Think Happy Thoughts…

When I think about the hardest year I have ever had as a teacher, my first year wins by a long shot. It was emotionally, physically, and mentally draining. I often felt so alone and like I had no idea what I was doing. Those first few weeks I felt successful when everyone went home in one piece. I was the only teacher in my field at my school and my classroom staff was full of, to put it nicely, big personalities with strong opinions and they were not big fans of me. Some of that never changed, haha, but I’d like to think we eventually found some common ground.

Dear first year teacher,

I might look cooler doing it, and I might use a lot more tricks, but we’re still getting the same rake to the face.

And while that first year was so incredibly challenging, this year, this year that already feels like I’ve been trapped in it forever, this year is hard. I cannot even imagine what it would be like to be a first year teacher this year. Although, maybe it’s easier? Maybe if you never knew any other way, this would seem normal and “doable” to you? Even so, this school year has been difficult in a myriad of new ways. I have learned soooo much. I jumped right into the deep end of distance learning and in a lot of ways have really enjoyed the challenges that I have experienced in building a Google Classroom, creating editable documents that are student friendly, and scouring the internet for fun and engaging academic pieces that I could incorporate into my virtual classroom. I have also really enjoyed “muting” students when they are being inappropriate, yelling swear words, or intentionally making loud noises to interrupt a lesson. Judge me all you want, the mute button is the best thing about distance learning and I will sorely miss it once we go back to in person learning.

(* side bar, I know what some of you may be thinking, “she should really be trying to manage student behaviors rather than just ‘muting’ them”. I do plenty of that. I work with students with Emotional Disturbances, so I do it constantly, but 90% of the behavior management techniques that work so well for my student population are not possible over Zoom. I can’t put a calming hand on a student’s shoulder, I can’t use proximity control to sooth a student, I can’t have a quiet word with one student during a group lesson, my staff can’t take a student on a walk or quietly help them follow along with a lesson. And so, we have adopted the mute button for those times when a student just cannot be quiet and we need to move forward with the lesson.)

Now, my positives from distance learning aside, this has been a nightmare in a lot of ways. I have had to change my schedule and learning plans 3 times in five weeks. My parent contact logs are pages and pages and pages long. I have had multiple angry, frustrated, accusatory, and threatening emails from parents. There are the internet failures, the unstable connections, the moment when students discover they can refuse to unmute themselves, turn off their cameras, and open other browser windows and ignore me entirely. There is the 3 hours a day mandated synchronous learning model for special education classrooms. There are the half naked parents, and students in camera shots (honestly this always makes me laugh, even though it’s horrifying). I am sure you all have had your own experiences. If you haven’t checked out Teachermisery ‘s Rona Round Up on Instagram, I highly recommend it.

So I think we can all agree, this has been a particularly challenging time for teachers. I know several teachers who chose to retire, rather than deal with teaching in the time of Corona, I know a few who have quit, and a few who think about quitting every day. In light of this, I wanted to pass along some excellent advice I received from a veteran teacher during my first year of teaching. It’s called a “Happy Thoughts Box”. Over the course of teaching you will receive adorable notes from students, loving letters from parents, glowing recommendations from admin, supportive messages from co-workers, get little gifts, take funny-sweet-special pictures of your favorite students, and experience some truly Laugh Out Loud moments (which you should always write down!). So here’s what you do. Take all of these little mementos and put them in a small box (or bag, or jar, or whatever) and keep them in your teacher desk, or somewhere safe in your classroom. When you are having one of those days, or weeks, or moments when you just want to scream, or cry, or get in your car and just keep driving and never come back, pull out your “Happy Thoughts Box” and go through all of those amazing, special moments from your career that really made you feel like you were loved, appreciated, and just plain good at your job. Relive those moments, revel in those moments, and hopefully they will help you remember why you do this incredibly difficult job. (If you still want to quit your job, I totally support you and there are some great resources out there that help teachers find new jobs that match their experiences.) But I hope the Happy Thoughts Box helps you in that moment. While it may seem like an overly simple solution, it has often worked for me, so just channel your inner Peter Pan and give your heart some wings, by thinking of some happy little things.