We Did What?

At our senior dinner last week, our college counselor described what our current seniors had experienced since the start of their freshman year.  This, of course, included both the lockdown spring and the hybrid year.  As she described it, I had a sort of out-of-body experience.  While I know we did those things, I can't quite connect to them.  I turned to the person next to me and said, "How did we do that?"  

While lockdown and hybrid were certainly the biggest an most unexpected things we have ever done, the truth is that my teaching career has been full of things I would not have imagined before they happened.  

I've had to deal with a student having a grand mal seizure.  I've taught during a shooting threat.  I witnessed a fight in the cafeteria. I had a student take me shopping for jeans (a different time -  I wouldn't do that now).  I sponsored multiple clubs, organizing trips and judges and events.  All of that was before I turned 25, and none of them are things I would have imagined before the age of 20.

The year I taught in Wake County is a bit of blur, but the defining moment was when the principal came in to tell me about 9/11.  Who could have imagined the country could be attacked at 9:30 in the morning, and teachers would continue to teach until 3 in the afternoon?  All day, I had to make decisions about how to deal with this unfolding story as bells rang and new groups of kids came into my room.  Should we watch the coverage because it is historic, or is it bad for their brains to soak in it all day?  These aren't decisions a teacher thinks they will have to make when they choose this profession at the age of 18.

I've been at my current school for 20 years, and occasionally I say to the teacher next door to me (we came the same year), "Man, we have seen a lot."  And, as is becoming the pattern, most of the things we have seen were things we weren't prepared for.  We've been part of new building projects, hiring new people, taught subjects we've ever taught before (algebra, health, and video editing were not in my mind ever), and growing our programs.  We've guided students through grief while dealing with our own.  We've put out fires (both metaphorical and literal).  We've learned to teach in new ways year after year, written textbooks, made videos, adapted to schedule changes, collaborated with other teachers, and dealt with three accreditation cycles.  When I imagined my teaching career as a college student, I pictured planning and teaching lessons and grading tests.  The rest of that wasn't something I had even considered.

As I distribute my 18th and final yearbook on Friday, I look back and can't quite imagine that there have been 18 of them.  Part of me still feels like I am new to the job and don't know what I'm doing.  When I took a job teaching science at GRACE 20 years ago, I could not have envisioned that one day, I'd be carting around 1280 pounds of books.  I'm getting ahead of myself because that is next week's post, so I'll stop now.

My point is this.  It's a good thing we don't know what is coming.  We would believe it wasn't possible to do things we've never done before and have trouble even imagining.  But afterward, we can look back on it and say, "We did what?" and "Yes, we did that."