stevenpiziks (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
stevenpiziks) wrote2021-08-29 09:08 pm
stevenpiziks) wrote2021-08-29 09:08 pm
The New School Year 2021
School started last week.
We're not as excited as you might think.
Some years, I'm ready to get back to it. Some years, I still feel like I need a couple more weeks. This time? I need another year. Teaching under the pandemic, with a virtual classroom first semester and a hybrid classroom second semester, was a real burnout. My reserves and my emergency reserves and my special, secret hidden reserves were all depleted, and they haven't been replenished. If I had the years, I would have joined the many teachers who retired. But I don't, so here we go.
This year, the emphasis--for me, at least--is an attempt to return to regularity. I'm not planning anything new. I'm not going to reinvent anything. I don't have the reserves for it. My current work will have to suffice. Fortunately for my students, my "current work" is platinum A-grade. (I don't do modesty. I've learned the hard way that no one will praise you in public except you yourself. And anyway, it's not boasting if it's true.) I set up my classroom in my tried-and-true method and created the first set of lessons with my tried-and-true plans. Normal school year was ready to go!
And then, on Tuesday at 9:00 PM, we got the announcement that the county was handing down a mask mandate. All students and staff must wear masks at school and on the bus.
I should probably say that I support mask wearing, especially with the Delta variant of COVID putting children into the hospital with shocking regularity. But I would much better prefer that the Health Department hand down a VACCINE mandate. No vaccine? No school for you. Then we wouldn't NEED masks. Too many politicians are cowards, though, so were stuck with the masks.
So now I can't see my students' faces, and I'm faced with the attendant problems--I can't tell who is speaking if someone calls out in class; I don't know who is who; I have to police mask wearing. Day One, and we're already stressing.
At least we don't have to use the barriers.
Now we're coming up on Week Two. Let's see what happens...
We're not as excited as you might think.
Some years, I'm ready to get back to it. Some years, I still feel like I need a couple more weeks. This time? I need another year. Teaching under the pandemic, with a virtual classroom first semester and a hybrid classroom second semester, was a real burnout. My reserves and my emergency reserves and my special, secret hidden reserves were all depleted, and they haven't been replenished. If I had the years, I would have joined the many teachers who retired. But I don't, so here we go.
This year, the emphasis--for me, at least--is an attempt to return to regularity. I'm not planning anything new. I'm not going to reinvent anything. I don't have the reserves for it. My current work will have to suffice. Fortunately for my students, my "current work" is platinum A-grade. (I don't do modesty. I've learned the hard way that no one will praise you in public except you yourself. And anyway, it's not boasting if it's true.) I set up my classroom in my tried-and-true method and created the first set of lessons with my tried-and-true plans. Normal school year was ready to go!
And then, on Tuesday at 9:00 PM, we got the announcement that the county was handing down a mask mandate. All students and staff must wear masks at school and on the bus.
I should probably say that I support mask wearing, especially with the Delta variant of COVID putting children into the hospital with shocking regularity. But I would much better prefer that the Health Department hand down a VACCINE mandate. No vaccine? No school for you. Then we wouldn't NEED masks. Too many politicians are cowards, though, so were stuck with the masks.
So now I can't see my students' faces, and I'm faced with the attendant problems--I can't tell who is speaking if someone calls out in class; I don't know who is who; I have to police mask wearing. Day One, and we're already stressing.
At least we don't have to use the barriers.
Now we're coming up on Week Two. Let's see what happens...