The world as we know it has come to a standstill.
The educational system of busing children to a school
and having a community and a network of synchronous learning
came to a screeching halt, for my district, on Friday March 13th.
Education during this pandemic is like an infomercial: "But wait! There's more!"
More to do, and definitely more to worry about.
The main thing that was bothering me was
how was I going to make these connections with 21 first graders online?
Roughly 60% or more of Pakistani population lives in outside major cities
from villages, remote areas, far-flung areas, and there,
reliable fast internet access is a big challenge.
We can see a lot of the lack of equity, the inequalities when it comes to
the digital divide.
93.2% of my total students do not have a smartphone,
95% do not have internet access, and 80% of students do not have television
to watch government programs for students.
Many of our students are also working.
Remember rural America is also farmland America
and so because it is starting to get warmer, our students are starting to prepare.
After three or four conversations, I came to note that more than 40% of my students
are facing domestic violence.
We are their advocates and more than ever, we have become counselors, friends,
parental figures, other than educators during this pandemic.
Teachers also serve as therapists
and some teachers are working almost as a food bank for their students.
And for those of us that have children of our own,
there is no quarter in which to hide our emotions.
My daughter Faith is in sixth grade. She is intellectually disabled.
When the shutdown began, it was very clear that I had my hands full working full-time
and trying to manage Faith's education and schedule.
I want to actually talk about self-care for teachers
predominantly because what we can practice we can model to others.
Many teachers are going through mental health issues
and people did not recognize that we were having that mental health issues.
If all our focus is only on preparing in facilitating classes,
I feel that teachers might quickly burnout due to emotional strain.
What we need to do as educators is when we see amazing things, let's celebrate it,
but let's understand that we cannot be and we don't have to be
everything to every single person.
So please please, don't ever feel like you have to suffer by yourself.
I have classes on Zoom and WhatsApp and I'm also constantly text messaging options.
Also part of the work I do is trying to raise funds to provide Internet access
for those that can't afford it.
Control is easily given back to a student by having them create a self-care plan.
When they create this plan, they also plan for what are bad days or triggers
that cause them to feel upset,
and they create a plan for how to mitigate those problems.
And I feel that it's a call to action to make sure that our students understand
that we're there for them and that we understand what they're going through.
So do a welfare check.
Check on your students, make sure their well-being is okay.
In other places, there may be only one teacher for an entire department,
so in some places there might be only one Social Studies teacher,
only one Phys Ed teacher, so in rural America, I will say this, we're industrious
and while we are not incredibly numerous,
and rarely have the news spotlighted on us for good things,
we often find all kinds of ways to accomplish a task in an equitable way.
As a veteran teacher, I've had to create all new lessons
and it's kind of gotten that spark going again, you know,
I'm getting excited about the stuff that I've been teaching for years
because I'm being forced to look at it in new ways.
Dear community, please check in with teachers because they are humans first.
We can rise to the occasion, but for this we need to keep our emotional well-being intact,
so let's work on this together.
The whole world, we're all living in a really difficult time right now,
and if we are together we will overcome this and we will make sure our students learn
and we'll make sure that our students know that they have
all sorts of cheerleaders, whether they're in their home
or virtually in their houses, wherever the case may be.
We all need to show a beautiful showing of gratitude to educators.
When we do this, we ignite hope.
You are an educator, you're an igniter of hope.
So I want you to know in this moment, you are valued, you're appreciated,
and I encourage you to go out there virtually,
and ignite hope within this day and with every day that comes.