Schooling in the pandemic exemplified what Tom Paine labeled, “…these are the times that try men’s souls…”. Every educator was Paine’s “summer soldier” called to perform a duty – being the kind of teacher, staff member, and school leader they were not trained to be – and they performed valiantly.
On the best of days, the task of sustaining continuous teaching and learning for all children was difficult and on the worst of days it was almost insurmountable. No one was trained for studio teaching of remote students on their laptops, pads, and phones. No one was trained to make and deliver school meals to children at home. No one was trained to make on-demand decisions of opening or closing schools, quarantining classes of children, or masking or unmasking. No one was trained to say “this schoolhouse is closed – you cannot come in”. Yet, school faculty, staff, and leaders did what needed to be done.
We teach our children to be problem solvers – we were. We teach our children to use evidence and data to make decisions – we did. We teach our children to be collaborative and collegial – we were. We teach our children to be flexible and adapt to new challenges – we were. We teach our communities that the education of all children is essential – we delivered. We teach our parents that school and home are partners in child development – we upheld our part. We teach our children that sometimes we cannot make everyone happy, but we can try our hardest to make them understand – we tried.
In educational theory, we know the best driver for doing our best work is our personal intrinsic motivation. I point to intrinsic drivers – our intellectual, emotional, passionate, and compassionate reasons that compel us to action. During our trying times, each educator’s intrinsic motivation was the difference maker. Schoolyard signs declaring educators as “essential workers” caused smiles of recognition, but these words did not get us up in the morning. Honking horns and texts of encouragement were background appreciation. An intrinsic motivation is an intangible that lives in a person’s soul, or it does not. Although the theory of transitioning from extrinsic to intrinsic motivation reads well in our education textbooks, it only works if a person can be intrinsically motivated. Without debate, pandemic educators possessed an intrinsic “trigger” that moved them into action even when doing so put their personal and family safety at risk.
At the closing of every major battle, not just military, there is a deceleration in the frantic work of struggle accompanied with the realization that “I survived”. The struggle mentality does not stop, it eases away. The heightened risk of serious illness and death has subsided although there are still surges of danger. The coming down from months of working “above and beyond” built both a resilience and a fatigue and each must be recognized – honor the fatigue and celebrate the resilience. In our opened schools with optional masking and other mitigations and our paralleling ongoing positive covid tests with measles or chickenpox, we look at each other as survivors now returning to our usual work lives.
No medals are awarded, and no banquets are held. Yet, professionally we look at each other as stronger educators and our schools as worthy places for what we achieved. We were what we teach our children to be and as time passes our graduates will appreciate this truth. The intrinsic calling to be an educator of children prevailed.