Wise and Honest Words

It's been almost a month since the quarantine lockdown began and despite the heavy waves of painful anxiety that come and go this has been a wonderful practice in gratitude. I've been incredibly grateful and definitely privileged to be in my house with a deck and a yard, with my loving husband, our technology, our salaries, and most importantly, our health. It's a crazy time for everyone but to be honest I've somewhat enjoyed slowing down and reevaluating what really matters in life.

As a teacher, however, I'm heartbroken. I'm sad. And I'm supposed to be the strong one. The one who says "everything is fine, it's probably just a drill, please quiet down" during lockdowns when I'm scared. The one who tells my students that I love them because I don't know if anyone else in their lives has said that to them. I'm the one who, on March 13th, promised everything would be okay when my heart was beating faster than I knew was possible. Being away from them has been distressing and heartbreaking. I'm in a constant feeling of longing and worry, hoping they are safe, warm, fed, and loved. Our entire education system has been turned upside down and teachers showed up ready to adjust, learn, connect, and teach. The best parts of teaching and learning are away from us right now, but the silver lining is that we are connected, we rallied, people stepped up for the benefit of our students and their families. We're sort of starting to maintain a routine in distance learning, and watching some students shine through the darkness has been comforting. I love reading their assignments; I can hear their voices while I read their work, I can determine their tone while I read the comments and I can imagine their personalities on the other side of the screen. I find myself tearing up regularly, impressed by their openness and raw emotion of their own situations and experiences at home, yet longing to be in the classroom with their giggles and stories and love. The love and strength these students continue to outpour is genuine; it's real. It's them. It's humanity at its finest.

Enjoy their wise and honest words.

"My week was full of surprise, many things that made me feel good and others that made me feel bad and sad.

I was locked up in my house every day to keep myself healthy.. So as not to get bored I do many things.

Like watching videos, listening to music, practicing with my guitar, playing, drawing, and watching television. This week I also helped to improve a lot with the guitar since I have dedicated more time and I am improving.

My parents call me. They are very worried and I always tell them that everything is going to be fine  if I am happy so I don’t feel bad being locked up. 

I hope this is over soon and we can continue with our normal lives.

I don’t like being locked up

Because I really like going out,  going to the parks to play soccer.

But I know that is necessary to keep us and the people we love safe. All my week I was thinking and reflecting and I knew many things about me that I did not know before, being at home is helping me to know myself more."

D.O., 17

"My week has been very boring. All I've done is eat, sleep, and watch netflix all day everyday day. I miss being at school. I’m starting to exercise more since I don’t have anything else to do. I think it's good that I am because then once we go back to school I'll have had  a mini glow up. I think one perk of staying home is that I get to be with my dogs all the time now. The only problem is I have to keep taking my allergy medicine, which I guess isn’t that bad. It's better than sneezing and having puffy eyes every time they come near me. Another perk of staying home is the fact that I've had more time for self care. Usually I never had A LOT of time for it because I would always have to do makeup work every once in a while. But since I’m at home all the time now I'm able to take better/more care of myself.  I’ve also been practicing some more hairstyles because I'd always go to school with the same 3 hairstyles. So I might as well learn some new ones with all this free time i have. I've been watching a lot more of netflix. It's gotten to the point where I finish like 4 shows in only a couple of days. And I watch a lot of random movies. I'm pretty sure I’ve watched like at least 15 or more movies since we’ve been quarantined. But I guess the most important thing through all of this is that I get to spend time with my family."

E.R., 14

"Dear Mrs Matthews,

I want you to know that you are a very special teacher to me! You are a teacher who inspires me and my class and to be the best we can I never knew I could have a teacher like you. You are a teacher everyone will ask for you are very understanding and helpful. You are the teacher who actually made me like class for once!! I know sometimes we all can be hard to deal with and I wanna say thanks for always coming to work everyday and helping us through everything. You've pushed me so far that it made me stronger. I can talk to you about anything. Some of my teachers never give me a chance to speak my mind or let me tell them anything but you made me feel like I can approach you anytime with anything I'm going through and you will be here and understand. And also thanks for making class interesting. You are always very positive, always making the class laugh, and always understanding each and every one of us. And I wanna say thank you i misssss u Mrs Matthews!  Can't wait for school to come back only because I miss u!"

I.H., 14