Phew! I forgot how hard teaching is

the 2024-2025 edition

Photo by Jess Bailey on Unsplash

I forgot. After 24 years of teaching, I forgot. Maybe I always forget, and that’s what summers are for.

Forgetting.

I forgot the pace, the stress, the noise, the echo of my own voice, and the physical and emotional toll that is public school teaching in 2024.

Every school year has a pulse as students bring the outside world into the classroom with them.

Why is this year so hard already? It’s only early September! It’s only been two weeks. There’s usually a longer grace period before student motivation and behavior begin to decline.

Well, let’s consider society right now. The classroom always serves as a microcosm of the world at large.

It’s an election year, and not a “normal” election, if you catch my drift. I remember in 2016 how brazen student behavior became in the classroom because leaders are role models, setting tone, rules of engagement, respect, and decorum, and the lack thereof trickles down. If the head of the country can do or say something, why can’t a student? See the problem?

So in this election year with the same candidate running again, some teenagers are revisiting childhood trauma that they can’t quite articulate, but they remember how uneasy and unsafe their families felt under that past presidency, and you have other families thinking that without a particular candidate, there should be a civil war. So brazen behavior and anxiety among students is a huge undercurrent in schools right now.

Compound that with 2020 pandemic losses to socialization and academic skills.

Compound that with addiction to cell phones and social media, and most public schools are still unwilling to ban phones in fear of parental complaints.

Compound that with the lack of sleep since students are on said devices all night.

Compound that with the invention of AI, and the direct marketing to students, convincing them that having a work ethic and thinking, reading, or writing for themselves is a waste of their time and energy when they could be having fun online instead. I’ve received more completely plagiarized work in the last two weeks than in the last two years.

Compound that with distrust in media, in authority, in basically anything—even historical facts and video evidence, since AI can fake that, too.

Compound that with mental health and loneliness issues among teens.

Compound that with grief since many students report the loss of close family members in the last few years.

Compound that with huge losses in executive functioning skills, basic literacy, comprehension, and attention-span due to pandemic and phones.

Compound that with addictions to vaping products and gaming.

Compound that with fear about climate disasters.

Compound that with worries about school shootings and gun violence.

Compound that with worries and fear about the fighting and deaths in Israel and Gaza.

Compound that with rising prices for basic needs and housing, and families’ inability to afford any sustainable path out of poverty and debt. Many teens are working to help their families pay bills, and school becomes less relevant in survival mode.

And so much more…

So when a teacher asks a student to take out the earbuds, shut off the music, get off their phone, and learn something, the sudden silence and focus inward can feel like an assault to their nervous system. It’s been their comfort and entertainment for years now. They’re happy in the Matrix.

They have forgotten how to be still and listen to their own thoughts, their own needs, their own voice. They are drowning out a seemingly-collapsing world with the constant noise and rhythm of algorithms, graphics, and music, and they are afraid of the alternative because the alternative makes them feel empty and abandoned. Why should they try? All they want to do is escape to a digital world that feels safer and friendlier than today’s reality.

And then schools put them on school Chromebooks to complete work and collect data for AI to analyze their progress. UGH!

It is our job to make them remember.

And that’s why I am so damn exhausted, and it’s only Sept 14th.

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On a brighter note, the composition notebooks I gave seniors have been a hit. I also bought stickers for them to decorate with, and seeing all their notebooks and personalized stickers on my shelves reminds me that they crave the tangible, the real, the sentimental.

Yesterday, I spent the day in my garden unwinding. I planted a small patch of red, yellow, and orange coneflowers between my lavender hedge and the sidewalk. A reminder that I can’t hold up the universe, but I can brighten the path.

Photo by Crystal Jo on Unsplash