This Month Has Been The Longest Year by Dr. Michael Flanagan

*While writing this article, I was notified that my school has had its first COVID positive case, and several classes and teachers are now being quarantined.

Working in the New York public schools during the age of COVID-19 is like a dystopian novel. But one that you would not actually read. No; it’s too unbelievable. No one would be able to suspend their disbelief enough to get through the book.

But it is real. And it is ugly. 

Day after day, we teachers pass each other--masked and socially distanced to the point of unrecognizability--shell shocked and despondent. The Walking Dead have more pep in their step than we do. 

It’s all in the eyes--the only part of each other’s faces we can see these days.

Tears are frequent during the school day. Veteran teachers crying more now, than in all their other years combined. Our social media accounts are no longer posts of cats or sunsets, but declarations of utter exhaustion. It takes every ounce of energy just to get through each day. 

And we’ve barely been back four weeks. 

This month has been the longest year ever. 

And not only because COVID is resurging throughout some zip codes of New York City. No. As bad as that is, what continually grinds down the physical and emotional fortitude of educators are the logistics of trying to teach the hybrid “Blended Learning” model of Pandemic Education in a school building. 

Yes, as crazy as it sounds, as each school day runs its course, the fear of sickness and death can almost be an afterthought. 

In Blended Learning, everything is difficult. 

Everything. 

That is not to say that fully remote teachers who work from home have it easy. Remote teaching is endlessly difficult and frustrating. Oversized class registers, hours of Zoom teaching, grading and prep are difficult for all educators in the age of COVID. 

But live/blended/remote teaching under these conditions is a different beast all together. 

Uploading assignments. Switching from tech to real-life teaching. Moving between five different classrooms during the day. Tracking attendance for remote kids and no-shows. Remembering which color “day”(alternating A-day, B-day and sometimes C-day) we are on. Planning synchronous and asynchronous lessons. Increased grading responsibilities. An avalanche of emails coming to us at all hours of the day and night. On top of this, there are the daily health screenings we have to submit to just to be allowed into the building. 

These are just some of the weights dragging us down as we try to tread water. And these feelings are exacerbated when we receive almost daily notifications from our administrators about students who will be out for an extended period of time, sent to us with the caveats that “confidentiality is of the utmost importance,” and that “teachers should not discuss this in public.”

“Please make sure your Google Classrooms are updated and that work is provided.”

Oh, and of course, “All DOE protocols have been followed.”

So basically, keep it moving. Nothing to see here. 

How ironic is it that teachers are told not to say anything by a Department of Education and a Mayor who allowed more than seventy DOE staff members to die last March in a failed effort to keep schools open? How ironic is it that the DOE itself did not follow through on their own protocols, leaving schools with COVID cases open for business, and not alerting people who may have been exposed? 

Just as they are not following through with safety protocols now. 

“Unsustainable” is on every educator’s lips; our new mantra. 

“This is unsustainable.” 

We say it amongst ourselves, while we still need to appear professional and poised in front of our students. 

There is one solace in the midst of this turmoil. We are still teaching children. We are meeting with our students both in person and remotely. We are overcoming every obstacle thrown at us, even as we watch the COVID numbers increase throughout the city. 

Make no mistake, this is taking a toll on our lives.  

So many of us are contemplating resigning, or an early retirement. And it has absolutely nothing to do with shying away from the increased responsibilities of teaching in the world we live in today. We love teaching. We can teach and we will teach no matter what. No matter the poorly planned and poorly implemented reopening by the Mayor of New York City. 

No matter what the Mayor, or the DOE throws at us, no matter how often we are let down by our union leadership, we continue teaching. Because at the end of the day, it is not just a job. It is our calling.

Even in the face of a pandemic, at the risk of our own lives, teachers will teach. 

It is our nature. It is our greatest strength. 

And in times like this, it is also our greatest weakness. 

Teachers will teach. The problem is that the politicians know this, and they will keep putting our lives and the lives of our students at risk. They know that rank and file educators will take whatever rotten lemons they throw at us and turn them into lemonade. 

But we teachers are here for the kids, and we will overcome all this incompetence. We will teach regardless of the lies and the risk. 

Because that is what teachers do. We make the unsustainable work.

This is unsustainable. Yet we still head to our next class. 

Five shows a day.