Last Wednesday, I completed year 29.
Year one for me at a different school.
First year to ever have just two preps.
Experienced a sense of family within these walls that extended my previous years.
Encountered challenges within my classroom walls that I resulted in more learning and growth on my part.
Taught eight weeks of the last nine online.
Contact with some students is near impossible.
Marked event after event off my calendar as meetings were canceled.
This online teaching definitely affirmed my real passion for face-to-face interactions.
See those sentences above...that is one of the results of the pandemic on me. Flashes. Segmented. Distanced. A loss.
Yet...I can take that same half-empty glass and switch my perspective to half-full.
No one I know caught the virus. My daughter, an essential worker, also kept working, sometimes 60+ hours a week. She had definitely proved her work ethic. :)
I watched many of my students rise, completing every assignment, remaining in contact, maintaining their positive attitudes, proving, too, their work ethics.
I "attended" more virtual meetings and sessions and grew to very much enjoy how small this world really is, as I continued to learn...and learn.
I read books, several of which were series, most of which were ebooks, spending less money, taking full advantage of online checkout of ebooks.
I cut, sewed, and distributed nearly 250 masks. I pray they protected someone.
I met daily with my hallway PLC via text messaging, an anchor they became that held us steady.
I enjoyed more me time and completed projects at home...and began more. Of course!
I watched spring flourish through my big windows here at home as I have not in many years...if ever.
I dove into online Bible studies, professional development, and book clubs, one of which was for my students...we have met three time so far...and they want to continue meeting through the summer. How powerful is that?!
And now...
Our state, which never fully closed, is encouraging more events. Celebrations will occur in July for graduations, proms, and end-of-year see-you-laters.
I do not see life ever being the same again; school already sounds different for 2020-2021. But. Teaching is my vocation and my avocation. Therefore, already, I feel the stir of interested for what will be...but first...let's take June off and enjoy some real downtime!
I have said this before...I hope to spend more time here reflecting...
How have you survived the pandemic?
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