Student Teaching During a Global Pandemic

It’s funny, I joke to my friends that in billy Madison but now I love my path. I used to envy people that knew their life calling from the time they were 18 but now I don’t. After graduating college with a communications degree, because my mother sort of steered me away from education knowing the struggles that teachers face, I delved right back towards working with children. Upon earning my bachelor’s degree I ended up teaching pre-k, then working as a paraprofessional in LLD and Behaviorally Disruptive classrooms, and have genuinely never been happier in my life. I’ve always loved working with kids, but after being introduced to special education it solidified the fact that I could not deny my calling.

I’m especially confident that I made the right choice after I had to leave my job as a para a few weeks before school let out to begin graduate school in order to earn my teaching certification, masters in education, and special ed. Certification. Mind you I’m only half done and 28 (hence the billy Madison joke), and I’ve never been so confident that I’m doing what I’m supposed to do. I know this because during my last day one of my students, who I primarily worked with one on one, started breaking down in tears, as I did. Mind you this is the type of kid that acts tough as nails and that a bystander would probably expect the least reaction from. Fortunately, I wrote him a note telling him how much I believe him and what a great kid he is. I’ll never forget hugging him before he got on the bus at the end of the day and whispering in his ear “read my note when you get home”. As much as this was a sad moment I knew I was doing the right thing pursuing my gut instinct to become a special ed teacher. This is the educational and personal aspect of being a teacher that I love, and this is what I’m good at. It’s essentially like the starfish poem that I’ve posted elsewhere in my blog, even if you make a difference in one kid’s life, you’re doing something right. 

Fast forward to a year later, or the present day, and I’ve been gradually been student teaching in Neptune, New Jersey since September. Quite different from the primarily white, middle to upper-class population of students that I have been working with for the past few years, becoming a teacher has taken on an even deeper meaning for me. I know that probably statistically you may make less money working in an urban school district, but to put it frankly I don’t care. These kids needed me, and I needed them. Having been placed in a classroom with 20 third graders of an expansive variety of abilities, I have learned an immense amount about teaching, education, culture, and different types of students. I always thought I preferred working with students in grades pre-k through 2, but after working with my amazing cooperating teacher LaWanda, I couldn’t help but request to stick with her for my phase 3 of student teaching 3rd grade five days of the week in the fall. 

When COVID-19 happened I have never felt for the students more in my life. I will never forget being on a Zoom meeting with my Neptune district partner leader and other students in my cohort. Similar to me, some of the other student teachers expressed concern about not being able to contact certain students or students not participating in general. It was at that point that my partner leader, a former teacher in the Neptune district explained that a lot of these kids’ parents are the ones working overtime right now whether it be as a nurse, home care aid, Walmart, or McDonald’s, etc. and realistically are too tired or don’t have enough time to help their kids complete their school work. That hit me in a whole another level. It was then that I made an unspoken promise that I would be there for these kids to the best of my ability.

Granted I am limited in how much I am able to contact them and wanted to support my cooperating teacher in whatever way possible, I mostly recorded myself doing read alouds and creating Kahoot quizzes. Nevertheless, despite my semester ending 3 weeks ago I’ve written each of my 20 students handwritten notes along with the pen pal form, envelopes, and stamps just to let them know that I am thinking of them. Truthfully, I don’t expect them to all write back, but as long as they know that they are not forgotten and acknowledged for enduring this pandemic, that’s all I care about.