Let’s face it, just go ahead and say it out loud, teaching virtual kindergarten is hard as heck!

Indicative of life really but, man teaching virtual kindergarten is hard, really hard! At times it’s downright awful, gosh awful! But then something happens, you get a text from a cohort or you make a simple statement that changes someone’s day for the better and gosh awful is good, at least for that moment. And, if we are really lucky something amazing happens and even the good takes a backseat to great!

The Good in Teaching Virtual Kindergarten…                    

If we so choose, we can find goodness in everything. I recently read an article on toxic positivity, specifically in the teaching profession. What author Julie Mason penned on the topic was absolutely accurate. When I say find the goodness, I’m not talking about pushing down the gosh awful realities, pretending that they don’t exist. They do, they are very real and extremely harmful. But in everything we can find some goodness, even if it’s a tiny speck, it’s still good.

As a virtual teacher, especially in the beginning, my good list was short, very short, less than a whole hand short! It went like this…

1. I still have a job.
2. I am getting to live my dream of working with a specific co-worker I have wanted to work with for the past 12 years.

That was it. And of the two, working with Joy kept me going when I wanted to throw in the towel.

Now, a whopping two and half months on the virtual journey, the list has grown.

1.  I still get to work with Joy!
2. I have begun to make connections with my students and their families.
3. I have started to master the learning platforms we are using.
4. I had two whole nights where I didn’t have work to do at home.
5. My duties at my school site have been reduced so I have less interruptions and can be more productive.
6. I have developed great working relationships with four new cohorts.

These are the specks of goodness that I cling to when the gosh awful rears its ugly head. Which is pretty much every day when teaching virtual kindergarten.

The Gosh Awful…       

These are the things that are weighing me down. Well, not just me, my whole team. These are the things we can’t seem to get away from. The Things we struggle through on a daily basis. The things that make us wonder if it’s all worth it.

1. Excessive work hours. We’re talking between 30 and 40 hours of overtime a week. Just to keep our heads above water.
2. Constant changes. Weekly, sometimes daily changes in learning platforms, policies, and leadership.
3. Becoming an instant IT help line. Only problem there is we don’t have enough knowledge to problem solve our own issues, let alone the parent/student side.
4. Having to create a digital curriculum from the ground up. I love creating so this isn’t so gosh awful unless you don’t have the time to make it quality because you are only working a week ahead of your students.
5. Negative Nelly. She’s everywhere isn’t she? Never invited but always showing up. And always the loudest voice. She’s a strain, a drain and a time waster.
6. Lack of understanding. No one gets it because no one has ever been here before. These uncharted waters are really miles and miles of deadly rapids.

If the gosh awful was all we had, all we saw, all we felt it wouldn’t be worth it. Not worth it for our physical health, our mental stability or our professional demeanor. At some point in this journey each has suffered.

Why do we do it? Why do we go back day after day, after day? Why battle through the gosh awful for just the occasional piece of the good? Because at the most needed moment God sends us the great!

The Great in Teaching Virtual Kindergarten…                   

Let’s make sure we’re on the same page before I launch into my list of the great. It’s not me! It’s not me suddenly reaching the panicle of greatness. It’s not me doing something that causes the great. The great comes in those moments that happen to edify our spirit, to push us over the hump or to give us the renewed energy we need to face the gosh awful.

The great is like an awe-ha moment in a child’s learning. The great gives us pause or stops us in your tracks. Sometimes it even brings tears to our eyes because it touches us so deeply.

The great in my virtual journey…

1. The Mom who told me that she loves watching the videos of me teaching. She appreciates the way I interact with my students as if they are sitting right in front of me even though she knows I am talking to a screen. (Let me put this in perspective, I teach to a green child’s refrigerator from my housekeeping center.)
2. The Mom who says she loves getting to see firsthand how her son is learning. She’s loving the opportunity to get to see a side of his education that she’s never really gotten to see before.
3. The child who ends nearly every video with “I love you teacher!”
4. The child who can’t be silenced during a virtual conference because he has so much he wants to tell me. When asked to wait he said, “I just can’t I love her so much!”
5. The cohort who soothes my heart when I feel like I have failed.
6. The support that six women give each other as together we work to ignite learning in 125 kindergarteners.
7. The video clips of five and six year olds showing evidence of their learning in true kindergarten fashion. Seriously, they can be hilarious.

These, these moments when the great shows up! These are why I keep at. Why I know that we can do this. Why I know we can survive the gosh awful.

Of the three, we see more of the gosh awful when teaching virtual kindergarten than we do of the great but we can train ourselves to look for the tiniest spark of the good. We must grab hold of the good so that it sustains us through the gosh awful and onto the great.