still here... where else would I be?

I've moved past depression, mostly, and I'm edging into anger.

My school has switched to distance learning through the end of the school year, and I learned Friday that we're keeping our school calendar the same.  So spring break the week after Easter, thank God, but then straight through to Memorial Day with online learning. 

Lord, have mercy on us. 

There's a lot of grumbling among the faculty about what we're being asked to do.  I am holding myself mostly about the fray.  I can't let myself be bogged down by all the negativity.  It boils down to one thing, really, which is I love my job and I'd like to still have it in August when the new school year starts.

I don't love how I have to do my job right now. We're being asked to continue to deliver curriculum, keep in contact with our students, and maintain our grade books essentially the same way we were when all actually met at school.  There's a lot wrong with that, especially the grading part.  It's very difficult to know who's doing  the work or when the work will be completed.  We can't penalize a student for late work because we don't know their situation, but admin insists that we put in the missing work as zeroes (tagged "missing"), because that's what we would do if were still in school.

There's also the fact that we took a snapshot of our grade books from before distance learning started, and that's more than enough grades to go on for the year.  There's a non-zero chance we'll use those grades to determine promotion... which means all the grading I'm doing over these weeks is a complete waste of time. 

The grumbling is centered on that point, This is ALL a waste of time!  We're going to have to re-teach at the beginning of next year anyway! (We always do.)  The public schools are sending home "enrichment packets" for students who need to bring their grades up.  They're entirely optional. (Is that true? Really?) Some schools aren't even doing that!

None of that matters, because we're not a public school.  We're a private school and we rely on tuition, even for the rest of this year. We're contracted to teach, so we should teach. 

This is neither easy nor fun and it would be really nice if there were some consistency, but we go to work with what we have.  Working at home has some benefits, like being able to use the bathroom whenever, and having a cat nearby to help me with my lesson planning. I miss my co-workers and my students, but I see and talk to people every day using technology that I didn't even know existed a month ago. 

Times of growth and change are hard -- how appropriate that this is happening in the spring -- but the reality is this is easier than my first years of teaching were, and it's easier than that year I taught both math and science.  I'm on a similar hamster wheel, though, of pulling together lesson materials every single day.  The thing is, I can do it, and it's good to shake things up and make sure everything's current.   And it's not all for nothing, since I can (and will) re-use a lot of the material I'm creating now for future classes.

I still fervently want all of this to be over yesterday, but I'm not letting that overwhelm or paralyze me.  Onward.