Hello! If you’re following my blog you may have noticed… or maybe not… that my last post was in 2020! I can’t believe it myself. I did start a draft post in 2021, and called it The Willow Tree Teacher, and described some things I’d been through. I never went back to it to finish and publish it. At any rate, here’s what’s happened in my life since 2020.
In 2020, our roommate passed away from a stroke. I didn’t know her well… and I don’t really want to write about it; my last post was about that. I’m mentioning it as a start in the timeline. At the time, I had barely started teaching remotely during COVID. I had to break the news to my co-workers over Zoom, among frustrations that my students weren’t getting what they needed (a computer, internet, etc.) I remember having to step away from a meeting since I felt like screaming, and overhearing my principal sharing with others that my roommate had passed away, to excuse my sudden departure from the Zoom.
Anyway, moving ahead from that start in our timeline, I taught remotely for one year and a half. At first it was just my students, for the last few months of school (grades 1-3, Deaf and Hard of Hearing students). Then, during the next school year (2020-2021), I taught all of the remote Deaf and hard of hearing students from my elementary school, which included all of the grades, and all ability levels, including Deaf/Hard of hearing students with additional disabilities. It was a rollercoaster ride to say the least, and I stayed up until at least 10 pm each night, working on virtual lessons for the next day or few days. For each lesson, not only did I create each one at each ability level, I recorded myself speaking and signing the directions and showed how to do the virtual activity. Students had no excuse not to do the work, basically. Though, some needed siblings and parents to get them going on it. It was hard on us all.
Next came re-entry into the school, school year 2021-2022. Personally I felt like I’d been on Mars and had no transition to the re-entry back to in-person teaching, and felt like an alien walking amongst those who had been working together in person while I had not been. There were a few of us that had been fully remote the whole time. There was no welcome or fanfare for us coming back, just, back to a place where everyone else had bonded together without us.
Not only that, my last conversation with my principal had us both at odds. She had given me an ultimatum at the end of the previous school year that I follow her way (behaviorism) or the highway; I could look for other work. At first, I didn’t do it after I got back (hand out tickets for good behavior to be used in their ‘store’. My students were already intrinsically motivated to learn and already loved school; I didn’t want to destroy that with rewards, as research has shown rewards to do.)
Then, the Vice Principal and Principal sat me down and basically ordered me to do it, with a goal for improvement, staring me down sternly as if I were a naughty child. I played the game for a short while, which meant I gave out tickets to my students no matter what because they were already good, but that, plus the feeling that I didn’t belong, had me looking elsewhere. Working there made me feel sick to my stomach, and I felt that all the work I’d done for them the previous years amounted to a tiny little pile of shit in their eyes.
I’d gone through, when I’d started with them a year before COVID, two children who ran off at a moment’s notice, and one of whom blew up into dangerous tantrums, climbing piles of chairs, and throwing objects, destroying technology, and worst of all, strangling another child. (And, I hadn’t been given any kind of head’s up that I would have students like that.) If I wasn’t watching the dangerous ones, then I was ushering the non-dangerous ones out to safety. I can’t believe I stuck with that school after that, and continued into COVID and remote teaching. Well, I can believe it. I loved those kids.
At the end of it all, I didn’t know it, but I was burned out. And the sad thing is, if my principal had honored my values of teaching and classroom management, I might still be teaching there today.
Mid-year, I found a job teaching American Sign Language to high school students that started in November of 2021, and I did that until May of the next year. Up until then during my career as a teacher, when other teachers had left mid-year, I had sworn I’d never do that to my students. Then, it was my turn to do the same thing. I cried in grief over missing my students when I did this. However, I had to do it for my own mental health. Later that year, I’d wanted to visit my former students to let them know I still cared. I asked when I could come and was given kurt answers, that it was testing week when I had my Spring Break. I call bullshit on that, I could have come during their recess-time, or they could have offered other times I could visit. I only wanted to see them for a moment and give them hugs. In my view, I was shut out.
At the new job I was in, teaching ASL to high schoolers, many of those students were so great. And, there were some that made that experience pretty hellish. After that short stint, I both mentally and physically packed up my 21 years of experience as a teacher and never returned to teaching. I was ‘over’ so many things at that point.
I am so grateful that I found my current job, which started in July of 2022: I’m an Administrative Assistant III with Concurrent Enrollment at a nearby community college. Not only am I still helping students in a way, I’m not teaching, and I love my ‘work family.’ It was a huge paycut for me, and yet so worth it, with so much less stress and a shorter commute to work, and best of all, wonderful people to work with.
I support this team of wonderful people with good hearts, and (bonus) they appear to like me! (I have a gaping chink in my armor from childhood and have a very hard time believing people like me for me. I think I’ve gotten over that for the most part, but it does underlie the surface of my relationships from time to time.) I have flexible hours as long as I meet my 40-hour week, and the pay is getting better year by year. It’s still a lot less than I was earning, but my husband and I are doing ok financially.
Meanwhile, I’ve had some craft businesses that have been barely existing. If I can get at least one of them to flourish and supplement income, that would be worth it. Currently, they are Quirky Witchy Tees LLC and FOLKWILD Creations LLC. I’ll go more in depth about them in another blog.
That brings us up to today. Right now, I have been diagnosed recently with a kidney stone. The fatigue from it is the main thing I’m dealing with, and nausea. I have surgery mid-August, and I’m hoping for an earlier date; I’m on a cancellation list. I’ve had to scale back on work, and take sick time. I have PFML set up so that my time off doesn’t take away from my accrued sick time. This kidney stone is something else I’d rather not write about! But, now you are caught up with the basics of my life, for the last 5 years.
I’m still married to my wonderful lovely man I wrote about marrying in 2017. We just celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary and 11 years together total. We have two cutie dogs named Motoko and Batou after the anime, and they are sweethearts. Batou is a pitty mix and Motoko is a beautiful Belgian Malinois. We are lucky to have my step daughter living with us, and my step son lives across the street. My husband also loves his job. Our lives are so good I’m scared of tempting the fairies with any more boasting! They might have something else go wrong with me this year… knock on wood!! (So far: I broke my left wrist – both bones; now I have this kidney stone, and I just found out I have osteoporosis. I think hey that’s 3! It can stop now!)
I’m glad to be back to writing this blog, and hope to blog more in the coming year.
diary of a pagan dork 