Educators Are the Role Models We Need Right Now
As I write this in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, I’m glad that I’ve taken a moment to process what’s been happening at our school. As a part of St. Thomas School, I’m one of many educators who have been tackling the seemingly insurmountable task of remote learning for the last quarter of our school year.
Sometimes, we’re in that proactive mindset of, “What are we doing right now to deal with this situation?” Other times, we may be caught in an existential crisis of “what does this all mean?”
While the former question is an ever-changing amalgam of solutions and the latter will no doubt be revealed to us in time, taking this moment has allowed me to see one thing clearly: teachers are the role models we need right now.
I think people are focusing a lot on what we’re doing and what our actions mean, rather than how we’re acting. All of these questions are important, and I plan to address them all in the coming weeks. But today, I’d like to give a name to how educators have acted during this pandemic.
“Bravery” can feel like a lofty term.
It’s a word we use in relation to war heroes or fairy tales, too grand for everyday life. In education, we’re more partial to terms like “courage” or “perseverance”. They suggest bravery—and they’re still important—but they can be more easily applied to our normal routines without sounding over-the-top.
Unfortunately, our “normal routines” went out the window a while ago.
Our society is in crisis. Suddenly, “bravery” is the exact descriptor for people who are choosing to do the right thing over the easy thing. Suddenly, I see educators being brave left and right.
Shifting to a remote learning environment is the equivalent of starting a completely new school…in outer space.
Everything is different: scheduling, technology, the fact that you don’t have control over your physical environment (or your students’). Everything is different. The only thing that hasn’t changed is that we still need to teach children.
The struggles we’re tackling during the pandemic are unlike anything we’ve ever seen. Technology has become the foundation of how we teach students remotely. Consider teachers who don’t use a lot of technology in their normal classroom. They’re great with students in person; they have a gift for reading body language, communicating with them, and connecting with them face-to-face. In a virtual classroom, those gifts may not translate. Maybe you have your own children at home in addition to those on the screen, and are trying to balance your role as a teacher and a parent.
Regardless of an educator’s unique struggles, we have all been frustrated, lost confidence, and felt like a failure at some point during this pandemic. But through it all, our teachers are not complaining. They smile when they see their students virtually. They reassure them that everything is going to be okay.
In the face of this adversity, we can either face it or retreat.
If educators retreat, whether they be teachers or administrators, we can’t help anyone. And helping is what an educator does. We’ve always been in the business of saving the day, recognizing others’ potential, and helping them succeed.
During this pandemic, we have needed our teachers to be brave. To understand that they’re not going to be perfect. They’ve had to be brave enough to fail, pivot, include others, and ask for help as new problem after problem arises. And they’ve risen to the task of continuing to teach our children every single day.
Bravery is going to take on so many different meanings in the months to come.
Because of our educators’ bravery, we’ll come out stronger when this is over. We’ll have new skills. We’ll know we didn’t give up when it was hard. We persevered. We showed courage. We were brave through it all.