Many of my students get frustrated right away when their result does not resemble what they might have seen in a video, or seen in the provided example. They forget that they haven’t been in fifth grade before so it should not be perfect the first time they attempt the task. It’s okay to struggle! Many don’t want to put in the effort to memorize math facts, for example, because they think can always just look up the answers. Few seem to make the connection right away that if they know their math facts then they won’t be struggling so much now with the process of long division. (Which by the way, I use regularly when comparing prices, figuring out how many yards I need to complete a fiber arts project, or balancing my finances.)

Is this why so many play video games and watch anime? The choices are made for them. They do not have to take responsibility for their mistakes or incorrect choices.

I see only a few students entering my classroom wanting to improve, to work, to do better. It saddens me. I shudder to think sometimes about our youth being the ones who will eventually take care of me in my old age, and make the decisions to run our country’s infrastructure, finance, and law. What makes me sadder is that I don’t know if I can have any effect on getting them where they need to be. 

But I try anyway. I have them record and graph their scores so that we can do it again after the next test and they can see their growth (or not) and we can talk about why they improved or didn’t. I ask them to look back in their journals to see how much they wrote at the beginning of the year compared to the middle of the year or the end. I ask them how they felt about a project, and why. I need to get them to connect their effort with their product, and hopefully, connections will be made and they will strive to do better next time. That’s really all I want: for them to work hard at being better at whatever it is the next time. To truly work and try, and not give up.

Most of them don’t seem to understand that Google is a search engine, not a source to cite. I have been combatting this idea all year, and will continue to do so. Anyone can compose a video to showcase whatever they want. I strive to teach my students to think about the info that pops up on the Internet. Does it make sense? So many students (adults, too?) take what they read or watch on the Internet as factuality. Even when personal experience shows differently. Sigh…

Most students don’t seem to want to work hard, or work at, the tasks this year. Where is the urgency to learn? Is this what is making this year so wearing? By the end of the year I hope I have encouraged my students to learn and try and work at learning, even when it is hard.

I’ll keep persevering.

I go to work in the dark and go home in the dark. I leave the classroom blinds open during the day so whatever light from the sun there might be can filter through the glass, but I’m looking forward to March more than I ever had.

Sometime in March I’ll walk out of the school building and stop in surprise in the middle of the parking lot because it will be sunny. I will be amazed at the width of the road because the plows have gone through one more time over the night for hardpack removal and pushed the snow and ice beyond the edges of the roads. That sense of release will brighten my day, but right now my path seems narrow.

Another morning on the drive to work I will be awed by the gorgeous sunrise over the truck’s hood. What is that strange orange-white object cutting above the horizon: The sun! I remember Ray Bradbury’s “All Summer in a Day,” a short story I read as a child. Back then I understood the children were looking forward to the sun, but back then I did not truly understand the yearn for it. The message about the cruelness of children is what stayed with me. Now, living in the Alaska Interior through this enervating year, the poignancy of the story’s many levels sticks me in the gut. I think I’ll reread it, and maybe even cry. I might need the cleanse.

What I really want to do is just sleep. Forget about my duties for a while, ignore the extra ones I have this year, become oblivious to the lack of communication from the district office, disregard the negative commentary by community and school board about teachers, brush aside the increased need of families and students to do the problem-solving themselves, and simply sink into a delightful slumber and wake up when my body wants to, rather than in reaction to a buzzer. Unfortunately I don’t have time to do any of that. It’s too bad I cannot buy even a small vial of supplemental time in the supermarket. 

One mid-April afternoon my truck will growl and the tires’ rubber will grind on the asphalt as I try to turn out from a parking spot. The asphalt will be too dry for four-wheel drive. I’ll let the transfer case do its transfer and then for another couple of weeks pause at either end of the dirt road to/from my house. I will need four-wheel drive to navigate the bumps, ruts, and pools from the combination of melting snow, slushy snow, and still solid ice. Brown mud will slowly replace the dirty white until at the end of April there will only be patches of snow at the sides of the road.

Parking lots and roads will be mostly clear except where the drainage is blocked, and then cold, muddy swimming pools will form. The weather channels will warn of possible flooding and recommend that people in low-lying areas move their belongings out of the basements. An advantage of having a house up on post-and-pad: no basement or flooding foundation worries!

By the end of April, time will be blending together, one day rolling into the next with the distant hope of the end of the school year bleeding into the workday. A long line of miniature Dover cliffs will mark the highway medium where the snow is melting from the southernly angle of the sunlight. The enormous snow dumps built over the long winter in parking lots and in the valleys between exit ramps will slowly melt and at the middle of May the gigantic white mounds will begin to develop dark toupees and sideburns as the melting snow drains away leaving the dirt, gravel, and grassy bits of vegetation to come the surface.

My students will want to be done with school and I will still have district requirements to coax them through. We’ll have a couple of field trips and they will be as much work as the everyday because even at the end of the year there will be young people who have not mastered self control, especially in the looser environment outside of the school. I will want to look forward to summer, but it will still be a month away. I can’t drop my guard! The sun’s energy will transfer to the students and the likelihood for recess and classroom interpersonal conflicts will be as high as those born of the despondency of deep mid-winter.

I am so looking forward to this year being over, but that is still months away…. It is only December! I need to remember to keep myself optimistic, assiduous, and energetic, at least as a model for my students if for no other reason. Come on, you can do it, I try to convince myself. Perhaps the winter break will be long enough to help rejuvenate me. <Sigh…> That break is still three weeks away… 

But I’ll do it. There really is not any other option.

The year will get better, I’ll certain of it!

Yet, I have a niggling feeling in the back of my mind that something else will happen, and that the niggle will turn into a bang. This year does not feel like it is not going to end with a whimper….

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[Note from 24 April 2022: 

In January the school district decided, besides to lift the masking requirement (although I opted to wear masks everyday until the day after my last contract day: I like not having colds!), the district officially decided to change the educational system from a junior high model to a middle school model, which means both the 5th and 6th graders go on to middle school next year. I estimate only 15% of my 5th graders currently are ready for this. There is one who still gets lost when going to a class with another teacher. Poor thing, I worry so! On the other hand, perhaps the shock of middle school is what some of the students need to start taking responsibility for themselves and their learning. I hope they will be able to adjust efficiently — and as painlessly as possible. Middle school is rarely called anyone’s best years as it is! 

The district has also decided to close two elementary schools and redo the boundaries. My school is losing more than half of its students to other schools due to the redistricting, which is causing anxiety among the families, especially those whose older children have spent six years at the school and who were hoping the younger ones would too. The new boundaries mean we will receive about 150 new students from the schools that have been closed, which means they may not be happy attendees either. The school climate will change dramatically next year, and, oh, the principal has decided to retire at the end of the year, and my father is having medical issues. Oh, yes, the year is not relinquishing its hold kindly. And there are still twenty-six more workdays to go…]

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[Mid-May 2022 note:

Looking around at my students, I nod and smile. I take a deep breath. They are ready. Many of them understand the need to work at a problem or assignment and are beginning to take on the self-accountability. After changing tack in my teaching from January onward, and knowing that of any year, this is the one that the middle schools will be expecting a need for additional support for the incoming 6th graders, I take a deep, calming breath. I am not worried anymore about my students leaving elementary school and heading off to middle school. I do not have any more physical headaches either. Only a few more days of focus and plate-balancing before the summer can truly start for me. I am so looking forward to it.]