Playing catch up

It’s Sunday, which is the day I make sure everything is ready for the week. I have to have all my assignments scheduled to post on Monday morning, and I usually spend Sunday night scoring the stuff that came in (the official due date for work in my classes is Sunday night, which I allow so students can finish work on the weekend if they need to).

Tomorrow I’m having my students do a group project and the amount of work required if I want even a chance of it being successful is incredibly high. It has been just so, so much work. If the whole thing ends up being a disaster I will be very disappointed.

So far “group work” in breakout rooms has been a bust. I will hop in and out of the rooms and find the kids just sitting there silently, doing the assignment themselves. Tomorrow’s group work will be the first time they’ve had to create something together, on a shared slide deck, each with editing privileges. I really wanted it to go well, so I asked them to tell me one or two people they think they work well with, and I spent quite a bit of time creating groups that honored their suggestions. Then I had to grab all the emails for each group so I can create a copy of the slide deck for each group and share it with the group’s members right before we start (otherwise some of them might claim a job they want without asking anyone else for their preferences). I also have to create a video of the directions so they can be watching those while I am finalizing the breakout rooms because not all of them log in with their school emails. I want the whole thing to get finished during one 45 minute “period,” so I gave each group member a small amount of work that I assume they can accomplish. I really, really hope it goes well. It probably won’t.

I spend a lot of time working on work, thinking about work, prepping for work, and grading assignments for work. I spend a lot of time worrying about work. I’m worried that I’m giving them too much to do. I worry that they are struggling and not telling me (even though I give them ample and varied opportunities to let me know). I’m worried they hate my classes and want to drop out (although the kids who are struggling refuse to drop out, no matter how many gentle emails I send them nudging them in that direction). I’m really proud of what I’m giving them – I was very lucky to find a program that uses strategies that allow for maximum language learning (in my opinion) even via distance learning. But I know how hard to is to stay engaged when it’s just you and a computer at home from 8:30 to 3pm. And I know that many of them have more significant obstacles to overcome than difficulties engaging.

When I’m not thinking about work, I’m worry about my kids. They are doing fine, all things considered, but I can see they are struggling. My son especially struggles to stay engaged with distance learning. He wasn’t a huge fan of school before the pandemic started, so I don’t know how much is distance learning specific and how much is just me being around to see how much he dislikes regular school work (and for him to be home to express that dislike, which he wouldn’t have done at school). My daughter is doing well, but it’s hard because she wants to be independent and 5th grade is an important year to start flexing those muscles, but she still needs a lot of scaffolding and support from us, organizationally, to get her work done. She is back on her ADHD meds and they are definitely helping, but we are still navigating appropriate ways to support her while letting her take responsibility for her own work.

I’m so, so grateful they both have opportunities to do activities away from home that offer social and physical outlets and remind them how to function in groups with other adults at the helm. My son’s first three weeks at the dojo end soon and I’m really hoping he gets to go again in October. It’s been really positive for him.

My husband is… really struggling. Even with the anonymity of this blog, I don’t feel comfortable sharing too much of what he is going through, but suffice to say it’s hard to be a public servant right now when the government is failing, so spectacularly, from the highest level down. He has been taking some days off, so he doesn’t have to engage with the misery five days a week, but it’s not enough of a respite to keep the depression at bay. It’s been very eye opening for me, someone who dealt with depression for over a decade, to recognize how hard it is to support people who are truly depressed (or very close to it). I have a lot of empathy, but it’s hard to provide the support he needs when I’m barely keeping my own shit together.

My own mood has been fluctuating a lot lately. I’m doing the things I know are necessary to keep me on the evenest keel possible – exercising 4x a week, getting seven hours of sleep most nights, taking my magnesium – but I still find myself upset without a specific triggering event. I’m sure it’s just the incredible stress we’re under because of the pandemic, compounded by the uncertainty of the coming election, and the lack of connection that quarantining creates.

I also am realizing that it’s just really hard to jump between teaching and my family multiples times a day. Usually our schedules are so tight that I have to run upstairs within minutes of teaching a class. It’s hard to be so on – smiling and energetic and engaged while getting almost nothing from my students in return – and then going immediately upstairs to deal with a 1st grader who just wants to listen to podcasts and eat Pirate’s Booty all day, but instead has to show up for his next class, or finish an assignment on Seesaw.

I titled this post “Playing catch up” because that is what I felt like I had to do here after so many weeks of being away. But I’m realizing my whole life feels like I’m playing catch up. It’s exhausting. I keep reminding myself that I have more flexibility in my job than most when it comes to what I’m actually teaching and how much energy it requires to teach that way. I could put the breaks on my own program, but that is very hard for me to do. Next week is conferences and I decided to break up the assessment I’m giving my students into three short chunks, and to not give them anything else. I’m hoping that provides a little break for all of us, even me. Maybe that will give us all some ample time to play a little catch up…