Ah yes, we won’t be quitting our way out of this one. The headlines want us to know that teachers are leaving the profession in droves. It’s true. Well this teacher won’t be leaving anytime soon (god willing), no my work is nowhere near done. And sadly, no, beloved teachers, we won’t be bubble bathing, face masking, and meditating our way out of this either. And I say ironically to myself, I also won’t be blogging out of it. Although all of those things are absolutely soul quenching, it does not help us through the scorched earth that we find ourselves teaching from five days a week.

And another thing, we all know this is true, no one is coming to our rescue. No great relief effort is underway. No one is mobilizing resources on our behalf, no one is spearheading this movement to restore education, no one is coming. As it turns out, we are the leaders that we have needed all along. The power has been ours. We are in the most sacred of places at this very moment.  I mean that in the most reverent, raw, and gritty way possible. The good news is, we do not need someone acting on our behalf, because, well, it is already us and we are here. We can intercede and do what we know in our bones to be true. And it will be different from what we have done before. There is no new normal, there is no return to normal, there is a new place where we exist now. There is no going back and nothing about this is familiar. What has been exposed in this pandemic cannot be covered up and I am glad because I’m tired of covering it up. 

Reclaiming our time has to do with shifting the jobs that we have into what we wish we had. It starts small and it will look different for each of us, but it is a powerful practice. A practice that brings us relief during a school day. Relief to us and our students. And right now, I cannot think of anything I wish for, hope for, crave, and need like relief.

We are in the apocalyptic and gut busting times of navigating the increasingly shaky ground where our jobs aren’t the ones we were hired for and this profession has shifted under our feet. Being so close to this fault line has consequences and we need to be making measurable shifts in the way we handle our day to day business in the field. This is not optimal teaching and learning conditions, this is triage. Teachers, no one is leading this conversation for us. There is no professional development you can take, there is no college course for it, and you will not find it in a textbook. It is embedded in each of us, we know it from the inside out, our intuition and instincts and our humanness tell us every day. We are having these conversations in short bursts in the hallways and around the copy machine. The students just aren’t turning their work in at all, they aren’t showing up for class and the consequences that used to work no longer deter them. And the things that used to motivate them don’t seem to have the same appeal as they did before.

We have never seen anything like it and we are stunned, we are lost, and we are struggling. Students’ mental health is in the garbage and they don’t have the bandwidth to try harder. The trauma and grief and uncertainty of our collective suffering weighs heavy in my classroom and the content feels irrelevant more often than it used to. We are not crazy, we are not terrible teachers, we are not ok with any of this, the situation we are in is impossibly difficult. We are not wrong for pulling out our old bag of tricks because we have spent years, decades, hours upon hours of unpaid time designing curriculums, assignments, worksheets, unit plans and it all seems to be falling short at this moment. And the raw truth is that it is falling short at this moment. We have been at the drawing board for almost two years and there is a weariness that we feel. From technology to rearranging our classrooms to masks covering most nonverbal communication to virtual to hybrid to whatever we do now, we are weary. There is no answer to this and that alone is a compelling reason to give ourselves the only thing that helps when things are so painstakingly difficult — relief. 

Giving ourselves permission to do less. Less planning, less grading, less paperwork. Less of the things that you personally dread as a teacher. Less essays, less worksheets, less of anything you want. Why? Because it is your classroom and they are your students. You know them, you know what they need, your intuition tells you everyday. Dare to slow it all down and boil it down to the essentials. Dare to spend a little extra time on the things you really love to teach about, dare to spend a little more time getting to know those humans who populate your classroom every day, dare to have a shred more downtime for you and for them on a regular basis. Dare to shorten the assignments and leave breathing room around the edges. Dare to find things to do for fun during the school day.

As teachers we always strive to do more, to go the extra mile, to put in a few more hours. I am urging and begging us all to do less. And in doing less, we can allow it to be enough. Now is not the time for perfection, it isn’t the time for gold stars, it isn’t the time for 100% engagement in every lesson, now is the time for less. Now is the time to slow down. Now is the time to recognize our humanity and the brokenness of the system that we inhabit and point to its limitations. We won’t be blaming ourselves anymore for the shortcomings of a system that wasn’t made for us. It wasn’t made with us in mind. When this system was made they didn’t know about the year 2022. No one could predict how much things would change, how much we would learn and grow, and how this pressure cooker would expose all of the cracks. Time is up for the old ways. Now is the time to have compassion for ourselves and those around us. It is time to lead in a new way. A way that says — right now — you are enough.