It was a Tuesday afternoon around 3:20. I was 29 weeks pregnant and standing outside my classroom monitoring bus dismissal. I felt a rush of water between my legs. I yelled to my colleague, “Ramona, I need you to watch my class!” and raced to the bathroom. As I struggled to comprehend what was happening, the school nurse knocked on the door. Ramona had called her.
At the hospital, my doctor tested the fluid to verify what we already knew: it was amniotic fluid. She hooked me up to a monitor to track the baby’s progress. She gave me two kinds of drugs: one to slow/stop labor, another to help develop the baby’s lungs more quickly. Neither worked. My son was delivered a few hours later via emergency C-Section due to a prolapsed umbilical cord.
All of this was traumatic: recovering from emergency surgery, having a preemie in the NICU, suffering the loss of a “normal pregnancy” and fearing my child would die (he almost did, on Mother’s Day, five and a half weeks later).
All of this was awful, but it’s not the whole story. I was a fourth-grade teacher. I loved my job. I loved “my kids.” I was there with them on Tuesday and gone on Wednesday, never to teach them again. Our school year ended on April 2nd. I visited a couple of times, when I could, but we had no closure, no proper ending to our time together.
I tried to hold on—to make some things happen that we had planned together—but really, how much could I do? My baby would stay in the hospital for seven weeks. Once he came home, we needed to stay fairly isolated to protect his fragile lungs.
Classrooms can be intimate places, especially elementary classrooms where teachers and students spend all day together. We bonded. We became a family. I called my students, “my kids.” How often I’d confuse people when telling a story and saying, “my kids.” They’d look at me askew and say, “Your kids?” or, “I didn’t think you had any kids?” And how often did students slip and call me “Mom?” I lost count long before my classroom days ended. I always thought that was the best compliment any student could give me.
I missed my students so strongly and so deeply, it hurt. Losing my classroom was one more thing that left me feeling untethered.
I missed our daily greeting: each child would choose a hug, high-five, or handshake as they entered our classroom. I missed bonding over shared read-alouds. I missed planting our vegetable garden and opening their eyes to the wonder of plant reproduction, growth, and photosynthesis. I missed our poetry writing unit which culminated with “Poetry and Dessert,” an event at which each student would read aloud one of their poems to an adoring audience (their parents). Then we’d all enjoy treats and mingle while the student poets signed copies of the poetry book we created together. Even writing this eighteen years later, I’m tearing up thinking of all we lost that year.
Of course, a substitute teacher took over. Of course, their education continued. But it wasn’t the same. It couldn’t be.
This is how teachers and students must be feeling all over the world right now. I see my children’s teachers putting in untold hours to try to create some kind of normalcy for themselves and their students, even as many of them navigate being home with their own children. I see teachers smiling on video calls, being cheery, but I know that’s for their students’ benefit. Sure, they’ll continue teaching/learning remotely, but they’ve lost the community that is a classroom. The magic that can happen when a teacher and her students share the same physical space.
In a classroom, we can read body language and know when we REALLY have our students captivated.
In a classroom, we can hear the quiet comment off to the side that indicates a child is struggling.
In a classroom, we can let the child with ADHD stand toward the back and bounce around a bit to burn off energy.
In a classroom, we can look every single child in the eye as they leave for the day and shake their hand (or give a hug, high-five, or fist bump) and say, “Have a great night. I’ll see you in the morning.”
This is for all of my students from 2002: Stephanie A., Joshua, Aimee, Sarah, Tommy, Ashley, Andrew, Kevin, Rachael, Kyle, Stephanie M., Courtney, Brian, Georgina, Ryan, Kim, Meaghan, Tim, Aaron, Alex (may he rest in peace), Shelby (may she rest in peace), Ethan, Nicole, David, and Carl. And for my Special Education co-teachers, Dori Kondracki and Carole Malloch.