A Teacher’s Brain Following Yet Another School Shooting…and Yet Another Misguided Response by Legislators

By Julie Holderbaum, Minerva EA/OEA

On March 17, 2020, I wrote about what it was like to be a Type A Teacher in the uncertain times of the statewide school shutdown. I described how I was clinging to what I knew for certain: that this was an opportunity to refocus on the kids instead of standards or testing, and that our kids needed us more than ever.

As it turned out, the next school year was even more daunting. Some of you were still teaching through a screen, trying to make and nurture human connections with kids you had never met. In my district, we were teaching while wearing masks and sanitizing everything, in person every day but still trying to post as much online as we could for the kids who were at home sick or quarantined. And some of you were in what Dante would surely consider a special circle of hell, teaching online and in person at the same time.

Last spring, a year into COVID, I wrote about changing my perspective from doing everything possible to get the job done to doing everything possible to keep myself healthy and sane. I wrote that “We can’t possibly hope to produce flourishing students if we aren’t even attempting to flourish ourselves. Sometimes you don’t do what you gotta do to get the job done; you do what you gotta do so that you can keep doing the job.”

When the end of the 2020-21 school year came, the vaccine was widely available. My teacher friends and I celebrated mightily on that last day of school. We were looking forward to a well-deserved break and a return to normal for the 2021 school year. There was joy in the air.

Well. Here we are. Fall of 2021. Not much joy, is there?

COVID still rages. School leaders and teachers are forced to reconsider, once again, how we do everything, from teaching, to athletics, to dances, to extracurriculars, to parent/teacher conferences, to assemblies. It seems every day there is a new decision to be made.

Community support has waned. Parents are attending school board meetings, angry about mask mandates. Frankly, it is absolutely demoralizing to hear people berate teachers and schools for trying to do what’s best for kids, or even worse, accuse us of not caring about kids. We are fighting for the safety and well-being of our students and we are being browbeaten for it.

Politicians are debating what part of the truth we are allowed to teach our kids, accusing us of indoctrinating our students when we are merely trying to give them the whole picture. Isn’t it our job to teach America’s full history, not just the parts that make our country look good? We teach our students how to have a respectful conversation about difficult topics with people they disagree with in a safe space. What’s going to happen if our children don’t learn these lessons? We certainly won’t become a more inclusive, rational, respectful society, will we? And I’m pretty sure I know who will get blamed for that.

Add to all that the Ohio politicians who want to give parents of K-12 children voucher money so they can leave public schools if they disagree with any aspect of their local district from curriculum to policy.

Joy, excitement, energy…school year 21-22, at least for me, has seen less of those than any other year of my career.

I know that my particular situation is a good one. I have great students who give me grace when I have a bad day. I have wonderful colleagues. The parents from our town who attended our school board meeting to oppose the mask mandate did not get violent and were not disrespectful. Our staff feels respected and appreciated by our administration more than many other teachers do around the state.

And yet, this school year, I’ve seriously considered leaving the profession.

The problem is, I’m an English teacher trying to work out a math equation: is COVID + increased disrespect from society + political agendas + the usual stresses of a teaching job equal to or greater or lesser than caring about the kids and the future + occasional moments of joy? Factor in decades invested into a retirement system and the importance of having good healthcare and the equation gets incredibly complicated.

I’ve thought about what has brought me to this point. Is it just the stress of COVID? Maybe it’s the fact that I’ve taught for two and a half decades in Ohio and still haven’t seen fair school funding be made a priority of our legislature. Maybe it’s because the legislature continues to show a disregard and distrust of what we teach and how we teach it. Maybe it’s because the Ohio State Board of Education just repealed an anti-racism resolution passed last year.  Maybe it’s because even COVID didn’t derail the standardized testing and data train. Maybe it’s because my salary is still not commensurate with other equally degreed college graduates. And maybe I could deal with all of that if I only had five years to go before I could retire, but because of STRS changes since I began my career, I have twelve, and being the kind of teacher I want to be, one that I can be proud of, for 12 more years seems unfathomable to me.

I’m not alone. A recent study by NEA shows that 32% of teachers are planning to leave education earlier than they originally planned.^[1] Something’s got to give, or we are going to lose a lot of good teachers.

Resilience doesn’t just mean adapting well in the face of adversity, being in a terrible situation and sticking it out. Resilience is elasticity; the ability to bounce back. If the current state of education in Ohio is one that is endangering my ability to bounce back, to retain the core of who I am, to be the kind of person I want to be, then it’s not a path I can continue on. Last spring I wrote that “I still have what’s most essential to being a good teacher: I still care about the kids.” This year, I’m wondering if caring about the kids means knowing when it’s time to put them in someone else’s hands.

I’m not quite there yet. But part of taking care of myself in this third year of teaching during COVID means not just getting through each day, but examining how I want the rest of my days to be, as a person, not just as a teacher. It means being open to the idea that I might not retire at the end of my working years from teaching as I had always assumed I would. I’m not quite at the end of my rope, but the end of my rope is fraying, quickly.

There is some comfort in knowing I am not alone. Just last week in an ECOEA meeting, colleagues in schools all around me discussed feeling the same way. In addition, Cult of Pedagogy dropped a new podcast entitled “Teachers are Barely Hanging On. Here’s What They Need”, and a Michigan teacher/writer I love, Dave Stuart Jr., wrote about the struggle of teacher burnout. So many educators are seeking solutions to the problems that plague us. We are fighting for our profession. We want to find the joy again.

And sometimes, we find it. Last week on Tuesday, I did not get one paper graded or lesson planned during the school day, but I left school feeling lighter and happier than I had all year.  Why? I spent my planning period and some time after school having unplanned one-on-one conversations with students.  One needed someone to listen, to acknowledge what he’s been through and to affirm that he was on the right path. The other needed a nudge to make a plan for moving forward, a little support and guidance and direction. Those conversations reminded me of why I chose teaching in the first place.

There haven’t been many days this year when I’ve felt that I’m in the right place at the right time, but on that day, I felt that I was right where I was meant to be.

I hope that the challenges of teaching this year are growing pains and that the struggles we are facing will lead to meaningful changes, because I need more days like that.

We all do.

By Julie Holderbaum, Minerva EA/OEA

Henry Darby, a principal in South Carolina, recently made headlines for working an overnight job at Walmart so he would have extra money to help the students in his community. Why? According to Darby, “You just…do what you need to do.”¹

I think I’m supposed to have warm, gooey feelings when I hear about stories like his, so why did it depress me so much?

Maybe because this year, I have had little energy to do much beyond show up to work on time and put forth a solid effort during the day. I leave as soon as I am contractually allowed to leave, and outside of a few weekend afternoons grading at home, I’ve not spent time doing school work after 2:30 PM each weekday.

It didn’t used to be this way. Like Mr. Darby, I would do whatever it took to get the job done and done well, even if that meant grading or planning in my home office instead of spending time with family, or spending my own money on supplies for my students. Even when not in school, it was not unusual for my brain to be constantly whirring with thoughts of lesson plans or students or activities or curriculum pacing or technology or state tests or any of the countless number of aspects to a teacher’s job.

But this year, I’ve started to wonder if I have the energy to make it to retirement in a teaching career. National news stories heralding extraordinary educators like Mr. Darby only make me question myself even more. A few times, I’ve caught myself wondering if it’s time to consider getting out.

I’ve come to realize, though, that in spite of the stress of teaching through COVID, I still have what’s most essential to being a good teacher: I still care about the kids.

Of course I get frustrated with my high school students at times. But the fact remains, I want them to become flourishing adults who contribute meaningfully to their communities. I want them to be able to think and read critically, to fight with passion for their beliefs and to listen with compassion to those who hold opposing points of view. I want them to recognize the importance of finding the balance between living every day as if it’s their last and as if they will live forever. I want them to learn to approach each day with intention, putting forth an effort they can be proud of, even if the day consists of the mundane routine of going to school and home again.

Those desires fuel every lesson I plan, even this year, when literally surviving is my main goal.

When the pandemic hit almost a year ago and we had to start teaching from home, I learned very quickly that I was going to have to work to keep my anxiety at bay. I exercised daily. I read for enjoyment. I did yoga. My family and I worked puzzles. I watched the news only once per day and limited my time on social media.

When school started this fall, my district decided to go back face-to-face, five days a week. I’ve had to keep up the practices I started last spring in order to take care of my mental well-being. Consequently, I’ve had no extra time to put into my job, and frankly, the stress of being in school saps my energy for even thinking about school when I’m not there.

One of the newscasters telling Mr. Darby’s story wondered when he had time to sleep. It’s a good question; what he is doing is most likely not sustainable for a long period of time, no matter the depths of his love for his students. We need to realize that teaching is an exhausting job whether we are experiencing a pandemic or not, and whatever we do to get the job done needs to be something we can continue to do for the long haul.

I am not questioning Mr. Darby for working that second job, nor am I criticizing teachers who grade papers on the weekends or stay late after school or provide supplies for their students. We need people like that. But maybe we need to take turns being people like that. And we need to recognize that it’s okay not to be people like that.

Maybe we need to question why teachers feel pressured to sacrifice whole chunks of their lives to their job outside of regular work hours.

Maybe we need to question why teachers who take care of their own mental health aren’t as highly glorified in the media as teachers who run themselves ragged trying to make up for the shortcomings of our society. Where are the stories about teachers who figure out how to leave school at school, who work like dogs during the day so they can come home at night and hit the mat for some downward dogs?

Maybe we need to question why, in 2021, in any state in this country, funding for public schools is so egregiously inadequate that a principal would even consider getting a second job to make more money to provide for his students. We certainly need to question why here in Ohio, our legislators just can’t ever quite get around to fixing our state’s unconstitutional school funding system. What are our legislators prioritizing over our kids? And why?

Society has always faced more questions than answers when it comes to dealing with public education, but this year, the question that has haunted me is whether or not it’s time to leave education. To answer that question, I had to ask another: do I want to continue to be an educator? The answer is a resounding yes, so I must do whatever it takes to allow myself to keep showing up for those teenagers who I still care about so much.

COVID has changed the way every American is able to perform their job, whether that job is in a hospital or a grocery store or an office or a classroom. We are all facing situations for which we have not been trained or adequately prepared. Teachers certainly aren’t the only ones dealing with higher levels of stress than usual. But society has always asked teachers to live up to extraordinary expectations, and we aren’t all Louanne Johnson or Erin Gruwell; being a good teacher, even an exceptional teacher, doesn’t always mean accomplishing feats that are big-screen worthy.

For many years of my career, “you do what you gotta do,” meant doing whatever it took to get my job done. Now, it means doing whatever I have to do to take care of myself physically, mentally, and emotionally, and not letting my job or the stress that comes with it overtake the rest of my life.

During a pandemic or during a “normal” year, if you’re doing your job as well as you can within school hours and then letting it go, it’s okay. We can’t possibly hope to produce flourishing students if we aren’t even attempting to flourish ourselves. Sometimes you don’t do what you gotta do to get the job done; you do what you gotta do so that you can keep doing the job.