Teaching — So Much Harder.
This year, being a teacher is so much harder than it has been in the past. As a teacher, I am under so much more pressure than normal. Many teachers feel the same way.
The stress comes from so many different sources all connected to the pandemic. Unfortunately, nothing can be done to relieve all the stress, until the pandemic is over.
Every lesson I plan has to be done with the understanding that it could be done in a classroom full of students, totally online or somewhere in between depending on the number of cases reported locally. Although there have only been three cases reported in town since March, another town in the district had 19 cases reported in about a week and they are on full lockdown.
In addition, there are students who will be out periodically on quarantine because they’ve travelled out of town for medical or someone in their family travelled due to their job. This means I have to be able to send work home with the appropriate support so the student does not get behind. Many students do not have internet at home, so I have to create videos, download them to a flash drive and send them home to the student when the district delivers breakfasts and lunches.
Although the school requires students to wear masks at all the time, not all of them are willing to cooperate. About a third of my students insist on wearing their mask below the nose while several others think it is funny to pull off their masks as I walk by. I ask them to cover their faces fully but they don’t think the virus is much of a threat.
This is stressful because I’m scared one of them might have the virus and are exposing everyone. I am scared of ending up in the hospital with the coronavirus or of giving it to members of my family who have underlying conditions.
The uncertainty of the whole situation is extremely stressful because we don’t know what might happen tomorrow. Add into that the evolving rules from the District Office as the situation changes constantly. For instance, we were told we’d spend the first three weeks of school doing a hybrid half the school for two days, the other half the next two days and on Friday’s we’d do a deep clean.
Then a couple of days before school started, we were told we needed to open completely. Fortunately, they agreed to let us have one hybrid week with two weeks of shorter classes to adjust and help students ease back into school. We are going to go full in another week unless we get reported cases in town.
I love teaching but I’m not sure I’ll continue after this year because I’m feeling way too stressed and I’m concerned about my health. I’m worried I might have long lasting problems caused by the stress of my situation. I’ve talked to others at work and they are showing signs of stress such as having bad dreams, breaking out in nasty rashes, and other such symptoms. We are trying to live normally but we just don’t know.
Yes, I’m doing things such as exercising, walking, cooking, reading, and anything else I can do to to relieve the stress but it doesn’t fully do the job. Will I make it through the year? I’m going to try. Let me now what you think, I’d love to hear. have a great day.
