The Real Story of a Teacher During COVID

I began my journey as a teacher back in 2012. Fresh out of college then, I really had no idea what I was getting myself into. I don't think any amount of teacher prep programs can adequately prepare you for teaching; it's just something you have to learn by doing. At the ripe age of 23, I was a novice; completely unprepared for the journey ahead. However, I did learn a few valuable things in that first year. For example, sometimes you have to change the lesson plan right in the middle of teaching it. You should prepare for the unpredictable, and, take it from me, you should never spend too much money on incentives (candy) for your students because they are just going to end up stealing it all from you. (yes, that actually happened. Some kids broke into one of my cabinets and stole about 45-50 dollars worth of candy I had purchased for the school year.)

My first year was full of these types of realizations, tears, and frustrations. I was pretty much ready to throw in the towel, but then I decided to give it another chance. "Give it one more year," I said to myself, hoping that I'd end up with a better class of kids the following year. Lo and behold, my second year was much better than the first, and I am truly grateful to have the experiences I did. However, nothing, and I mean NOTHING, could have prepared me for what was in store in 2020. I, like many others, totally didn't see this coming. Like all of the other teachers, I felt mentally sick, tired and just done with the school year. By that point, we had all checked out. There was so much negativity and frustration going around, so much so that it was impossible to be in a good mood.

I found myself angry with the teachers who despite it all, always came back every year with big smiles, fake positivity, and giving the illusion that the world is fine. I did not understand how anyone could be that happy during times like these. I kept repeating "this isn't what I signed up for" under my breath as I sanitized the desks every morning, midday, and afternoon, like clockwork.

When I was in high school, being a teacher was the LAST thing I wanted to do. I was far more interested in the arts (music, writing, acting) and was somehow convinced that I could become famous, so at that time, that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to sing and dance, light up a stage with my presence, be adored by so many, write a best selling book. Being creative is pretty much the only thing I've ever been good at. Math and science have always been more difficult for me because I am more of a dreamer.

Storytelling and writing have always been a huge part of my life. As a kid, I was always coming up with weird stories that I could tell my dog. Everyone found it rather bizarre, me pacing back and forth in the backyard, directing the dog as if she was an actor in my story. From a very young age, I decided that my dream in life was to become a published author. That's always been a goal of mine, but it has always been a struggle for me to find my story. Some days, I'm more in the mood to write something fictional and other days the writer's block is just too much for me to be able to sit down and concentrate.

Once the pandemic started, I realized that there was a story to be told in that. I hope to provide my own unique perspective here on the COVID-19 pandemic, and how that impacted my teaching career, to serve as a reminder to everyone to always stay vigilant, because you never know what might happen next. I don't have answers or solutions, but I have my words and my thoughts, and maybe for now, that's enough.

Personal Journal Entry: October 19th, 2020

I had a moment this morning, as I was driving down the highway, darkness blanketed around me, and my eyelids slowly clamping together like magnets as I tried to snap myself awake, I realized something: I had become a slave to the system. It was no longer just a feeling of grogginess in the morning that I normally experience, it was more than that. I was tired, exhausted, hanging on by a mere thread in the education system that we have been so primed to worship, the same system that let me down, over and over in my career. It was a risk going in person at this point, according to the news. It could be a life or death matter, right? That's what they said anyway.

Still, administration begged me (the only teacher, mind you) to come in person to teach one of my classes. It was one of my honors English classes, which, again, if any class were to show up during this pandemic, it should be my SPED classes (special education), not my honors classes. However, my administrator called me with a lengthy phone conversation.

"The parents in this class in particular just really want you in the classroom teaching them"

"What about my other classes?"

"They will still be all online, so you can work from home the rest of the week."

"How come other teachers can work from home for all of their classes?"

*silence*

"Anne Marie, I know this is a lot, but it would mean a lot to us to have you start coming back in the building once a week for that class."

*silence*

"Okay, thanks for letting me know."

*hang up*

The reason this started making me angry was because none of the other teachers had this rule, and our administration kept changing the rules of how we needed to teach, interact, and do our jobs. All of a sudden, we had to focus on social distancing, santizing the classrooms ourselves (not janitors). No, WE the teachers had to sanitize our rooms with Clorox in between every single class, wiping down all the desks and chairs. (That was before we were all work from home).

Then, they started adding these "expectations" and "rules" for teachers. We had to maintain social distancing, we had to wear a mask at all times, we had to report to our administrators with new sets of data unrelated to what we already had to do. Unlike normal school years, we also had to start sending our "lesson plans" to our administrator so that they could check them over. This is not a normal thing they would do with an experienced teacher, so many of us just did not like the fact that more expectations were being piled on top of us every single day. It seemed like there was a new email with new regulations every morning, and it was absolutely frustrating to endure.

During a part of the pandemic, I had to go visit some family in Tennessee for a funeral, and seeing the difference in regulations across the state was crazy. We passed by schools where everyone was walking huddled together, and no one had masks on. I walked through a Walmart that didn't require face masks and had no signs for social distancing. I wondered to myself, "how could this place get away with breaking the rules?". Just a three or four hour drive past that in Nashville, things couldn't have been more different; streets were bare, the hospital was full; masks and social distancing were fully enforced.

Just like that, I found myself back home in Virginia, driving to work and wondering myself when it will happen. When will I get sick from COVID? Will it slowly creep up on me, like a sinus infection or bronchitis and then develop into something more serious? Will I walk around symptom-free, not knowing that I have it and spreading the virus around to my students? Will I just wake up one day feeling like death and immediately have to be rushed to the hospital?

Personal Journal Entry: May 4th, 2025

Everyday that I went in to work during the COVID-19 pandemic, I worried. The thing is, now, it is the year 2025, and I have never had COVID in my life. It really makes me wonder about it all, but more than that, I'm glad I quit teaching. When things got to be too much, I had gotten a phone call from my administrator saying a parent was "mad" that they could not see my face on the screen and that for the lesson that day, the kids were working on independent INTERACTIVE MODULES that I made, to make it more exciting and personal, and the parent called the school to say, "she should be on the screen or in the classroom with them right now".

I was not a bad teacher, I was a great one. I loved my students and I worked very hard to help them. When I heard this adminstrator start nitpicking the way I taught my classes, as if, just from this parent saying it, now it was on their radar to criticize me, I quit. I told her I quit over the phone. She tried so desperately in the conversation to apologize for being so harsh, as I explained to her the details of the modules for my HONORS students (they definitely can do the modules without my help, and I had told them I was always available for messages if they had questions, which I always responded to).

Despite that, I felt, just like I had in my entire teaching career, that I wasn't being heard, valued, or listened to. They also told us if we didn't get the vaccine, we would be fired. This is something I still think about today and think, "that can't be ethically right". Those times were so chaotic. Unfortunately, I was desperate to keep my job, so I got the first round jab by force of my employer. After that, I did not go back. I was never sick, and I didn't understand how things were changing so quickly in the world, just like that.

In the long run, I'm very happy that I am not working in the education system anymore, because there is still a lot of corruption, and a lot that needs to be done to fix and reform this system. Standardized testing made the curriculum less challenging, only asking us to teach the bare minimum, and what they wanted.

I've always thought of learning more as an adventure that you embark upon to find all of the answers to the questions that you have. I hope that we can move back to that kind of mindset in education soon, because these kids need that inspiration; they need the motivation to work hard and do something great. My experiences during the pandemic as a teacher taught me a lot about the workforce as well. I did not expect what happened, I never thought my employer would be forcing me to get a shot, for instance. It really changes the way you look at the world around you. But overall, I'm glad to be right where I am.