What a year. I started composing this post in my head the other day, thinking about all of the changes that have occurred... what a year!
This was Friday, September 10th, 2021.
At the beginning of the year my principal (probably actually in the summer) decided that I would have my own room, as with ever changing protocols, I was allowed to have students in my room, and he assumed that the covid protocols would continue to loosen. At the beginning of the year I had just the grade 8s coming to my room. And then I slowly added more classes. I had to clean the chairs between classes. I really hated cleaning chairs. I made myself a cleaning schedule, and had as many classes come to my room as made sense.
At the beginning of the year band instruments were only allowed if students were 2 metres apart. So my class of 30 grade 8s (with 2 online) couldn't play because there was no way to spread out.
At the beginning of the year ukuleles could be shared with students sanitizing hands between playing - but I had to factor in my hybrid students so I could only do as many classes as allowed by the number of hybrid kids using ukuleles at home.
At the beginning of the year I hoped that I would be able to do recorders outside at the end of the year. At the beginning of the year I was optimistic that the end of this school year would be vastly different than the beginning of it.
Hybrid was insane. There were times that it felt easy, times that it felt impossible, and times that it just felt like it kind of made sense. Having students be connected to their school community, with a place in a face to face classroom enabled lots of kids to return during the school year. It wasn't a complete revolving door, but there were times of crazy. Like not knowing who might be hybrid at any given time because students with covid, or students quarantining with covid symptoms, could switch to hybrid. Homeroom teachers had 48 hrs I think to get organized, but would often forget to tell me as the prep coverage teacher, mentioning it when I was coming into the room ,"oh so and so is online right now".
My biggest frustrations with covid: the social isolation of the student online. At the beginning of the year after reorganization online students were grouped together so that not every class had hybrid students, and that no one online student was alone in a class. By the end of the year after so many students returned face to face, there were several classes with only one online student left. My heart went out to those students.
Next on the list would probably be the workload. It was twice as much work. There wasn't tech for every face to face student so lesson materials had to be online ready and face to face ready. This would mean creating paper worksheets and also creating online worksheets. Some students could print things, some couldn't. A number of times I would walk into class thinking I'd prepared the online version only to realize that I'd forgotten. I felt incompetent far too often, it was not a good feeling.
Group work for drama and dance was a pain. Performances with a half online group were a pain. Lots of things were such a pain. Having to log in and out of classes, and remember to login - eek. By the end of the year there were fewer and fewer hybrid classes so I occasionally forgot until part way through the lesson that I had online students. I felt so awful when I would forget students, so awful. My day plans had clear instructions, but I didn't always consult them, especially when a busy class with "excited" students would be coming in and getting settled. It was all so much.
Lots of changes occurred throughout the year though. One of my grade 8 students, (Meghan Andersen) when I explained the restrictions for band, suggested band club. So that's what we did. We had a little grade 8 band club for a few months. We recorded ourselves doing a few Christmas songs in December, and we performed for Mr. McFadden during his last week before his retirement. It was so great hearing kids on instruments.
I stopped having to clean chairs at one point, and had all of my music students coming to the music room - except the kindy/1 class, they only came once or twice. And I did keep going to the classrooms of my health classes - desks just made more sense. I was able to teach recorders - and we were allowed to do that inside and everything! I got through all of the classes I wanted to for the ukulele. I started doing band instruments with the grade 7s, and next year we can have concerts again!
This year was exhausting. Things did change and as far as covid protocols go, things did get better. And I think it was in May that the board let us know that they would never make us do hybrid again! (Or at least not next school year.) That was a huge relief. Huge.
We were only online for two weeks in January. There were no other shut-downs. We were in class until the end of June. We stopped having to wear masks in March - after the break. The kids were allowed to all go outside for recess at the same time - no more cohorting. We had an in-person assembly in the gym - on how to have an assembly lol. We had our first in person staff meeting - for some staff their first in-person staff meeting of their career. Things felt almost normal by the end of the year - almost!
AND we had in-person Grade 8 graduation again, for the first time since 2019. YAY!! The grade 8s looked beautiful and they had a fabulous time.
Cara Bartlett and I - we shared my room during the 2020-2021 school year.
Meghan and I - she won the music award!!
Verina, Zoya and I. My two most faithful band kiddos. Verina became a flute player - and she did a great job, and Zoya's trumpet skills blossomed! SO GOOD!
I'm hopeful that we'll continue to have more effect vaccines and treatments for Covid19. I'm hopeful that we'll learn to live with this safely. And I'm hopeful that at some point in the future, thinking about the dark days of the pandemic will stop making me cry!
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