I guess I should feel guilty that I have been teaching at home since mid March of 2020 because of Covid, but I don’t. My luck further improved in June when I got a job as a non-roster carrying teacher in a Special Education department in my district. I’d prefer not to identify the position any further except to say my workload has decreased by 75%, partially due to the online environment. I expect to be at 50% workload of my former positions when we go back to school in person.
I am no longer commuting 40 miles each way, saving time and money as I no longer have to feed my gas guzzling SUV which I got long before I knew I would be doing this commute. Welcome to exurbia! My quality of life has improved immensely. Instead of getting up at 4:30 am, I get up at 7:15, I have time to cook and my pets love having me home.
Given the fact that I went through a school reconstitution, worked for a couple of unbalanced principals and essentially thought about teaching 24/7 until mid March, I view this as just compensation to make up for all the free hours I worked grading papers after school and on weekends for 17 years, not to mention all the planning during the summers. Still, I have four more years after this June with the district which will mean four years of a grueling commute, but hopefully my tax refund will help me buy a fuel efficient vehicle so I can be ready by next August. I do believe we will not be going back at all this year.
For regular classroom teachers, this has been a hellish journey, less so if you are in RSP or my position. The kids who don’t show, the district mandates and the last minute district command to fill out papers for all failing students to give them an “Incomplete” instead of an “F.” We are training our students that there are no consequences for failure, but this isn’t new in LAUSD. I wonder if the district has ever made any connection between the 70% dropout rate from college of LAUSD kids and the coddling and victimization the district insists teachers and admins bestow on students, rather than accountability.
This isn’t to say I am not grateful for my fully paid health benefits, FSA and union, but this is the first time in 18 years I don’t feel like a rat on a treadmill and it feels empowering. I also realize that for teachers in other states with weak unions trying to teach under a “hybrid” model, life is beyond hellish, with many quitting and unqualified college students taking their places
Parents, kids and most teachers are struggling, while I sit here at home literally under no stress whatsoever for the first time in my entire life. This must be what life feels like in some social democratic countries or for really wealthy people. I’m in a cocoon -and even though I know people are suffering economically because of Covid- I am weirdly detached from feeling their pain. I know that’s not something I should admit, but having gone through my own economic and career struggles earlier in my life, I like this calm, almost blank feeling of sitting in my own home, surrounded by my pets and books, going hiking on my winter break and just not thinking or feeling anxious. For the first time in my life-surrounded by economic and political chaos- I feel completely secure and calm. Part of it was luck, part geography and school district, part if it was foreseeing the future, adding on that SPED credential and buying the house. In my late 50’s, my life has finally fallen into place during a pandemic and in a country led by an authoritarian narcissist. The authoritarian will be gone in a month, but I hope this sense of personal calm remains.
