Dear 100th Day Teacher,
I’ve never taught elementary school, but I do have small children. My favorite part of the 100th day of school, aside from it being an indicator that the school year is on the downhill slide, is when my boys come home with computer generated faces of themselves as old men. I would be lying if I said the images weren’t a little creepy, but they still make me laugh.
I also like the photos of kids in grey wigs and puffy butts carrying a cane. This kind of fun stuff doesn’t happen in high school, but the grey streaks are still in rare form, at least for teachers. If the pandemic taught us anything it’s that one can live without hair dye but not toilet paper.
This school year has, for sure, aged us. Many have remarked it has been the most difficult year of their entire career. If this is true, it’s all uphill from here, right?
My mom has countless expressions I’ve buried in my heart, but one of my favorites is, “I wouldn’t take a million dollars for my journey, but you also couldn’t pay me a million to go back.”
I suspect this is how we will all feel on the other side of this challenging teaching experience. In the years to come, I hope we never take hugs or group work for granted. I hope we only see masks during surgical procedures, and I hope future generations never experience quarantine or living in fear.
It’s been a tough 100 days, but you’ve made it. Actually you’ve made it past 100 school days since I was technically two weeks late starting this blog.
In August, I never imagined we would be in school past September. In some states, they weren't. In others, they never even started in-person learning. But in most parts of Florida, we have had 100 actual school days with real, live bodies in classrooms five days per week. This is to be celebrated. You are to be celebrated. It doesn’t matter if the days were long or hard or ugly, the important thing is you did it. Shouldn’t this be reason enough to believe you could make it another 80 (actually 70 or so) days?
-CDB
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