Juliana Urtubey of Nevada, national teacher of the year from Nevada, in an exuberant appearance on morning television declared that teaching for her was Joy and Justice. This year, as never before, those two words have been needed by educators and their students. I think of inequities as poverty or location has made virtual learning so difficult. I think of teachers who have made the news this year standing as shields as danger ambushed their students. I see the teacher expounding in an interview about the lack of face-to-face contact, the thing she loved most about teaching.
I have always counted it an honor to be called a teacher, like Juliana Urtubey and so many of her peers. For those who put their hearts into it, the job is exhausting, time-consuming, and Joyful! This last year and a half, I’ve wondered how teachers have been able to hold on since the exhausting and time-consuming part has been multiplied with the Joyful parts minimized by distancing.
I ponder examples of Joy from my own teaching that I would have missed with virtual teaching and social distancing:
· My horseshoe room arrangement that allowed for interchange, not only with the teacher, but in discussions with each other while I wondered at the remarkable thinking of seven and eight-year-olds.
· The shrinking violet in a classroom of dahlias and gladiolas who shines as the chalkboard scribe the day the class writes a story for a Scholastic contest because she has the neatest handwriting. (Not to brag, at least not much, but the class came in third in the national contest.)
· The reluctant reader who appears at my desk the minute I finish the current read-aloud to see if he can borrow my copy so he can read it again himself. (Of course, he can!)
· The new kid figuring out where she needs to be on the playground with her hand grabbed by another child to include her as she heads toward high jinks on the monkey bars.
· The “notes from home or anything you need to tell me” line each morning with confidences that ranged from a return of a parent from an overseas assignment to a new kitten or an apology because something got spilt on his homework at breakfast.
Teachers, being the creative people they are, have figured out a way to do school with perhaps half a class present but distanced and the other half tuning in via internet from home. I have thought of them all year with the concept in my head that the time and exhaustion factor have at least doubled and the Joy has been cut in half. It is my fervent hope and prayer that as they hang in there to finish this difficult year, they will be able to look forward to a new year where the balance of committed hard work is balanced by extreme Joy as they are once again able to connect personally with their students. That seems like a bit of Justice to me.