A Love Letter to Education

IIt’s mid-September and we’re experiencing the first shivers of autumn here in NE Ohio. This is my FAVORITE time of year - I love everything about it!

We’re furiously canning all the produce from our garden and the farmer’s markets to stock the shelves and freezer for winter, the summer outdoor chores are slowing down, apples are in season, my annual autumnal urge to wander is in full swing, and any day now, the leaves on the trees will start showing their true colors. This conglomeration of seasonal cues always leads to a particular stirring in my soul: it’s back to school time!

I’ve mentioned before that education is the family business. My parents, grandmother, aunt, sister, sister-in-law and husband are all public-school teachers. And while I didn’t go that path, teaching is still a huge part of who I am as I work with my counseling clients, occasionally substitute-teach in the schools, and lecture part-time at the local University branch. Even in the years where I’m not directly involved in education, the shift from the heady heat of summer to the quiet cool of fall makes me crave the smell of new pencils and the rustle of fresh reams of paper.

This year, my back-to-school urges are mingled with big, complicated emotions. Going back to school in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic has upended all the norms, and turned first-day-of-school-jitters into true anxiety for many. With my deep link to education comes a broad connection to many, many teachers, parents, staff and students. And NONE of them know what to expect from this school year. I have never seen such anguish from administrators and staff over how to provide the best education possible, in the safest possible way. Even all the precautions taken over the last 20 years to address the scourge of school shootings pale in comparison to the logistics of trying to open schools for the 2020-2021 school year.

Students are worried, parents are frustrated, teachers are exhausted, administrators are squeezed from all directions and everyone is overwhelmed. What schools do to prepare for a normal academic year is already an astonishing feat of logistics. Plans for transporting, feeding, and scheduling every student takes all year, and schools plan for the next year while executing the requirements of the current year. It is a big, beautiful, complex, imperfect piece of organizational machinery.

Teachers are required to have frequent professional development as well as college classes to maintain professional standards of education, and are now taking on more and more social-emotional responsibilities as children develop mental health and behavioral issues at astonishing rates. A legion of staff - bus drivers, mechanics, food service specialists, librarians, administrative assistants, custodians, maintenance, learning aids, health aids, study hall monitors, nurses, occupational & speech therapists, counselors, and more make sure that students are safe and have all of their needs met during the day (and often after the school-day ends as well). Administrators are held accountable to the Federal Department of Education, the State Board of Education, the local Board of Education, the public, the staff, the teachers and the students. 

It’s astonishing. 

What hurts my heart this year, is how hard I know everyone is trying, but how many road-blocks remain in the way. Everyone has an opinion about school this year. In our fraught political climate, the concept of “reopening schools” has become more about economics and politics than it has about children and education. Teachers are routinely under-paid, under-valued, and overworked, and now they’re being pitted against parents, the community, and sometimes each other, in the battle over the correct way to educate children in a pandemic. Staff are undertaking more intense cleaning and sanitizing, and schools are still trying to feed families with food insecurity. School funding is being cut to balance state budgets, but at the same time they are being asked to do more than ever. Parents are trying to figure out how to work to pay bills and protect their families’ health simultaneously. Teachers and staff are already dying from COVID, and students are testing positive every week which leads to closures in order to clean and quarantine. It is very, very ugly out there.

My love letter to schools and everyone associated with them is this: I see you. I know how hard you’re trying, and I’m not the only one. The ignorant, selfish, and scared may be louder sometimes, but there are those of us who support you and acknowledge the extraordinary sacrifices you are making to ensure that children are safe and educated. It is not your fault that things are so hard. You are trying to hold back the rush of problems caused by a society with a broken health care system, a lack of leadership in a global pandemic, and a culture that has forgotten that we’re stronger when we take care of each other. But you will get through this. You will do all that you can for the children entrusted to your professional care. And with luck and hard work, we will ALL learn important lessons for the future during this school year.

Thank you for all you do.