If you’ve been watching the news, you’ve most likely seen that schools all over the United States have been closed due to COVID-19. There’s a lot of confusion and fear right now, and as a teacher, I have quite a few thoughts about the school closures and COVID-19 that I wanted to share.
Fear for Students
As COVID-19 was spreading north of my district, in Seattle and King County, our school district was monitoring how it was moving south towards our area and working with our county health department. However, once Governor Inslee announced that schools in King, Pierce, and Snohomish counties were closing for 6 weeks, we recognized that we were most likely going to be next.
With that in mind, just like nearly every school district in the U.S., we have students that are homeless and students that get a lot of their meals or food from our school district. For some, school is their safe place. I’m worried about how these closures will impact our students for this school year and the next few years – this is a defining moment for them as a generation!
How will they eat? Will they be safe? How will they learn? How can I help them from home? All these run through my head as I try to understand what school closures look like for our district.
Fear of COVID-19
Of course, there is the fear of COVID-19 itself – which we are seeing within the media. However, as an educator, how quickly COVID-19 has been spreading has been the scariest part. I know that if I was to catch it, I would most likely recover and be okay. But the idea that I could pass it on to someone in my family that is susceptible, pass it to a student and their family, or even that our classroom atmosphere was not clean or safe enough to keep students safe from COVID-19 is intimidating.
Relief
Even with the fear of how this will impact my students, there is a sense of relief. With hearing about how quickly it spreads, I had started disinfecting my classroom several times a day – wiping down desks, door handles, the lever on the pencil sharpener – anything students touched, disinfected. It’s hard to focus on teaching when I’m wary when a student coughs or touches another thing for me to disinfect.
With the closures, I was relieved that I would not be responsible in making sure they didn’t get COVID-19 from my classroom – and I didn’t have to feel guilty for trying to keep a healthy distance from my students for my health!
Anxiety
As you can imagine, worrying about students and constantly feeling like you have to clean can be stressful. But now that we’re out for 6 weeks, I can’t help but wonder what school will look like when we return. While I’m happy that our state has cancelled state testing this year, I can’t help but wonder about AP testing for this year. I have lost a month and a half of instruction as our district is not able to complete remote or online learning.
As a history teacher, I teach chronologically, so I have to determine whether we will cut from our current units or just go in order and miss more recent history. There’s so much up in the air right now, which causes so much anxiety for everyone involved.
Sadness
On top of my fear and anxiety, I am also sad. While students can irritate me, I also love my students – and not getting to see them for a month and a half is upsetting. As I don’t have children myself yet, I see my students as my kids and not seeing them for 6 weeks and not knowing if they’re okay everyday, is hard.
4 Comments
This post is so endearing and so relatable. I, too, struggle with the array of feelings you talked about. Thank you for sharing.
I feel a mix of emotions as well when it comes to the Corona Virus. But the one that sticks out the most is sadness. I’m sad for those who are losing a paycheck and students who are missing out on events like graduation and prom. These are certainly some crazy times we’re living in right now. Stay safe and thanks for sharing.
The unknown of the situation is so unsettling!!
Thank you for sharing your perspective! I think we’re all feeling a mix of emotions right now, but I never thought of it from the perspective of someone who is responsible for other people’s kids. I’m sad for what they are going to miss out on, but I also try to look on the optimistic side, that this may be an event that bonds us more closely together.