There’s a point at which you simply can’t hold things in anymore. Pandemic fatigue is a real thing, folks, and for many of us in education (and everywhere else), we’re over it.

We’re over the constant not knowing when a quarantine or isolation situation is going to crop up…and who will be impacted.

We’re overwhelmed with worry about our kids and their families when a little says that they don’t feel so good or doesn’t come to school.

We’re done with flexing, pivoting, and being polite when we’re told that this isn’t a big deal and it’s almost run its course or that it’s a hoax.

We’re over stripping down and throwing all our clothes from the day in the washing machine as we walk in the door after work. We’re also tired of choosing what to wear based on what’s easily washed and dried.

We’re over turning around halfway to work when we realized we left our mask sitting next to the coffee mug we walked out without as well.

We’re tired of telling kids they can’t hug each other when one is sad and using pool noodles to illustrate physical 6′ distance when kids just want to be close to one another and hang out or play more than shadow tag.

We’re exhausted from wearing masks, holing up in our classrooms and offices, having Google Meets and Zoom Meetings and turning off our camera so colleagues don’t see us cry or get angry about all. the. things, and muting and unmuting while trying not to talk over others.

And we’re tired of not being able to shake hands, hug, comfort, or just be close to the people we care about…

There’s an exhaustion about all of this, and for our gifted population of kids, parents, colleagues, multiply it by 100, because not only are we feeling our OWN feels, we’re feeling the feels of everyone else around us, listening to the criticism, the layers of problem solving, the sadness over loss and grief over deaths, the fear, and the overall weariness of everyone around us, all while trying to portray strength and leadership for those around us so that there is a familiar feeling…at least for a little while.

And meanwhile, we’re trying to celebrate little things like the early arrival of a friend’s baby, the progress of a friend’s child in reading, an award given by a state level organization for a beautiful painting, throwing parachutes made by kids to protect a coveted snack off the roof, a friend’s dog winning a championship or having a healthy litter of puppies, and finding the last bag of Smarties on the planet before Halloween (wish me luck, I’m stopping on the way home…)

But the feels hit at the most inopportune times. When we’re making dinner, or waiting in the coffee kiosk’s line int he morning. When we’re listening to a book that has nothing at all to do with the present time. When we’re walking the dog in the freezing cold on a snow day. When a friend brings us coffee and even with a mask on, they can tell something isn’t right. And suddenly just looking at one another, the tears flow like a waterfall, and minutes, hours, days, weeks, and months of holding it all in come flooding out with unintelligible words…and the only thing they can do is be there…from six feet away…sending healing energy because holding someone while they cry isn’t allowed.

A friend noted that we may be feeling all this now, but our kids and their kids will continue to experience this for generations to come…

How do we help one another and all of our kids through this?

We listen. We hold space for each other. We can’t solve it. We can’t fix it. But we can let the feelings happen and acknowledge they exist. Brené Brown (who is so very wise) says that that’s the only way to get through this…let the feels happen, acknowledge them…and then let them go because holding on to them isn’t helpful… That’s self-care, too.

My favorite line in all of Downton Abbey is from the first season, the first or second episode. The Crawleys are sitting around their dining table, and Cousin Matthew notes that he could take care of something “on the weekend” to which the Dowager Countess queries, “What is a weekend?”

Sometimes it feels as though we haven’t gotten a weekend, a summer, a break for a very long time, or have any time that isn’t spent doing work, thinking about work, thinking about planning for work, and we spend lots of time feeling guilty for doing anything that isn’t work, and hoping like crazy that no one finds out we aren’t working when we aren’t at work. And I am fairly certain that while these feelings are particularly common among educators now more than ever, there are a few other professions where they exist as well.

Teachers are overwhelmed…and that’s really an inaccurate statement. There isn’t a word that expresses what teachers are experiencing. During the course of the day, they are fielding questions from children in front of them, online, via chat, via email, and queries from well-intentioned parents on behalf of their children either via chat, phone call to the office asking to talk to the teacher while they are teaching to get clarification, or via email with a follow up several additional times because their first one clearly wasn’t seen in the moment but still requires an answer.

Between classes and after school, teachers are posting videos for kids who won’t see them until later that night or on the weekend when they can get access, calling parents back, emailing parents about young ones typing “poop” in the chat for 90 minutes because their parents were on their own meeting in the other room, dealing with their own adult versions of typing “poop” in the chat for 90 minutes… They’re brainstorming with colleagues about how to modify a lesson to be able to be done with kids in the room, kids at home on their own, kids at home with parents to help, and kids who won’t see it until late at night.

I wondered while I was working on my weekly preview on Saturday whether the posts I share on social media upset the teachers in my world, seeming rude and disconnected. I post about walks to the park, Zoom wine class on Sunday, naps while the laundry washes itself, and quick stops for beer on the way home because it’s there and someone else brings it to me. When I looked through my planner, I realized that those are tiny moments of “weekend” I’ve captured… My work right now is very slinky-like, ebbing and flowing with short spurts of work time in between coverage for this, that, or the other thing, with a few longer sessions where deep work can happen… I got better about setting boundaries and still try to leave on time, but there are meetings after 5pm to attend, work for other projects to be done, follow up that can’t happen during business hours because they’re working too, and calls from my mother at 3am, afraid and feeling dizzy, when I have to be up in 2 hours to be at school well before a 7am meeting during which I listen to understand…not respond.

Cousin Violet, a part of me wishes that I could live your simple life. But I don’t know that I would be happy doing it. I might for a while, only having to worry about local gossip and social convention sounds quite relaxing, to be honest. I don’t know how long I could last though…

You said it best, “You’re a woman with a brain and reasonable ability. Stop whining and find something to do.” And so I shall…and take pleasure in the small moments of my weekends.

I’m fairly sure I know why Anna Wintour wears sunglasses all the time. Articles about her say it has to do with lighting during interviews, or eye sensitivity, or just her wish to remain secretive and mysterious and not have people know what she’s thinking. I am pretty sure I know the truth though.

School began for me about three weeks ago. Planning for the beginning of school began in March, when we closed rather unexpectedly due to COVID-19. There was no Spring break, no Summer break, and while yes, there were afternoon naps, it was a constant “on call” and wondering when the next shoe would drop–would it be a construction boot? A loafer? Or a black stiletto with a red sole? Not just for me, but for several of us, fielding zoom meetings, budget brainstorming, WebEx meetings, district meetings, watching press briefings, fielding emails, and loads of other things we wouldn’t normally be handling during the “summer” no matter what else was going on in the world.

I blogged about our Season of Sacrifice last week…or was it earlier this one? I don’t even know now. I wrote about granting grace to one another. I wrote about kindness and understanding. I wrote about frustration and sadness and overwhelm. I wrote about taking Attitude Adjustment Walks (AAWs). None of that has changed. It’s still our season of sacrifice…this one will be longer. A lot longer. And for those of us who feel all the feels, for everyone all the time, it’ll be even harder.

I take my dog to the park almost every morning and evening. Last night, I waited too long and who knew? It gets pretty dark around 7:30 now. This morning’s walk was really quite nice–still fairly dark, but calm. Tonight’s walk, while earlier and still light out, was…frantic. Between answering phone calls, responding to texts and messages, dodging kids playing baseball and soccer, kids playing unsupervised and running at all the dogs (mine included) while their parents were checking Facebook, children walking dogs bigger than they are and weren’t able to control, and a kid on a bike riding at Mach 12 trying to mow me and the dog down while grinning like Scut Farkus as he blew past a second time laughing, I finally just stopped, sat down in the grass with my dog, and cried.

I cried because of all the questions I have no answers for. I cried because I don’t have the ability to make anyone’s life easier. I cried because I can’t fix any of the things. I cried because some parents are afraid, some parents are pissed, and others think we’re just twiddling our thumbs by not being fully in person right now. I cried because I don’t want to be on the news…for anything. I don’t want a reporter saying that someone didn’t use the right procedure, cleaner, disinfectant, mop, or whatever and someone else got sick. I don’t want to have to call a class-worth of families to tell them to quarantine because someone may have COVID. I don’t want to have to quarantine myself because I screwed up and comforted an overwhelmed child. I don’t want to lose friends to aftereffects of COVID. I don’t want anyone to resign, quit, or say we didn’t do the proverbial “enough” to keep people safe or make their work simpler. I cried because I sat through an hour long meeting about procedures and policies about safety and felt horrible for the host having to answer questions that there is no definitive answer for. I cried because kids are struggling and teachers are frustrated and both sides are shutting down. And I cried because the list of all the things I love to do in my work, I can’t do…either because I can’t afford to pay for the damn conference to speak at it even virtually or because I can’t be with kids to notice what cool things they’re doing and see if my gut instinct is right or because there’s already too much on the plate of teachers for anything else resembling professional development. I cried because I’m tired…and I know everyone else is too…and we’re all worried that we aren’t cut out for any of this.

And that is why Anna Wintour wears sunglasses. She wears them to hide the tears, the runny mascara (waterproof mascara is a myth, for the record…), and bloodshot eyes caused by carrying all the things in her heart. Keeping it all from the prying public, press, and young boys in green shirts at the park asking if there is anything he can do to help as tears fall behind the dark lenses.

I was on the phone with a friend the other night, lamenting 2020 as a whole, but specifically things school-related. When we ended mid-March, I couldn’t wrap my head around what would surely be the oddest beginning to a school year in the history of ever–starting school virtually when we are not a traditionally virtual school.

One of the parts I have always loved about the beginning of the year, aside from the smell of freshly sharpened Ticonderoga pencils and brand new boxes of Crayola crayons, has always been making connections with families and kids. Seeing the excitement in the eyes of the kids as they walk into what would be their new classroom, seeing old friends in the hallway and new ones coming to the door. Chatting with kids-who-were-mine during quick breaks between conferences, and hugging siblings of graduates and kids returning to us from elsewhere were the highlights of those first days. My Facebook feed the last few days as been all about how much I love family conference days and how much I’d missed our kids and their families.

Connection is such a big component of the relationships we create with our gifted kids, their families, and one another in our building. For a gifted child and their family to see that there’s someone who will advocate for them, who understands them, and who will truly SEE them for who they are matters so much, and I have worried endlessly since mid-March about how we could make that happen for this batch of kids, those who are new to us especially, but also those we have known a long time and who we know have struggled since we had to leave each other so suddenly.

When I think about friends who teach virtually, they have such a small snippet of time to make a connection with a child that it has to be incredibly intentional–there’s no time for stories, explanations, or those conversations that take everyone down the rabbit hole and into Wonderland. Right now though, kids will need that–many may not have visited many rabbit holes or Wonderlands lately. They will need time to really show teachers about who they are, tell about what they’ve been doing and enjoying and hating about the time since March. They’ll need time to share about what they want to learn, who they need in their world, and who we will need to be for them. Parents will always have goals for their kids and all have an idea of what they think virtual or online school ought to look like, but the piece that we need them to not forget is that their kids need to feel connected to their teachers, school staff, and all the kids in the “meet” with them. Building relationships is hard enough in person for some (kids AND adults) but virtual is even more challenging.

Before anything else, as we begin this very odd school year, we need to think about how to create those connections with intention, giving kids and their families the space and time to build relationships that eventually will move from the screen to in person, where hopefully we’ll be able to hug and fist-bump and high-five and laugh together and HEAR the laughter of one another instead of just seeing “Lol” in a chat or silent laughter behind a muted screen.

• 

I went hiking with a friend today and we brought the puppies (all the same age) and their granddad. Granddad worked hard keeping track of the puppies, making sure they didn’t go too far ahead, run too deep into the brush, and that they came back when we called, modeling what behavior they ought to be exhibiting out there in the world. My little red girl hadn’t ever been off leash before, except in the dog park, so this was a huge thing for her to be trusted to stay nearby and not run off into the wilderness. I was a little apprehensive about taking her leash off, but figured I had to trust her sometime.

As we hiked, she kept looking back to make sure I was still there, that I hadn’t walked off with out her, and she stayed with the others, romping in the tall grasses, running ahead and back to us, exploring the scrub oak for sweet grass, and investigating horse poop and other scat. She came when called, and was polite when we met other people on the trail.

There was something about watching the dogs run and play today that made me tear up a little. Those few hours of freedom, still under the watchful eye of both of us and their granddad, who would probably be quicker with the redirection than either of us, build up the bond of trust between us.

I remembered that feeling from the classroom. The first time I planned a unit and the kids had ideas of their own and I made them a deal–you go ahead and we’ll see how it goes; if it goes south, we’ll try my way. And it went great–they ran with their ideas, asked for help when they got stuck, and reflected intentionally on what went well, what needed improvement, and what they wanted to try next time. I gradually let go as the years went on, and we created projects together, a few playing devil’s advocate for their peers or noting that so-and-so had done X and the results were less than stellar but Y worked well. There was collaboration and discussion and the kids grew, learning by doing, with not everything dictated by me. I had non-negotiables, of course, but most of the work they did was self-directed, peer-reviewed, and intentionally reflected upon. It was in those moments that I enjoyed teaching the most.

Like my little red dog today, the kids and I grew in our trust of one another over time.

Right now, teachers are scared about the upcoming year. For their health, their coworkers health, for the health of their kids, their families, and their OWN families. They want explicit direction about what’s coming next and how this year will look, but at the same time they are afraid of losing those learning-by-doing moments with their kids because nothing is going to look normal–losing those moments that build trust in a community of learners. They are afraid of expectations of others outside telling them that things must look like this or that–especially when those others aren’t educators…everyone has their idea of what school should look like, don’t they? They don’t want to lose the freedom to be the artists using science to do this work…

I talked to a friend tonight and we agreed that “Things” should be my job description for simplicity. My role encompasses lots of things: projects, work, interactions, support, and everyone believes it should encompass the things they feel are most important or that it should look a certain way. The beauty of this role though, is that it evolves and changes all the time, with responsibilities being added, changed, updated, and delegated to others as they’re ready to grow into them. I was afraid the first year–I’d been let off leash and wasn’t sure where my support was–who do I ask for permission? for what do I have to ask permission and what can I just do? As I watched my little red dog today, it was nice to see her grow a little in her own confidence–she does know the right things to do, who to trust, who to follow. I remember when my director told me I didn’t have to ask permission for everything…checking in was fine for almost everything. She trusted me.

I hope that administrators can remember that this year can be a true year of innovation if we trust our teachers off leash for a while to do that work, using their expertise, their creativity and artistry, and their love of our kids to help them grow this year, in the face of whatever may happen, checking in as needed for direction and to make sure we’re still there and haven’t run off into the wilderness.

I listen to several podcasts throughout the week. Some, like Brené Brown, just bring me joy and help me know that I’m not nuts. Others, lift me up and remind me I’m not alone. And still others are more focused, such as task completion, leadership, or ideas that cater to my business-world mind. The one today was a “best of” because the hosts are taking time off (as they should). A common theme was that of limiting beliefs, and the hosts have no problem reminding one another that something they’ve said is a limiting belief…holding each other accountable.

A limiting belief is one in which you have determined you can’t see possibility beyond a particular situation.

Statements I hear a lot come from kids:

I’m bad at math.

I’ll never be a writer.

I don’t get along with so-and-so.

I don’t do <activity>.

But some come from teachers (myself included) and other colleagues too:

I never have enough time.

All I do is go to meetings that are pointless.

I shouldn’t have to <insert task or duty here> because I’m too busy with <something else>.

I only have <set amount of time> to get <task> done.

The only (or best) way to do <task> is this way, because that is the way I’ve always done it.

I can’t teach <subject> because it’s not my thing.

I teach best when I am not collaboration with others. I know my students best.

What’s interesting about limiting beliefs is that they all come from the same root.

Fear.

Fear of failure, fear of being seen as a non-expert, fear of asking for help, fear of needing clarification, fear of what others will think…fear is what drives limiting beliefs. And the more we say them, the more we believe them and the harder it is to see a way past them.

Because COVID19 continues to run rampant, with more and more cases being diagnosed every day and schools trying to make the “right” decision, limiting beliefs seem to be louder than usual.

School has always looked a certain way and we’re in a position to innovate a bit right now which makes everyone very uncomfortable. There are no right ways to do online learning, hybrid learning, or cohort-focused learning. We haven’t done them before in a situation where the stakes are this high. Even schools that have been around a long time and focused on online learning only use different models.

The most important action steps of the work we will do this school year are the following:

Serve the kids. However school might end up looking, the kids need to be the focus. This goes beyond making up for “lost time,” academics, and test scores. The kids need to know that they are part of a true community of learners and that we are all learning how to do this together. Own your mistakes and model healthy self-talk when you screw up. Ask probing questions when a child is frustrated to get at the root of what’s going on–this is just as hard for them as it is for you. Honor their big feelings and check on them later on in the day to see how things changed. Plan well, but don’t be married to your plans. Don’t be afraid to ask the kids what they need a lesson or assignment to look like if you see things are going south.

Be flexible. Flexibility is the key to succeeding in all of this. Schools will surely provide guidelines as to the non-negotiables in whatever situation we find ourselves in, everything from how many times kids need to wash their hands to how assignments are to be evaluated at each level. Your go-to might be to get incredibly rigid in the name of Holy Accountability, getting frustrated that not everyone is doing it your way, giving kids lower scores, more complicated rubrics, or shorter timeframes to complete work than you would if they were in the classroom, and getting upset when work isn’t completed at all, instead of going back to what you can do to serve the kids and asking what you can do to help. Think outside the box and see how you can make “what you’ve always done” work in another way that works better for the kids.

Communicate. With everyone. Often. More often than you feel comfortable with and in ways that go beyond your comfort zone.

Reach out to families often, sharing wins, asking for support, and asking for honest feedback about how things are going with an open mind and listening to understand, not respond. Ask about how the family is doing–your relationship with them hinges on the personal part…we’re more than teachers and they’re more than customers. If you do this from the beginning, difficult conversations end up being much easier later. Take criticism, which will certainly be a part of conversations because everyone is worried and stressed, and let families know you hear what they’re saying and will consider what they’ve said…and then actually think about how you could implement what they’re asking and how it might impact the greater community.

Reach out to colleagues and check on them. Ask them for ideas. Ask them for help or support with something. Give them an opportunity to share their expertise and collaborate. Surely their imposter syndrome is as loud as your own and having an opportunity to feel good about something would help. Ask them to check on you. Make regular check in dates.

Reach out to kids and ask how they are in ways that have nothing to do with academics, classwork, or homework. Ask about books they’ve read, games they’ve played, movies or music that makes them happy. Let them talk your ear off for a little while about the things that matter most to them.

When there’s conflict, talk to the other person or people as soon as you can to clarify the situation and fix it. This is not the time to let things fester.

Remember your WHY. You chose to become a teacher. You chose it. It wasn’t just something to pay the bills or get by–you chose this life. It’s not always easy and it’s definitely not perfect, but you need to remember why you chose to be a teacher. Why did you choose to work with this particular population of students? What brings you the most joy when you think about a day that’s gone well? What do you work on that makes you happy or feel accomplished? Write it on a sticky note and put it where you can see it.

Limiting beliefs are more difficult to cultivate when you think about these four action steps. There’s no particular order really–every situation will require one be considered before another, but take time to think about all four when you find yourself replaying limiting beliefs in your head.