The announcement came just after 5pm on a Wednesday in the middle of March. We all expected it, but it was still a shock. Some teachers arrived early on Thursday, to try to prepare for the partial closure, whilst others arrived later than normal because they wouldn't be teaching and wanted to keep out of the way.
I teach in an inner-city school and have done since I started my career in education just under six years ago. I myself grew up in the inner city and my brother attended the first school I ever taught at. I knew the struggles that these students would be facing. I knew many of them would be stuck in one- or two-bedroom flats with no access to outdoor space. I knew many of them lived with elderly relatives who would be particularly vulnerable to the virus.
I threw myself into my work. I assumed a new, entirely made-up role: Director of Distance Learning. Basically that meant I was in charge of the Google Classroom. And Satchel. And later Loom and Zoom and all the other platforms the school bought into as the closure progressed. Let me tell you, trying to get the difference between Loom and Zoom straight in people's heads was hard; I'd only just managed to alleviate the confusion between Google Classroom and Google Drive. I spent two days training students on how to submit their work on Classroom, and most of the following week training members of my department on how to assign the work in the first place. It was frustrating, but I felt valued and useful.Over time though, people stopped needing my help. I was efficient with my planning and soon I was beyond up-to-date with that. And then I felt lost. Time stopped having any meaning. I would sit at my laptop waiting for students to submit something, just so that I could mark it, just so that I could do something. We had about 65% engagement across all year groups, not including years 11 and 13. I could sit there for days on end, not getting anything submitted. I recorded videos for my students because I knew live lessons wouldn't be accessible for much of our cohort. I averaged three views per video. I still got plenty of messages asking me for lost passwords, and complaints that files didn't open or didn't save, but nothing that took more than 30 seconds to solve. In the end I walked. I walked for hours. In circles. I planned a 5k loop, and I walked it until I'd walked 20k. But then people started feeling less concerned by the pandemic and it became impossible to maintain social distancing. So I stopped going out. I turned to Twitter to see if I could get involved in an online community. I attended virtual CPD sessions, and digital summits, and seminars, and video conferences, and all sorts of other things that were code words for silently sitting and staring blankly at a screen. Fortnightly department meetings became the things I looked forward to most. I might get to speak to someone I didn't live with. I might get to interact verbally with another human being. But usually we were told to stay on mute, and type our questions in the chat box.
Initially we were told we'd be back in from June 1. Then June 8. When the Head said we wouldn't be back for the foreseeable future, I cried. I had been clinging to that return date with all my might. I needed structure. I needed routine. I needed to do my job as my job was intended. The media didn't help either - militant unions preventing teachers from being heroes. I didn't want to be a hero. I just wanted to survive. Eventually, it was announced we'd be back on a rota basis from June 22. Until I walk through that door on Monday, I wont allow myself to believe it.
I realize this isn't a perky, upbeat recounting of how a plucky, young educator maintained their pep throughout a thoroughly miserable time, but it was a thoroughly miserable time, and I have come to hate those posts where a teacher poses with a smug smile in their Pinterest-perfect classroom and tells me how great it's all going, and how it's going to be all fine and dandy. Because it isn't going great and I don't see it being all fine and dandy and I'm not alone in feeling this way. I had a friend and a colleague tell me they were glad it was finally raining because the sunshine felt like it was mocking them, like it was all cheery and positive and acting like everything is fine when in fact it's not.