I've been a teacher for three years, and almost nothing has gone the way I expected.
My first year of teaching was The Year of the Teachers’ Strike — until it became The Year of COVID-19. My second year was The Year of Remote Learning. I am just now finishing my third year, and I don’t have a name for it yet. I thought it would be The Year We Returned to Normal, but it hasn't turned out that way. We came back to school in person, and we resumed most of our pre-pandemic traditions — pep rallies, lunch in the cafeteria, prom, assemblies — but something feels off.
There's a lot of good happening, of course. Every day I see students figure out math concepts that eluded them before. Every day I see students doing kind things for each other — decorating a friend's locker to celebrate their college choice, consoling a peer who's having a bad day, helping their partner with a math problem. Every day I have interactions with students that make me laugh or warm my heart. On my last day with my class of seniors, one of them asked me to invite him to my wedding in a few years. I take those good things home with me every day, and they keep me going.
But here's what else I see: I see some of the most talented and driven students struggling to find the motivation and energy to do their schoolwork. I see some of the nicest and most responsible kids skipping class. I see some of my most talented and dedicated and conscientious colleagues experiencing burnout. I see all of these things, and I get discouraged. This is not what I dreamed of when I went into teaching. And I know that despite our best efforts to return to “normal,” we haven’t put all the pieces back together yet.
I don't blame myself for hoping this year would be normal. It's always nice to start out with optimism, and there was no recent precedent I could have looked to in order to predict what this year was going to be like: The last worldwide pandemic before COVID was in 1918. But now that this year is almost over, the idea that it could ever have been "normal" is laughable.
Consider all the abnormal things we've dealt with over the last two years. By now, many of us have had COVID, and if we haven't, we surely know people who have. We all spent more than a year doing school online. (Even if you came back for "hybrid" in spring 2021, that was basically just remote learning in a different location.) We all spent at least some of the last two years isolated from friends and family members, and from the activities we enjoyed before the pandemic. In March 2020, we were told that we just needed to stay inside for two weeks to "flatten the curve." If it had really only lasted two weeks, maybe we would have been able to forget and move on and live just as we had before, and we would always look back on that time of social distancing not as a collective trauma, but as a curiosity. "Remember when we had to stay inside for two weeks? That was weird, wasn't it?"
But two years is too long. For a teenager, of course, two years is the difference between 14 and 16, or 15 and 17 — an eternity. Even for an adult, though, two years is long enough for relationships to begin, to end, to change; it's long enough for worldviews to shift. I am not the same person I was two years ago. The world around me is not the same, either. We've lived through so many events that our grandchildren and great-grandchildren will one day learn about in their history classes: racial justice protests, an armed insurrection at the US Capitol, a war in Ukraine, and on and on and on. We can't just go back to being who we were before the pandemic. Those people don't exist anymore.
For most of us, the changes haven't all been bad. Some of you have welcomed baby siblings into your families or gotten into your dream colleges. Others have made new friends or taken up new hobbies. As for me, I've had an incredible two years career-wise. I got hired at a school I love, a school I don’t plan on leaving anytime soon. I became an AP calculus teacher. I became the head coach of two sports teams. I have accomplished a bunch of professional goals, in many cases sooner than I would have dreamed. I am still trying to understand how so many good things could have happened during what I hope will be the worst two years I will ever live through.
I consider myself pretty lucky: I've never had COVID (as far as I know), and no one close to me has died from it. I have been employed and financially stable this whole time. But even for me, these last two years have been hard, and I feel like I'm still recovering. I am tired all the time — not the kind of tired you feel when you don’t get enough sleep, but something deeper. Some days and weeks I feel like I’m in survival mode. I try not to let it show when I’m in the classroom, but I’m sure my students can tell sometimes.
Some of you know that I play tennis in my spare time. Twice in the last two years, I have missed a shot and then smashed my racket in anger — literally broke it, so I couldn't use it ever again. I've seen pros do that on TV, but I always thought I wasn't that kind of player. Turns out, under the right circumstances, I am. I don't think tennis itself made me that angry. I think I was already feeling angry and worried about other things, and that was just where I let it out.
I think many of you are still recovering as well. This year, I have heard more about mental health and family issues among students than ever before (and I suspect that for every situation I know about, there is another one — or two or three or four — that I don't). I appreciate when students trust me enough to open up about those things, but I wish I could do more to help. When a student is struggling with math, I can tutor and support that student until they understand. When a student is struggling with life, the most I can do is lend an ear, refer them to the counselor or social worker if appropriate, and maybe extend a deadline or something. That isn't nothing, but sometimes it feels like trying to stop a hurricane with an umbrella.
For the last two years, we have all been trying to stop hurricanes with umbrellas. And it's not possible. An umbrella is not capable of doing the job. It's just what we have on hand.
I think I'm supposed to end this essay on an optimistic note. I'm supposed to tell you how to solve all your problems, or describe a future full of sunshine and rainbows, or something. But I don't have that in me today.
What I can tell you is this: If these last two years haven't gone the way you planned, or if you've fallen short of your own hopes and ideals for yourself, you should remember that you've been living through exceptional times. If you're still here and still striving to build a better future for yourself, that's something to be proud of. If you feel a little lost or you're questioning what you thought you knew about the world, that's a normal and healthy response to our current circumstances. There's nothing wrong with you. If you're not sure how to move forward, you should remind yourself that there are very few people alive who have experience recovering from a pandemic. We are all figuring this out as we go.
The best hope I can offer you is that the process of figuring things out will continue. You won't wake up tomorrow (or any day of your life) knowing all the answers, but over time more answers will reveal themselves to you. You won't wake up tomorrow (or any day of your life) and be the exact person you dream of being, but over time you can get closer to that ideal. You will never solve every problem in the world, but over time you will learn how to use your talent and energy to at least make your corner of the world a little brighter.
If these last two years have been hard for you, I'd love to tell you that everything is going to get easier soon. Honestly, though, I have no idea. The last two years have confirmed for me the truth of these words (often misattributed to Yogi Berra): "It is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future."
I don't know what next year will bring. I'm not even sure what tomorrow will bring. But I do know that I will get up tomorrow and try my best, and I'll do the same the next day, and the next day, and every day after that. I hope that will be enough.
My first year of teaching was The Year of the Teachers’ Strike — until it became The Year of COVID-19. My second year was The Year of Remote Learning. I am just now finishing my third year, and I don’t have a name for it yet. I thought it would be The Year We Returned to Normal, but it hasn't turned out that way. We came back to school in person, and we resumed most of our pre-pandemic traditions — pep rallies, lunch in the cafeteria, prom, assemblies — but something feels off.
There's a lot of good happening, of course. Every day I see students figure out math concepts that eluded them before. Every day I see students doing kind things for each other — decorating a friend's locker to celebrate their college choice, consoling a peer who's having a bad day, helping their partner with a math problem. Every day I have interactions with students that make me laugh or warm my heart. On my last day with my class of seniors, one of them asked me to invite him to my wedding in a few years. I take those good things home with me every day, and they keep me going.
But here's what else I see: I see some of the most talented and driven students struggling to find the motivation and energy to do their schoolwork. I see some of the nicest and most responsible kids skipping class. I see some of my most talented and dedicated and conscientious colleagues experiencing burnout. I see all of these things, and I get discouraged. This is not what I dreamed of when I went into teaching. And I know that despite our best efforts to return to “normal,” we haven’t put all the pieces back together yet.
I don't blame myself for hoping this year would be normal. It's always nice to start out with optimism, and there was no recent precedent I could have looked to in order to predict what this year was going to be like: The last worldwide pandemic before COVID was in 1918. But now that this year is almost over, the idea that it could ever have been "normal" is laughable.
Consider all the abnormal things we've dealt with over the last two years. By now, many of us have had COVID, and if we haven't, we surely know people who have. We all spent more than a year doing school online. (Even if you came back for "hybrid" in spring 2021, that was basically just remote learning in a different location.) We all spent at least some of the last two years isolated from friends and family members, and from the activities we enjoyed before the pandemic. In March 2020, we were told that we just needed to stay inside for two weeks to "flatten the curve." If it had really only lasted two weeks, maybe we would have been able to forget and move on and live just as we had before, and we would always look back on that time of social distancing not as a collective trauma, but as a curiosity. "Remember when we had to stay inside for two weeks? That was weird, wasn't it?"
But two years is too long. For a teenager, of course, two years is the difference between 14 and 16, or 15 and 17 — an eternity. Even for an adult, though, two years is long enough for relationships to begin, to end, to change; it's long enough for worldviews to shift. I am not the same person I was two years ago. The world around me is not the same, either. We've lived through so many events that our grandchildren and great-grandchildren will one day learn about in their history classes: racial justice protests, an armed insurrection at the US Capitol, a war in Ukraine, and on and on and on. We can't just go back to being who we were before the pandemic. Those people don't exist anymore.
For most of us, the changes haven't all been bad. Some of you have welcomed baby siblings into your families or gotten into your dream colleges. Others have made new friends or taken up new hobbies. As for me, I've had an incredible two years career-wise. I got hired at a school I love, a school I don’t plan on leaving anytime soon. I became an AP calculus teacher. I became the head coach of two sports teams. I have accomplished a bunch of professional goals, in many cases sooner than I would have dreamed. I am still trying to understand how so many good things could have happened during what I hope will be the worst two years I will ever live through.
I consider myself pretty lucky: I've never had COVID (as far as I know), and no one close to me has died from it. I have been employed and financially stable this whole time. But even for me, these last two years have been hard, and I feel like I'm still recovering. I am tired all the time — not the kind of tired you feel when you don’t get enough sleep, but something deeper. Some days and weeks I feel like I’m in survival mode. I try not to let it show when I’m in the classroom, but I’m sure my students can tell sometimes.
Some of you know that I play tennis in my spare time. Twice in the last two years, I have missed a shot and then smashed my racket in anger — literally broke it, so I couldn't use it ever again. I've seen pros do that on TV, but I always thought I wasn't that kind of player. Turns out, under the right circumstances, I am. I don't think tennis itself made me that angry. I think I was already feeling angry and worried about other things, and that was just where I let it out.
I think many of you are still recovering as well. This year, I have heard more about mental health and family issues among students than ever before (and I suspect that for every situation I know about, there is another one — or two or three or four — that I don't). I appreciate when students trust me enough to open up about those things, but I wish I could do more to help. When a student is struggling with math, I can tutor and support that student until they understand. When a student is struggling with life, the most I can do is lend an ear, refer them to the counselor or social worker if appropriate, and maybe extend a deadline or something. That isn't nothing, but sometimes it feels like trying to stop a hurricane with an umbrella.
For the last two years, we have all been trying to stop hurricanes with umbrellas. And it's not possible. An umbrella is not capable of doing the job. It's just what we have on hand.
I think I'm supposed to end this essay on an optimistic note. I'm supposed to tell you how to solve all your problems, or describe a future full of sunshine and rainbows, or something. But I don't have that in me today.
What I can tell you is this: If these last two years haven't gone the way you planned, or if you've fallen short of your own hopes and ideals for yourself, you should remember that you've been living through exceptional times. If you're still here and still striving to build a better future for yourself, that's something to be proud of. If you feel a little lost or you're questioning what you thought you knew about the world, that's a normal and healthy response to our current circumstances. There's nothing wrong with you. If you're not sure how to move forward, you should remind yourself that there are very few people alive who have experience recovering from a pandemic. We are all figuring this out as we go.
The best hope I can offer you is that the process of figuring things out will continue. You won't wake up tomorrow (or any day of your life) knowing all the answers, but over time more answers will reveal themselves to you. You won't wake up tomorrow (or any day of your life) and be the exact person you dream of being, but over time you can get closer to that ideal. You will never solve every problem in the world, but over time you will learn how to use your talent and energy to at least make your corner of the world a little brighter.
If these last two years have been hard for you, I'd love to tell you that everything is going to get easier soon. Honestly, though, I have no idea. The last two years have confirmed for me the truth of these words (often misattributed to Yogi Berra): "It is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future."
I don't know what next year will bring. I'm not even sure what tomorrow will bring. But I do know that I will get up tomorrow and try my best, and I'll do the same the next day, and the next day, and every day after that. I hope that will be enough.
