Not a Wasted Word

It’s been a busy week back at work. Having said that, I think our new “block schedule” is going to make everything more manageable. I only have to post new work on two days, which means I can only grade and input work on two days (unless I want to revisit all the assignments a second time to score again after the procrastinators finish). I’m supposed to be posting two days worth of work on each day, but I’m finding that the block schedule helps me keep my expectations reasonable. I was definitely giving too much work before the break.

I’ve spent some time doing a broad map out of my two biggest classes, and will map my wheel electives this weekend. I’m still not sure how I’m going to follow up with the MANY 6th and 4th graders who are not doing anything in my class. I have 96 students in those four classes (two classes of each grade) and it’s way too much for me to follow up with all of them. I’m still working on that. It feels good to have some general information for myself written down somewhere.

My kids district evidently wasn’t really back in session this week, as teachers were given yet another week to determine how to deliver distance learning (they didn’t actually provide any distance learning the first two weeks either, they just sent students home with packets to work on, but there was no contact with teachers). This was mentioned, non-nonchalantly, in an email sent by the district on MONDAY AFTERNOON. We’ve received nothing from our kids’ school admin, though we have gotten some texts from their teachers (none announcing there was another week without distance learning though!)

As a teacher myself, I’m astounded at how badly SFUSD has handled this crisis, and I always have exceedingly low expectations of the district as whole. Luckily for us, our daughter got one of the awesome SFUSD teachers and she’s had a great week of learning. I am SO THANKFUL we ended up in her class because my friend’s daughter is in the regular 4th grade classes and it hasn’t been going nearly as well.

I’m picking up a packet from their school today for my son, who’s in Kindergarten. (Why could they not send these packets?!) I don’t really expect them to do much on zoom or other apps, but I do hope we’re not just given some paperwork and left to our own devices. I don’t really understand how teachers can expect to be paid if they are doing nothing after dropping off a packet. I understand these are hard times, but there are ways to do things, here and there, to help kids feel connected. We shall see.

{I have a lot more thoughts about teaching right now, but it feels like I should save them for another post dedicated to that topic alone.}

I haven’t left our house in a week, and it’s starting to get to me. Now that everything is officially closed (they even closed Highway 1 north of the city/county line and have rangers patrolling Ocean Beach to keep people away), it just doesn’t feel worth walking around our neighborhood. We are getting out into our backyard – but that space causes me profound anxiety so it’s not helping to alleviate my stress, though I do appreciate the time outside and working with my kids. I’m going to try to schedule a solo run once a week so I can enjoy the outdoors with out my kids (I tried to have them scooter with me last Friday and I ended up pulling their scooters for half of the four mile circle, which was a great workout, but not very fun). I will also be better about making them go on walks this weekend (it rained all last weekend which is part of why we didn’t make it outside).

I have done NOTHING for Easter and my kids keep talking about how excited they are for Sunday and I’m very close to freaking out. I have a couple of stuffies for them, but no candy and I can’t even find my eggs. My mom is going to bring me some stuff tomorrow (we usually do Easter with them) so hopefully it will work out, but they won’t get to dye any eggs. You can’t forget shit until the last minute and get it delivered these days. I guess I could brave Target for some stuff… but ugh, that sounds awful.

How are you doing today? Any plans for the weekend? 😉

I read the “grief” article that was circling a while back. It’s popped up in my reader a lot since it came out. Mostly people feel very validated hearing that the complicated range of emotions are, at least partially, rooted in grief. Naming an experience definitely helps us manage it. When I first read it I mostly nodded along, appreciating a way to better understand what I was feeling.

The loss of normalcy; the fear of economic toll; the loss of connection. This is hitting us and we’re grieving. Collectively. We are not used to this kind of collective grief in the air.

That Discomfort You’re Feeling Is Grief, Havard Business Review

Almost immediately I read a different response to the article, and I have to admit, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since. This response felt the article cheapened the very real, very deep experience of true grief and suggested that the reasons Americans are suffering so greatly is due to the expectation of freedom and prosperity that we have is so prevalent in this country of such wealth and political stability.

They do it because it’s easy and because grief, like pain and suffering, is considered noble. You’re not a hyperventilating hot mess, frazzled from too much time at home with the kids in between videoconference meetings,  pouting because your fun that involves travel or socializing has been postponed indefinitely. No, you are feeling “anticipatory grief.” Gimme a fuckin’ break.

Lovecraftian Times, Xykademiqx

I’m still not sure how I feel about the whole thing. On the one hand, I do believe that what many people are experiencing is a form of grief. On the other hand I also believe that many Americans (surely the intended audience of that particular article – and definitely me) have come to expect that life will look the way they want (or at least expect) it to look, because they have lived relatively sheltered lives in our wealthy, stable country.

We have never, as a nation, suffered a common natural disaster. We haven’t fought a foreign entity in a war on our soil since the Revolutionary War (which doesn’t really count). We’ve experienced very limited acts of terrorism within our borders. Our government has never been overthrown by our military. Our society was built on the tenants of personal freedom, even at the expense of others. Sacrificing for the greater good is a decidedly not a fixture of our cultural norms. It makes me wonder, does the segment of our society that the “grief” article was meant to console (again, definitely me included) lack the grit and resilience necessary to get through a challenging time without naming our difficult emotions as grief? Is grief really the right word or is bewilderment, as Xykademiqx names it, a more appropriate word.

What you’re feeling isn’t grief. Please, don’t cheapen grief. It’s bewilderment in the face of the unknown because you’ve spent your whole life able to count on stability and prosperity. But that’s not a feature of most societies, and even when it is, it’s never for more than a few uninterrupted decades.

Lovecraftian Times, Xykademiqx

I’m really not sure what the answer is. I don’t disagree with either article, and I’m still trying to figure out where I stand (which I recognize will probably be what best serves me and my immediate needs). I’m really curious what your take is on these two differing views.

Do you believe what we’re feeling about the upending of our lives is grief? Or do you believe calling it grief is inappropriate, and cheapens the word?

My husband and I had a conversation today that made me realize why I’ve been having an easier time working from home with our kids around than he has.

My husband is used to his work day being a protected entity. His familial obligations only rarely infringed on his professional time. I, on the other hand, have always worked less than I would ideally work, and that discrepancy has always been for the sake of our family. I always leave school earlier than I want, with more tasks on my to-do list than I can get done in the time I’ll have the next day, because I need to pick up the kids. I’m used to finishing prep work during one class, with students all around me doing something else, because I didn’t get it done the night before. I’m used to being a few steps behind, of prioritizing tasks and reorganizing plans because there just wasn’t time to get it all done. I’m used to getting my job done in far fewer hours than I need to do it well, or at least as well as I would like.

My husband is not used to any of these things. His work day was always a sacred space, and now it’s being infiltrated, and he doesn’t know how to manage that.

I’m trying to offer him so much time away from us, because I know he needs the long stretches of uninterrupted time more than I do. I can get stuff done in 15 minutes chunks. My husband cannot. So I offer him huge swaths of the day downstairs where no one interrupts him, while I mute my Zoom calls to help my kids with their math, or negotiate about what they can and cannot do next (yes, they should know what they can do next, no they don’t want to remember that because what they CAN do next is never what they WANT to do next). I also have a better idea of what they are working on academically, and what they should be working on. So it makes sense for me to be upstairs with them for the bulk of the day. I have fewer calls to make, fewer moments when I have to be available at a certain time. My work is more asynchronous, while his is more synchronous. Even while he’s working from home during a fucking pandemic, the city if riding the 9-to-6 work day. It’s crazy how hard it is for people to let shit like that go.

I understand that nothing I can offer him will ever be enough, that it will never equal his uninterrupted, six-hour work day. But it really sucks when it’s not even appreciated.

I wonder how many men around the world are witnessing what it’s always been like for their spouses, and yet still not really seeing it. It’s crazy how hard it is for my husband to see something that is directly in front of his face.

I guess it makes sense – witnesses never accurately recount what happened. I shouldn’t be surprised that my husband can’t either.

Yesterday it was raining and for some brief moments it felt like it probably would have in the rightside up*. I would have felt a fair amount of dread about going back to school the next day (going back after spring break is always hard because there are no more breaks until the end of the school year – and this year that was an 11 week stint). I would have felt under prepared for what was coming, and I would have regretted squandering what I had. I would have chided myself on the state of the house, disappointed that I hadn’t purged all the shit like I’d planned to. I felt all the things I normally would have felt, and even though they were mostly negative feelings, I kind of reveled in them. Truly, I felt almost normal.

But there was a competing feeling, that voice whispering a futile reminder: you were supposed to be going back tomorrow, the shelter-in-place was supposed to be over. I can still go back and feel the shock of confirmation that we were missing just two simple weeks of school. It felt unfathomable. And now we’re officially out for four more weeks, and everyone is talking like we won’t go back at all, even though our district is too cowardly to make the official announcement. (Internally we are speaking like is has been formally ordered – per the governor and state superintendent’s announcements – but parents have not received that messaging yet). It’s crazy to think that three weeks ago the suggestion that we’d never go back would have been met with total denial. Nobody would have believed it. And yet here we are. What a difference three weeks can make.

{And I suppose that is why our district is not saying it outright yet – because they want to give people time to digest the fact that we’re out four more weeks before they bring the hammer down on hope for the remaining seven.}

I’m struggling with what to do with my kids during this time. I’m not so stressed about the schooling they will miss – I know they will be fine with their post-bachelor-degree parents and the copious resources at our disposal. But I hate the idea of them sitting in front of screens all day. And yet, what else do I offer them? It’s one thing to request imaginative play a couple of hours a day, but for its entirety? For a week? For a month? And now that our outside adventure time has been whittled down to a mere hour spent wandering the neighborhood (where the only adventure is avoiding the dog shit that suddenly is EVERYWHERE – I guess pet owners don’t need to clean up after the dogs in the times of coronavirus) there are even more hours every week to fill.

I don’t know how we’re going to get through this. There are SO MANY HOURS before then and now. My son is already struggling so much.

{And as a teacher, I’m terrified to go back to school in the fall and try to engage students that haven’t sat in a desk for six months – many of them facing food scarcity and getting no breaks from the trauma of their home life.}

So yeah, just trying to reconcile the two different feelings, one of almost-normalcy and one that feels like things will NEVER be the same again. I’m sure the latter is closer to the truth, and I’ve mostly accepting that. Which is probably why I feel so bad right now.

*I’ve taken to thinking of our new coronavirus reality as the upside down, mostly so I can refer, in my head, to what I think of as my “real life” as the “rightstide up.” The parallels aren’t really there, I know, but it’s working for me right now.

I’m really struggling right now. My focus has been decimated by all this. I can’t get anything done. I’ve lost hundreds of dollars worth of things – important things – over the past few weeks (my Rx glasses, my nice sun glasses, my earpods). I wander around getting nothing done. I burn food on the stove because I forget I’m cooking it. I wander around with something I’m supposed to put away, but just set it down in another random spot. Not only am I not accomplishing anything, but I’m making a lot of things worse. I am a mess.

My marriage feels like it’s falling apart. I know it’s not, but that is what it feels like.

My kids are having a hard time. The excess Switch time (for Spring Break) is coming back to bite us in the ass. It’s harder to get them outside for a long enough stretch that it resets them now that most of the spaces are closed (though a city just south of us is leaving their beach open and that day was amazing). Yesterday I couldn’t convince them to leave the house at all, when all I had to offer was a walk around the block. (Yes, they lost privileges for making that decision, but they preferred to lose those privileges than to go outside.)

Our spring break is ending and it’s back to the distance learning grind on Monday. For all of us. My principal was so desperate for us to take an actual break that she wouldn’t even entertain the idea of us collaborating on the new schedule until our “work days” this coming Monday and Tuesday. So I’m not sure what will be expected of me once we start distance learning again and I can’t really plan what I’m going to do, which is driving me crazy.

{Before we were pushing work to kids on a daily basis, but that workload felt unsustainable for most of us. We also want to start zooming with our kids on a more regular basis (our students could not access zoom with their school accounts until the end of last week so we weren’t all teaching that way regularly yet), which presents scheduling challenges at the middle school level where each students has six or seven classes/teachers. So we are considering block schedule-like alternatives where students only zoom with, and get work from, certain teachers on certain days. But we haven’t talked about what that might look like at all, and as an elective teacher who teachers four different grade levels, there is a lot of uncertainty for me.}

We get almost no communication from our kids’ school, which has such a large population of free-and-reduced-lunch families that they don’t even have a way to email parents in situations like these. I keep hoping for something in the mail but it doesn’t come. So I have no idea what they will be expected to do starting Monday, and I doubt I’ll receive any clarification, which means their distance learning will be up to me, at least for a little while, probably for the duration.

{There have been multiple articles about how varied the distance learning situations are across districts in the Bay Area. I’m definitely teaching in a district that is providing more than most and my kids are at a district – and especially at a school – where they are doing less than most. It’s… interesting to see the differences first hand.}

My house is a perpetual mess. I’m trying to declutter but, well see the first paragraph.

I’m trying meditation. I’m trying to “stay connected.” I’m trying to get good sleep (my son wakes up with bad dreams every night so that makes it hard). I’m trying all the things I’m supposed to be trying to make things better. It’s not really working. (Or maybe it is, but not enough to make me feel better?) I’m hoping that with my husband available this weekend (he’s been working his normal hours this week – he doesn’t get a spring break), I’ll be able to get caught up on a couple of projects and things will start to feel more manageable. Because right now, nothing feels manageable. At all.

Thank you for educating me on the necessity of these steps. When I went to the beach, it looked like this.

But clearly that is not the case elsewhere. Just because I have not seen the behavior that warrants an action doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. I do believe officials are making decisions based on our overall well-being in these impossible times. I will remember that moving forward.

The reality is that our mental health cannot be a concern right now. It just can’t. And of course protecting our physical health is the main goal.

…

The state superintendent of California announced today that we will not be returning to school this academic year.

I am gutted. I expected this decision, but somehow the confirmation has totally leveled me. I can’t stop crying.

I’ll never see my 8th graders again. Not in real life. I won’t get to see them graduate or hug them after they’ve walked. The grief they must be feeling… I can’t imagine.

I haven’t told my kids yet. They will be devastated.

I need to change my mindset and start taking this one week at a time. If I look ahead anymore than that, I won’t be able to keep it together.

When the Bay Area’s shelter in place order was announced over two weeks ago, I was relieved to hear that they considered “recreation” an essential activity and that outside spaces would remain open. Being outside, and getting exercise, are essential to our mental and physical health.

Two weeks later and they’ve changed their tune. First the playgrounds closed. They said it wasn’t safe for kids to be touching surfaces touched by other kids, even if they did wash their hands afterward. A lot of parents, especially those with younger kids who are going crazy being stuck inside, cried that day. I know I did, and my kids aren’t even that young.

You can see on the sign that even though the playgrounds were closed, they urged us to run, bike, hike, and enjoy nature. Then they closed all the open spaces.

On Friday my daughter and I went for a run in a county park not far from us. It requires a $6 parking fee, so I bought an annual parking pass in January, that is how much I love this park.

We went again on Monday, for a walk, and found this.

I understand that people were using the open spaces to get together in non-social distancing ways, and I understand that that behavior is not okay. I also recognize that some open spaces don’t allow for social distancing. My favorite running trail on the peninsula is too narrow and too popular for people to stay the requisite six-feet apart; I understand why it was closed. But some spaces really are not conducive to gathering – they are great for walking and provide enough space that people can practice social distancing. The fact that those spaces are closing is insane to me.

When we realized our park was closed, I sat thinking about what open space would still be open. I realized Lake Merced cannot be closed because its perimeter is a sidewalk on regular roads. So we headed over there, and as I suspected on the drive, it was packed because it’s one of the few places left for people to run and walk. This is another way closing big, open spaces back fires – it crowds the spaces they can’t close like beaches and running trails with street access.

The city’s new line is that we should be going outside only in our own neighborhoods. I find this suggestion totally short-sighted. San Francisco is not as densely populated as most cities, but still crowded enough that if people only have their own neighborhoods available for getting outside, and getting outside is the only way to leave one’s house for exercise and fresh air (and a break from the monotony of being stuck in one’s house), then those neighborhoods will be so overrun with people that they can’t possibly keep six-feet from each other.

It’s one thing to ask people to stay at home, without open spaces available, for two weeks. It’s quite another to do that for two months (or more!). The levels of anxiety and depression in the general public is rapidly rising, and giving people outside spaces would do a lot to alleviate that. I’ve never felt as panicked during this time as I did yesterday, when I realized the open-space parks were closed. I don’t know how we’ll stay sane when there is no where to walk, or ride bikes.

The city used to recognize that “recreation” is an essential activity and that our open spaces are adequate for social distancing. I hope they remember that again soon.

My husband is struggling mightily with this situation. Because his job involves counseling business owners who are trying to decide if they should take out loans or shut down, he understands the gravity of the economic collapse we’re facing better than most. He was keenly aware of how bad everything was going when most of us were still parroting “but the flu kills tens of thousands of people every year too!” I’ve never seen him so visibly affected by events outside of his control.

He’s also really busy. Just like me. And after a day of juggling work and our kids, we’re both exhausted. The connection between us feels tenuous, fading every day.

We’re also not sleeping together. In an attempt to keep the possible bed bugs downstairs, we moved the bed down there, but only one of us is sleeping on it. My husband is downstairs where he can keep the bedding from hitting the floor (an important bed bug precaution) and I am upstairs, thrashing around on the couch bed. We’ve been sleeping apart for 10 days. I have to admit, I don’t miss his snoring, and we’d probably be going to bed at different times anyway (I’m letting my night-owl side play a little while I can sleep in), so I don’t think it’s necessarily contributing to the distance, but it can’t be helping.

We’re trying to connect during the moments we have together, but it’s hard. And there obviously won’t be any date nights happening any time soon.

People joke that a lot of babies will be born in December, but I wonder how many divorce papers will be served. This isn’t an easy situation for most couples. And the struggle will continue for a long, long time.

So, how do we create a space that feels like spring break when we’ve been home for two weeks, and will be home for at least four more weeks afterward? These are the questions I’ve been asking myself as we started our spring break today.

My husband initially thought we should just keep pushing through with “distance learning,” but I quickly shot down that idea. They have finished all the the work that was sent home from school (we were really good about completing those daily assignments over the past two weeks), and I didn’t really want to create more work for them. Also, they need a break from the craziness that is distance learning as much as I do. Things will really ramp up when they go back, with daily zoom meetings and more work assigned by teachers, so I think having this week “off” is important. After I explained my reasoning, my husband easily agreed.

So how do we make this week feel a little special when we’ve already been home and we’ll stay home when it’s over… Letting them play as much Switch as they want would make everyone insane, and I still think things like getting outside are important (we’ve done a REALLY good job of getting the kids outside – we’ve been out for at least an hour every day since quarantine started). I also think my kids thrive on routines, if not schedules, so we wanted something in place that kept us all sane.

{Also, while I happen to have the same spring break as my kids (for the first time ever!) my husband has no spring break at all, so I’ll be with them for the bulk of each day while my husband is working downstairs. This also makes a routine important to me.}

We sat down with the kids today and talked to them about how we wanted them to have a fun spring break, but that we also wanted to make sure everyone was happy and healthy (we talk a lot about how video games make us happy in the moment, but sometimes make us angry or frustrated later in the day). Then we asked them what they wanted out of our spring break.

After some negotiation, we came up with a routine that we think will work for everyone. It involves copious (in my opinion) amounts of screen time, but it also involves taking care of ourselves, each other, and our surroundings. My sticking point, besides basic self-care (you’ll notice I had to write down the three meals of the day, because my kids hate eating), was going outside every day. We’re also trying to get them to do more for themselves around the house, and we’re giving them some new chores.

{I’m embarrassed to report that they’ve basically never had chores before, besides the bare minimum of picking up their own room. But now that we have the time to teach them how to do things, and we are home enough that they have many times to practice doing them, we’re going to start. I’m hoping that, if we really stick to the chores this week, they will be easier to keep up in April when we’re also doing distance learning.}

So that is what we’re doing for our spring break. My husband laughed at me for writing out yet another schedule on the big white board, but I think it helps to see the routine. It keeps my grounded and it helps manage the kids’ expectations; they won’t be getting three hours of Switch/Kindle/iPad time if they aren’t taking care of themselves, each other, or their surroundings! I hope my white board helps them remember that.

Today is our last day of the first two weeks of distance learning. This coming week is our break. In my mind we’ve finished Phase One and are entering Phase Two. Our district has officially announced that we are returning to distance learning after the break, until May 1st. May 1st is a Friday, so I suppose it’s really May 4th. That will be Phase 3. And they might just extended it again after that. Phase Four?! 🙁

Honestly, I was relieved they didn’t just call it through the end of the school year. At least now we have some hope that we might go back.

At our staff meetings, teachers have made clear that the work load of the last two weeks is not sustainable. We are working together as a staff to create a schedule that is more manageable for everyone – both students and teachers. At this point we think a form of block days makes the most sense, so teachers have days when they are meeting with students via zoom and available to answer emails during specific time periods. Then, on other days, they can focus on creating content and reviewing student work. Doing all of those things simultaneously, every day, is just not possible.

I’m thankful that I work at a school where our staff can come together to solve problems without things getting contentious, or devolving into power plays. I just hope the district listens to our voices, and gives us the authority to implement a schedule that works for us.

At home, things continue to be a mess. I plan to purge a bunch of stuff from the house over the next week, because the clutter is driving me crazy. I also plan to put together some stuff for the next month of teaching remotely. If I learn how to use Explain Everything I will declare the break a success. Mostly, I need to find a better schedule for all of us. I’m hoping, that with the revamp of the school week schedule, the revamp of our home schedule will be easier to determine and implement.

We’re still not sure if the four-week extension of distance learning means a four-week extension of shelter in place. Will my husband be home in April? Will the playgrounds still be closed? I’m assuming so, because this is the “distance learning” I know, but there is still a lot of uncertainty.