By Roman McDonald
Teachers are the foundation for students to get an education at school, and use some of the skills they learn in their future jobs and careers. We already know that as students we can feel under the weather about school, especially with the impact of Covid back in 2020, but have you thought about how your teacher has been feeling lately? Have you considered they might be having a tough time dealing with things as well?
Mrs. Rachels began teaching in 2019, which was the infamous year that Covid-19 hit and forced everyone to go into a nationwide lockdown in March of 2020. That year was clearly stressful for everyone with having to quarantine, wear your masks daily if you do go out, not being able to see your friends and family as much, among many adjustments. Coming back from that later on in 2020 in the attempt to open schools again, new methods and ways of teaching were introduced and incorporated into everyday learning. Teachers had to adapt to completely different ways, and students had to stay on top of their work with everything mainly becoming electronic. You would expect that this might drive a new teacher crazy, but Rachels said that teaching during Covid may not have taken a huge toll on her as it did for other teachers.
“It might not have been a challenge for me as much as veteran teachers because everything was already new.” This style of teaching may not have been what Rachels was expecting to do, as none of us really imagined for a worldwide pandemic to happen, but this was “just one more thing I needed to learn,” Rachels said.
Rachels continued, “Working and feeling overwhelmed is perfectly normal. Every job I have ever had, even when working retail there have been moments where I’ve been overwhelmed at work.”
That is why checking on your teachers, co-workers, students, etc. is such a crucial thing to do. Even something as simple as a polite “How are you?” is doing more than enough to just let someone know that they are being thought about and cared for.
So with a number of teachers leaving for their own personal reasons, could they all have one thing in common? Over the years, students evolve and behave differently. The teachers see firsthand how the students change every year.
Rachels feels that “there’s always going to be another kid that I had a really positive, wonderful encounter with” on the same day she may have to deal with a problematic student. Throughout those rough days, the students are what keeps her going.
“It can be really challenging sometimes when you have students that you know are going through it, and not letting that make you feel really sad…all of that pain and suffering, is really hard.”
Her relationships with her students make it easy for them to express their emotions to her. And while that might be extremely difficult to take on with so many students, it creates a good teacher-student bond where the student feels comfortable.
“And a comfortable student is going to perform better and feel better in class,” Rachels added.
Everyone has something to help them get through the day, For Rachels, that relief is work.
“My personal life is so chaotic, my professional life is an escape from it,” Rachels said.
Everyone feels overwhelmed at some point, so one day stop and think to ask a teacher, student, or co-worker… How are you?”