The Waiting Walk

Perhaps the biggest change since the world started reacting to this virus has been that schools have closed and suddenly children are home. These parents weren’t looking to homeschool their children, but now it feels like they are. (And those who do actually homeschool would make it clear that no, they definitely are NOT homeschooling.) There has been a large level of frustration across the country due to this, and understandably so. Our children don’t act for us the same way they act at school. Or maybe they do, and we don’t want to deal with it!

For me, this change has been doubly challenging because I am a teacher. So not only do I have the added task of making sure my own children are getting their schoolwork done in a new way that doesn’t provide as much help, but I also need to come up with lesson plans that can be completed independently at home and yet they still learn from it. This task is not for the faint of heart! The most frustrating thing, by far, has been that my students, bless their hearts, don’t read. They CAN read, but they don’t. I have “returned” an assignment to many of my students 5 or 6 times, yet they keep clicking “Turn in” without actually doing the directions and completing the task! I leave them a little note with it each time I send it back… but they don’t read that either. At school I would walk to their desk and ask them a few questions, ask them to read the directions to me, ask them to look at each part to see if they had done it completely, and then leave them to actually finish the task. But I’m not in the room with them, and we have yet to find a good chat option. Even when we do, I will still have students not online or only online in the evenings when their parents are home. This could be a really long month + of E-learning, as we are calling it.

I have been flipping between impatience and frustration at these circumstances, and thankfulness. I am easily frustrated by circumstances if I don’t check myself, but check myself I must. Choosing thankfulness is key in a situation like this. And so, in this situation I choose to be thankful for

• Getting to spend my time with my own children in a (hopefully) more relaxed way – after all, I’m not their teacher (except for one) so I don’t have to be on them like crazy, I just simply need to give them time and ask for proof of completion. Way better than homeschool, right?
• Sleeping in! Without a commute, we can stay in bed a bit longer. Not much, but every minute counts. We are still trying to stick to a semi-normal schedule, but hey, these are not normal times so a bit of a change is definitely not going to hurt us.
• Opportunity to learn some online-tools that I’ve heard of but never taken the time to explore. Now I need to, to make life easier for me and my students! So video chats, digital whiteboards, and how to record myself teaching – I’ll be a pro at this a month from now. I’ve previously toyed with the idea of recording myself teaching even in the brick and mortar school so that students can watch it again later, or those who were absent can still get the lesson. Now I will at least know how to do this!
• My students are really, really going to have to learn to read the directions! Yay, this is a great life skill. They’ll need to pay attention to details. This is great. In school so many of them figure out what to do just by watching everyone else. Now, they have to pay attention and figure it out on their own. Unless, of course, they have a parent who is “helping” them… but this is beyond my control and I cannot worry about it.
• I’m exercising my ability to “let it go.” There is so, so much beyond my control right now. But if it is truly beyond my control, then it doesn’t need to take up any room in the stress department of my brain. I have enough that I can control that I should be concerned with. How long this situation will last, will people that I know get sick, or are parents doing work for their children? I don’t know, and I can’t do much about it. So I will just let those worries go their own way.
• I am thankful I had a week of craziness trying to throw this together and then we had spring break! While a break right away sounded good, now that I’ve done a week and figured out what our biggest challenges are, I feel more ready to tackle this correctly once break is over. Plus, I get a bit more time to figure things out… it’s not like we could have traveled anywhere anyway!

The list could go on. Which is good. But rather than continuing to read my list, I want to encourage you to go make a list of your own. Yes, I know the list of what is frustrating about this situation is long. And some of the items on that list are big, and real, and scary, and life-changing. But let’s take Paul seriously when he tells us to give thanks even in the middle of our troubles. Here are just two of many verses that I am choosing to follow in these trying times:

Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.

1 Thessalonians 5:18

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

Philippians 4:6