She and her colleagues were not prepared for online instruction and had no prior experience teaching in that way. However, they had no choice but to quickly pull together some educational experiences for their students.<\/p>\n
They gave us two or three days, the teachers, to figure out how to do virtual instruction. They didn\u2019t give us any instruction. . . . Basically, we had to figure out how to teach online and share that information with our second-grade children to then get them online to do something educational at that point. So it was a quick change and very awkward. . . . They just threw us at it and said, \u201cHere, do it.\u201d There was no instruction from the school system as to what they wanted. I had never done videos of myself. I had never worked on Microsoft Teams. I had never done any of that stuff. So it was survival at that time. It was true survival.<\/em><\/p>\n Despite Ms. Oakley\u2019s best effort, online instruction was extremely challenging. She recalled the long hours spent planning, recording and uploading lessons and delivering instruction. Although she and her colleagues tried to implement a collaborative approach, she noted that the time she devoted to teaching was overwhelming.<\/p>\n I would start working at 7:30 in the morning, and I wouldn\u2019t end until 6:00 or 6:30 that night trying to get the Canvas page up, trying to get everything into Seesaw or Google Classroom. . . . So we had 15 teachers, and we worked together. One person would put all the reading plans together and say, \u201cOkay, here are your Seesaw lessons.\u201d All I had to do was click to save it and then assign it to my kids. But all that for reading, math, science, writing. Somebody sent me a Canvas page, they gave us the baseline of it, but then I still had to personalize it for my class. I was just personalizing and clicking save and assign, I wasn\u2019t starting from scratch all totally by myself, but it took a number of hours. . . . Nights. Weekends. It was unreal. It was crazy.<\/em><\/p>\n After completing the 2019\u201320 school year online, the district decided to start the next school year (2020\u201321) in person. However, Ms. Oakley explained that the many safety and sanitation protocols in place continued to make instruction challenging.<\/p>\n We took the piece of writing away from the kids because we weren\u2019t allowed to transfer paper or books back and forth. We had to make it sit for two or three days before we could touch it. Well, if I made a copy and gave it to them, then they had to let it sit for two or three days before they could even touch it. And then in return, they complete it. And then I have to let it sit for two or three days before I can even look at it. That did not even make sense.<\/em><\/p>\n Although the situation was not ideal, it did provide Ms. Oakley with avenues for discussing COVID with her students.<\/p>\n We talked about the importance of what social distancing was, the importance of staying away. We did have some plexiglass shields in the school. \u201cWhy were there some of those plexiglass shields? Why did some people choose to wear a mask, but then the little face shield thing too? What were some of the reasons why people did different things?\u201d And that kind of thing. What we boiled down to was everybody\u2019s different and it\u2019s okay to be different. And that\u2019s one thing that our school is very big on is, it\u2019s okay to be different. Everybody\u2019s different. It\u2019s okay to be different. So we just embedded that into our regular part of our day.<\/em><\/p>\n However, the return to in-person instruction also caused Ms. Oakley to fear for her personal safety due to a preexisting autoimmune disease that put her at increased risk.<\/p>\n I\u2019ll tell you, I struggled. I really honestly did. I think I probably struggled more than any of the kids that I taught . . . because of that autoimmune disease that I said I have. And we still weren\u2019t quite sure. And even to this day, nobody\u2019s been able to give me a true answer about what would happen [if I got COVID].<\/em><\/p>\n Yet, rather than trying to hide her condition from her students, she used her personal experience as a way of introducing her students to another facet of COVID.<\/p>\n I talked about my autoimmune disease and how I might do things differently, but that\u2019s because this is what I need to do. And you might do things differently because that\u2019s what you need to do. They were really good about it.<\/em><\/p>\n As the pandemic persisted, the tension between Ms. Oakley\u2019s desire to be an effective teacher and her need to protect herself came to a head. During the middle of the 2020\u201321 school year, her class was scheduled to go on a field trip, a prospect that brought her a great deal of anxiety.<\/p>\n In February, at some point, my principal deemed that we needed to go on a field trip. I had a panic attack. I mean, it was a full-blown panic attack, because I would have to get onto a bus with all of those students. I mean, I was still staying six feet away from kids. I was wearing my mask every day. I couldn\u2019t do it. I started looking for some virtual jobs. I did have a virtual position in another county offered to me. And then I went and talked to my principal and was like, \u201cLook, I have a virtual position. I\u2019d rather stay here, but I can\u2019t do the field trip. I\u2019m still struggling with some of this.\u201d So he said, \u201cIf you\u2019re willing not to take the virtual position, stay here. I will work with you.\u201d He ended up doing a job share thing. He had another teacher go in my place, and I covered that teacher\u2019s class that day. So that helped me mentally.<\/em><\/p>\n During the 2021\u201322 school year, her school was able to resume more \u201cnormal\u201d practices and procedures. However, the challenges of the pandemic made Ms. Oakley question her ability to remain in the teaching profession. In the end, financial considerations ended up being a major driving factor in her decision to persist.<\/p>\n I talked to my human resource people, and I am three years away from retirement. If I go now, I\u2019m giving up an awful lot of money. . . . I could retire right now because you have to be a certain age and you have to have taught a certain number of years and all that. I qualify for all that stuff. But it would be a very marked 40 percent or 50 percent of what I would normally bring home for the rest of my life. It makes a difference.<\/em><\/p>\n Ms. Oakley indicated that she wished others knew just how much teachers poured into their students, at the expense of themselves and their families, during these very difficult times.<\/p>\n I can say this for any of us, we truly, honestly, with everything in our bodies and souls, we did everything that we could to the very best of our abilities. It was not perfect. Nobody taught us how to do it. We taught ourselves. We were floating 9 times out of 10, not even having a clue of where we were headed. But our mindset was, \u201cLet\u2019s give the kids the best instruction that we truly can.\u201d We were there for those students in our classrooms. I wish that people would realize that in doing that, we put our own families on hold.<\/em><\/p>\n\n![\"Elementary\"](\"https:\/\/www.horizon-research.com\/RAPID\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/giovanni-gagliardi-fvT3t9iOaJI-unsplash-scaled.jpg\" "\\"Elementary\\"")
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![\"Middle\"](\"https:\/\/www.horizon-research.com\/RAPID\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/getty-images-I-451dMhv5U-unsplash-scaled.jpg\" "\\"Middle\\"")
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