I have these occasional waves of extreme sadness and listening to breakup songs this fall. A few weeks into hybrid when I realized I was doing this, I was completely puzzled. My marriage is fine, so why was I craving break up songs? What’s the deal?
As I pondered this, it occurred to me that public K-12 Ed is a huge “relationship” in my life. “Cause I've built my life around you.” I, like many teachers, have centered much of my life and identity around being an educator. I have repeatedly and staunchly defended public education and educators and poured much of myself into my roles. “Climbed a mountain and I turned around.” “‘Til the landslide brought me down.” Teaching has never been easy, but this year hits different. The pandemic has made obvious some huge issues like:
So what did I do that day in early fall? I started wondering if it was time to take my love and take it down. I started looking at what openings I might be qualified for. Yet my heart was still in education. So days later I looked for more ways to create change in small shifts, for more ways to influence problems I saw. It worked for a while. Today, weeks later, I drove home listening to "Landslide" yet again as I thought about the town being in “red” with 16.6% positivity. I thought about the hundreds of kids I see each day. I thought about my two kids that I’m terrified I’ll bring the virus home to. I wondered to what end so many folks across the nation insist that school buildings stay open. What is this all for? “Oh, mirror in the sky, what is love? Can the child within my heart rise above? Can I sail through the changin' ocean tides?”
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