Where I’ve Been

Well, this is awkward…

It’s been a minute. In fact, it’s been more than a minute. It has been since the spring of 2020 since I posted on my blog. 

Where have I been? you ask me. 

But you probably already know part of the answer. Around the time I stopped posting regularly on my blog the world was falling apart in the midst of a pandemic. We were all introduced to what life would look like with Covid. 

Do you remember what it was like?

 In March everyone went home for two weeks. And that stretched to a month. And then, perhaps, to months and even a year. Many of us were quarantining or minimizing our movements out and about to help ‘flatten the curve.’ The rest of us–those temporarily glorified essential persons–were on the ‘front lines,’ putting themselves out into the toxic air to do the work that needed to be done. 

When all of this started I was working at a long-term care facility. So we were scrambling, trying to determine best practices to keep our residents and ourselves safe and being bombarded by frequently contradictory advice from all angles. We quarantined them. I literally sewed masks at the front desk because they weren’t being mass-produced yet. We wore masks and temperature checked and used hand sanitizer and cleaners regularly.

 We wondered–would I be the one to bring the sickness into these fragile halls? Or would being out in the world mean I would catch this mysterious sickness and end up at death’s door myself?

Fear was rampant, worry incessant, and the world was crazy.

Fear was rampant, worry incessant, and the world was crazy. 

In the summer of 2020, I changed jobs. I went from working on the front lines with older citizens to working in a school. From the frying pan and into the fire as far as germs were concerned. 

Teaching is a unique beast at the best of times, but in the last two years, it has become a bit monstrous. 

I first entered the classroom at a middle school as a 6th-grade ELA teacher. We were all wearing masks, we had to wipe down the desks at each class change, encourage regular use of hand sanitizer, and somehow, someway we had to create as much ‘social distance’ as possible while also cramming up to 27 students in a classroom. 

I was running on anxiety, coffee, and the dream of changing the world one student at a time.

And then I got laid off. 

Because of the shift of students from in-classroom to virtual, the county had a huge shortfall in its expected budget. And where did the cuts come from? Staffing. The easiest way to save money. Since I was working on my state certification and had no tenure with a school district, I was among the first on the chopping block. Luckily for me, but unluckily for our country, we were also in the midst of a teacher shortage. So I was laid off on a Friday and able to find a new job the next Monday. 

I moved to a different middle school and ended up teaching a combination of 7th- and 8th-grade Advanced ELA courses. My first year of teaching is a bit of a blur. Students were in and out because of either catching Covid or being quarantined for being exposed to Covid. Teachers were expected to make sure they were never within 6 feet of a student for longer than 15 minutes so that they could not be quarantined. Not for their health, mind you, but to make sure we didn’t put an additional burden on an already crumbling system of teachers and substitutes. 

Looking back on that time it honestly just floors me. The pressure, the fear, the desire to succeed. 

I somehow survived. I somehow balanced all of these contradictory expectations and instructions. 

But I was miserable. 

After surviving my first year of teaching–with fairly good reviews and acceptable test scores from my students–I was preparing to do it again the next year. Things with Covid had entered the stage that people were abandoning protocols because of differing political ideologies or the firmly held belief that they just didn’t work. 

Before returning, I had come to the realization that teaching is not what I wanted to do long-term. I had agreed to try it for two years. Particularly since the first one was a  Covid year, it couldn’t really be taken as a good sample of what the teaching industry was like. Right?

Well, looking back I believe it did. 2020 may not have been a normal school year, but it only exacerbated or highlighted issues that have long been present in the education industry. Impossible expectations for teachers. Students not getting the time or attention they need because their teachers are overwhelmed. Administrations are managing crisis after crisis and are not able to support their teachers because they have so few resources with which to do so. And all the ills and challenges of a polarized society at ideological war with itself infiltrated the classroom and made its presence known within the ‘safe’ spaces of education. 

I survived the 2021-2022 school year by white-knuckling my way through.

The only reason I was able to survive is that I had a wonderful administration, a couple of really good teams, and good friends who saw me through. 

I can’t imagine what it has been like for teachers with toxic environments or dysfunctional teams, and I feel grateful that I was blessed with what I had.

But even with everything being ‘perfect’ as far as that goes, at the end of the day teaching in public school just wasn’t for me. 

Looking at this truncated history, you might ask me, Jocelyn. This is a writing and book blog. Was there any writing and reading getting done?

Well. There was plenty of reading. Since reading is my coping mechanism when I need to escape the world, I read voraciously when I had time. But I did not have the time or the mental or emotional capacity to write. This fed heavily into my decision to leave teaching. 

The last two years have been a unique roller coaster that left me at times thrilled, at others sick to my stomach and fearing for my life. After finally getting off this ride, I’m fairly confident I don’t ever want to ride it again. 

But, I am grateful for many things. I’m grateful for the people I have met. I’m grateful for the lessons I have learned. I’m grateful for the ways teaching pushed me out of my comfort zone, stretched me, molded me, and forced me to come to terms with very important truths about myself. And I am so very grateful to have the option to walk away. 

What’s next? Well. I’ve got plans and dreams and the willpower to get there. Just join me in the next blog and I will be happy to tell you. I’ve told you where I’ve been. 

Let me tell you where I’m going. 

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