Being in my classroom today was a totally surreal experience. It was like walking through a time machine back into my normal life. Everything was where I left it nine weeks ago when I walked out on Friday, March 13th assuming I would be back in three weeks (and believing that teaching from home for two weeks because of the coronavirus was the strangest thing that could ever happen). If you had told the me that walked out of that classroom that Friday that I wouldn’t see a student in that classroom again during the 2019-20 school year, I wouldn’t have been able to process the words.
There were still papers in the turn baskets and pencils on the floor. It was like a time capsule, a physical reminder so potent that I could stand in the middle of that room and feel the normal settling like dust all around me.
I cried as I packed it up. The weight of the reality of it was so heavy. I haven’t spent more than 10 minutes in my classroom in over two months. We missed an entire trimester of the school year. So many moments between my students that I didn’t realize I cherished until they were ripped away.
I’ve written here before that I’m surprised to learn how much I genuinely enjoy teaching. I had no idea how important that aspect of my life, of my identity, was until it was gone. I’ve been teaching for 16 years, and it took a pandemic, and two months of sheltering in place, for me to really know how much I appreciate what I do.
There are definitely aspects I don’t miss. To be sure. I sometimes think about the challenges and realize it’s been nice to have an extended respite from some aspects of my job. But there is more to it that I love than I realized. I appreciate learning that.
I doubt I’ll be back in that classroom on the first day of 2020-21 school year. At some point, later in the fall, I think I’ll be welcoming students back into my classroom, but it will look so different than it ever has before. I’ve been teaching the same thing, at the same school, for a decade and a half, and I can’t fathom what next year will look like. It’s a strange feeling. It’s surreal.
I can picture this. I also know I cannot really imagine it. Everything would be both familiar and strange and the sense of loss…. massive.
Where do all your materials go that are in your classroom since you probably will not be back in that room? Who stores them? How do you get them back out? I have no idea how this works….. (except it must be different from cleaning out a simple desk after a co-worker has died which I have done). You have a whole room full.
This was and is reality. Glad for you it really brought home what you do love about your job; anytime we remember that it helps. Because we normally see the annoyance parts all the time and do not stop to be aware of the other side.
VERY powerful.
BE super careful of and for you. Thank you.
Everything can stay in the room, it just needs to be packed away enough so that all the surfaces are completely clear. Mostly I just stack things on top of each other on shelves and fill up my cabinets. But otherwise, nothing has to be moved.
I have a friend in Arizona who teaches grade school. She’s retiring, and had to return to pack up her classroom for good. She said it was pretty surreal, and not at all how she’d imagined the end of her career! Sending (((hugs)))!
I have a friend at work who is moving to Austin this summer. She has been at our school for 15 years and she is devastated that her tenure there is ending this way. It’s really, really hard.