I Didn't Sign Up for This

I didn't sign up for this. 

     That's what keeps coming to mind this year every time I put on a mask before I head into a public place, every time I unsuccessfully search for Clorox wipes on the grocery store shelves, every time I clean the desks in between classes, every time I start a zoom during my face to face class, or I look into that zoom and there are many black boxes instead of smiling students, every time I look at the room as students are spread apart and limited by lack of high fives and hugs, every time I have to revamp a lesson plan because it just can't be done the way we used to do things, every time I am muted or just can't get the technology right, every time I sit down to grade a set of essays because I'm teaching more students than I ever have in my teaching career.

No, I didn't sign up for this. 

None of us did. But here we are in the middle of a pandemic--teaching and learning and existing as best we can, doing all the things we never signed up for.

     There have been many moments in my life that I remember saying, I didn't sign up for this. I'm in high school, and my school counselor asks me to sit with a student named Meg. Meg was a social outcast; people made fun of her on a regular basis, she didn't have the finest hygiene habits, and often acted like she had a chip on her shoulder. I abandoned my friends so Meg could have one, and all she did was smirk, move her chair further away from me, and take out a paperback book to read. I didn't sign up for this. 

I'm a new parent caught in traffic on the Verrazano Bridge headed to New York with just 9 month-old Maggie in the car, and I somehow manage to get the stomach virus. I finally get off the bridge and vomit on the side of the road as Maggie is screaming in the back seat. How can I be an effective parent when I can't even take care of myself? I didn't sign up for this.

     I'm a teacher at a new school--Benedictine High School, an all-boys, Catholic military school. I'm in the middle of my teaching career, but nothing could have prepared me for teaching in an all-boys classroom. The boys come bounding into my classroom that first day--full of energy, familiar, joking and laughing. They all look the same to me: tiny beady eyes, clean haircuts and upper lips, creased pants, and shiny shoes greet me. They stand at attention as I walk to the front of the room, their shoulders stiff, as if boards are lodged inside their backs. I start my introduction, and they still remain standing at attention. Finally, after what seemed like the longest two minutes of my life, one Cadet whispers I need to tell them to be "at ease" so they can sit down. I'm a young woman in an all-boys school that seems more like a cross between a fraternity house and a small army than a classroom. I didn't sign up for this.

     So, as 2020 comes to an end in a few weeks, I've been thinking about life as we know it--a life I never signed up for, anticipated, or desired. I am working harder than I have in my twenty-two years in the classroom. So are you, my students. Yet, what you've learned is far more than what I could teach you or what a textbook ever could. You've learned flexibility. You've learned perseverance. You've learned how to appreciate the little things. You've learned the value of time. And I, too, have learned much of the same thing because you have helped me forget what I never signed up for and see the good.

     Sadly, there's no "full disclosure" statement that comes with living in a pandemic. Actually, there's no "full disclosure" statement when it comes to life. While I wish that every possibility you may face could be common knowledge before you experience it, sometimes we are forced with the reality that we just didn't sign up for this. And maybe that's okay. In the past four months, I've watched you handle difficult situations. You've navigated school virtually, Some of you quarantined and still managed to keep up. I've watched you have things you love ripped away from you--sitting across from each other at lunch, athletic events, pep rallies, the Rage Cage, homecoming. 

     This past month, in our TOK Class, I've witnessed you make the holidays happen for over forty kids in the Hanover Preschool Initiative at Henry Clay Elementary School. Many of you bought these students--students you never even met--gifts, and we spent a class block wrapping them (some of you now have another new skill).

Shopping for presents

A socially distant sword fight after wrapping

 I've watched you attempt new ways of writing and embrace everything I've thrown at you in the classroom--including playing basketball with a paper ball and even a John Lennon parody karaoke competition (my way of putting that big microphone in my room to good use).

You've helped me troubleshoot the best ways to teach synchronously. And when the internet went out this week, I watched you help me figure it all out because I didn't want to lose a moment of instruction.

     I've found myself becoming more and more reflective during this pandemic. For someone who naturally reflects on just about every moment of her daily life, that's a lot of reflecting. Yet, what I've thought about is sometimes the things we didn't sign up for, the things we are somehow "voluntold" to do, are the things where we learn from the most. Take that moment in high school when I had to sit with Meg, for example. I sat with her for a week straight, and she continued to smirk and read her book--until one day when she smiled. I got Meg to smile. That's what I'll remember.

     And I think about that moment being sick on the Verrazano Bridge. After finally reaching my destination, my daughter got to meet her great grandfather for the first time. I think that's more of what I will always remember than the fact that I was sick on that bridge. 

  And I think my years at Benedictine were the first years where I realized as a teacher that I can learn from my students.  Those boys taught me more about the kind of teacher that I wanted to be and made me a teacher I never thought I could be because they allowed me to fail, get back up, and try again. That's what I will remember.

We may not have signed up for any of this; life is hard; being an educator is hard; being a student in a pandemic is harder. So, as you come to the end of this year--a year where you wanted to shout from the rooftops, I didn't sign up for this--think about how you've grown, how you've changed, how far you've come. The sign up sheet may be long of things you never intentionally signed up for, but its rewards might be longer if we allow ourselves to see them.