Brand New Baby Teach…Virtually

My Uncle Dave always called me teach. This lead me to call my student teachers Baby Teach. Now almost twenty years later, I’m the new Baby Teach.

This school year is nothing like we have seen before. The first couple of days of training I cried. I was so completely overwhelmed I cried. I cried in a staff meeting on camera in front of people. LOL. It could have been that my meds were not balanced out yet but I’m going more with the fact my mind was buzzing with all the requirements we were given to fulfill in a short period of time.

Each day during our two and a half weeks of professional development, we were asked to watch videos and then do our work. I watched all my videos early and then tried to get my work done.

I worked and worked and felt like I didn’t make a dent in anything. Sitting if front of a computer making virtual documents, there is not sign of any real progress. There’s no stack of papers you’ve made copies of for Monday. There’s no sharpened pencils. There’s no books on desks. There’s no desks.

For me, it’s just me and the end of my kitchen table surrounded by books, notebooks, sticky notes and other supplies.

I finally started making lists to feel like I accomplished something. The first list was good. I was able to get most of it done. The second list took me all day and I got nothing done of it. I worked on it but didn’t get through it. Each item was not conquerable. It left me feeling deflated.

On top of regular teacher responsibilities of just lesson planning and doing professional development. We needed to learn a whole new platform of delivering education called Canvas. Someone posted a meme that said “Can’tvas” that was more accurate.

Over the past weeks, teachers have learned their way around. I know enough on how to link my platform to my google classroom. That’s about it. All the other stuff is too much. It’s a lot to take on and I’m proud of my colleagues who have been able to master the content. I’m a wimp in that context.

On top of the top of that, being a special ed teacher we have more responsiblities. We have to rewrite all our IEPs before October 2nd. I tried to get as many revisions done before school started. I was able to get eight done, but that still created the problem of having to write them and do the paperwork. It was time consuming and needed to get done and emailed and documented.

Working from home its a whole new ballgame. Monday, we go into the trenches of online distance education. We start a whole new style of teaching and the students start a new style of learning.

I have learned the past two weeks, sitting in front for a screen for seven hours a day is killing me. I don’t know how I’ll do it for the semester, or yet a year if we don’t go back. It will be interesting to see.

I wish my teacher friends and teachers everywhere good luck as schools open in person or virtually. This is something we have never known. We are all first year teachers. Let’s learn from each other, share our trials and tribulations, and have a virtual happy hour at the end of the week.

Good Luck!