Teaching During the Covid Lockdown
When this is Over I’m having a Drink.
I Need to Get a Grip
It’s moments before my first full faculty meeting online through Google Meet and I’m having a full-on anxiety attack.
This is not me.
I’m the person you want on your side during an emergency. Last year my principal even awarded me the “Most Likely to Survive a Zombie Apocalypse” plaque at the end-of-the-year awards breakfast. I still had it hanging in my classroom. “Go ahead and tell her; nothing shocks Korpics” is something I hear from the students every year. It’s true. Psychologists might say, (and have said), that this stems from dysfunction in my childhood. Now I’m an adult and it’s just my nature. This works for me. Always has. Chaos has always been my normal.
I heard my daughter talking to her friend on the phone once. She didn’t feel well and nobody was home yet. “You should talk to my Mom, she’ll fix you. She doesn’t care about blood or snot or anything. I’ll go get her.” It’s a neurotic personality trait that I feel most calm in the middle of chaos, but I can always use it to help others.
Except now. Now I am not okay.
Most things at a young age are out of your control until someone comes along and gives you the tools you need. That’s primarily what teachers are here for.I’ve taught through chemical explosions, tornadoes, riots, murder investigations, and stalkers from schools, one of whom broke into my home. There have been suicides, former students fleeing from the police deciding to hide out in my classroom, domestic terrorism, Columbine, 9–11, lock-downs, chasing drug dealers up the stairs, fights, getting punched in fights, comforting so many after multiple overdoses and tragedies, passing out, blood, projectile vomiting and more. That’s the short-list. The best of times and the worst of times — I believed I’d experienced it all. The day before Winter Break when there’s a Snow Storm advisory…that, my friends, is the epitome of controlled chaos.
There is always anxiety for many reasons — not just during the difficult times. Kids have many reasons to be anxious. As schools, we are more than just a place to get a diploma. We are a sanctuary. Dreams begin here. Dreams that are crushed are revived here. We have many ways to help. I have many ways to help. I have a toolbox. We all do.
All in all the kids are always the same. They’re resilient and funny; most of the time, they come out of everything just fine and go on to live happy, successful adult lives. This is different. This is my first global pandemic. This is your first global pandemic — I think unless you are 100 years old this was everyone’s first global pandemic — so in that vein. This was my first Global Pandemic Faculty Meeting
Instead of panic, I felt relief seeing the faces of my colleagues, all of whom looked as freaked out as I was. Our principal was the steady calm leader who led this meeting into the unknown — telling us we were going to build this plane while it was in the air but we’d be building it together. We’d make mistakes. There would be changes. Lots of changes because right now the world wasn’t a safe place and the situation changed daily. We had to realize that we are not in control of much in life and teachers love to think they are — we had to let that go.
We were to create a virtual sanctuary. Dreams would not die here. Some would be on hold, but we would finish this year, a week at a time since at this point the Governor was telling us we were closed week by week so no long-term plans could begin. We would put empathy first, academic rigor directly under that — because without Maslow, there is no Bloom. While some kids were set up with their Chromebooks in a warm quiet space, others were in the break room at the grocery store working on their phones. Others only worked at night with a flashlight in a closet because they were responsible for their younger siblings during the day as their parents fought the good fight as first responders in the city. Some of our kids were in environments that weren’t healthy or safe and the safety net of their friends, teachers, and school was gone. We would hold onto them all. We would build this plane and support our students and each other all at the same time.
We said goodbye, people made sarcastic jokes. We picked on each other as only high school teachers can do when left alone without students. It almost felt normal.
I turned off the meeting. I looked at the TV scrolling through the fatalities in New York City at the moment. I looked at the multiple windows open on my computer — the lessons to be planned to finish this year for the class of 2020. I would insert mindfulness and coping activities into my Neuroscience Unit. I would insert Behavioral Economics video clips on how to handle financial obstacles in my Personal Finance Unit in Economics. I changed lesson plans. In between the curriculum, I would insert what I couldn’t do in person anymore.
I’d give them some tools.
And at 5 pm after I put the computers on sleep-
I went and got that drink.
