What did COVID-19 pandemic do to you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

or sure it made me reassess priorities. I’m a teacher and it’s very easy in teaching to give all your energy and your best self to your job/the kids. Teaching through a pandemic was awful but personally illuminating because when I saw how little regard they system and community had for teachers I realized fully, it is a job. A job I love, but a job. And I could still be good at that job while not giving it my best over my family. So I stopped working at all outside contract hours. I’m talking I wouldn’t even check email from 4:15 pm to 9:00 am. I erected much better boundaries to prevent school from completely consuming all my energy and attention. Never again will school get the best of me while my family gets the rest. It was a very needed reset.

SO TRUE. I worked insane hours, skipped exercise, and didn't see a single person except for students and work colleagues from August-March, when my loved ones could be vaccinated. Then I said enough and changed my behaviors to prioritize my physical and mental health. I will never give so much of myself to this job ever again.

When I saw so many people saying “teachers aren’t working” after my colleagues and I had spent hours on some meeting, literally crying in frustration for how bad we wanted to be with these kids and how we could ensure they were still learning despite the circumstances and we weren’t harming them by asking too much in an awful situation, I just thought, why am I doing this to myself? I haven’t worked one bit over summer and won’t. No emails, no planning, no PD, no nothing related to work. I will never again grade on the weekend or wake up and spend hours planning escape rooms. I love those kids. I am truly still a great teacher. But I was pouring everything into the system and that was stupid as hell.

Is there no compromise? I’m not a teacher and am myself trying to reassert work life balance. But not an iota outside contract hours seems drastic. Many parents cannot email from 9-4 since that’s when they also work, for example. I appreciate the effort our teachers put in the last year and sympathize with the need to assert boundaries, for sure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

or sure it made me reassess priorities. I’m a teacher and it’s very easy in teaching to give all your energy and your best self to your job/the kids. Teaching through a pandemic was awful but personally illuminating because when I saw how little regard they system and community had for teachers I realized fully, it is a job. A job I love, but a job. And I could still be good at that job while not giving it my best over my family. So I stopped working at all outside contract hours. I’m talking I wouldn’t even check email from 4:15 pm to 9:00 am. I erected much better boundaries to prevent school from completely consuming all my energy and attention. Never again will school get the best of me while my family gets the rest. It was a very needed reset.

SO TRUE. I worked insane hours, skipped exercise, and didn't see a single person except for students and work colleagues from August-March, when my loved ones could be vaccinated. Then I said enough and changed my behaviors to prioritize my physical and mental health. I will never give so much of myself to this job ever again.

When I saw so many people saying “teachers aren’t working” after my colleagues and I had spent hours on some meeting, literally crying in frustration for how bad we wanted to be with these kids and how we could ensure they were still learning despite the circumstances and we weren’t harming them by asking too much in an awful situation, I just thought, why am I doing this to myself? I haven’t worked one bit over summer and won’t. No emails, no planning, no PD, no nothing related to work. I will never again grade on the weekend or wake up and spend hours planning escape rooms. I love those kids. I am truly still a great teacher. But I was pouring everything into the system and that was stupid as hell.

Is there no compromise? I’m not a teacher and am myself trying to reassert work life balance. But not an iota outside contract hours seems drastic. Many parents cannot email from 9-4 since that’s when they also work, for example. I appreciate the effort our teachers put in the last year and sympathize with the need to assert boundaries, for sure.

I do not get paid for work outside contract hours. So no, there should be no expectation I should do it. However long it takes me to get it done during contract hours is the reasonable expectation of it getting done. The US education system functions on unpaid labor that teachers are guilted into doing “for the kids.” No more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It made me realize that I married the wrong person and it made me regret not telling (out of fear) the one person from my past -- the only person I've truly fallen in love with -- how I feel.

Or maybe you just watched too much lifetime.

What a stupid and cruel response. The pandemic has a lot of people rethinking or reassessing their marriages.