Patrick McFall

“Honestly, this year has been alright at best. It hasn’t been consistently stressful. It comes and goes depending on the week and events surrounding it. However, the biggest part of the stress comes from the isolation and planning for multiple means of representation for classes. For example, making work available to those in class or at home and in various forms. I don’t feel like I am putting in as much effort to be real. I feel like I’m only putting in enough to get by. I could be doing much more to make things more engaging for my students, improve on my communication with them and staff, as well as stay up on the progress of my students more frequently. This doesn’t happen as often because of feeling depressed, apathetic, and numb whether due to COVID, the World’s situation, other personal reasons, and/or all of the above. I don’t feel let down by my students. I think what we’re seeing on a regular basis is in response to the state of things in the country and locally. When you are limited in what you can do and who you can do it with, you tend to see energy spent doing normal things transfer to behaviors not normally seen. My job hasn’t been more difficult as much as just different. I didn’t expect it to be easy because of having to learn how to accommodate a hybrid type of classroom. I planned on this school year being a learning step for me on where I can improve my ability and skills as a teacher. Yes, I frequently let myself down. I have pretty high expectations for myself and my behavior, so when I don’t meet those expectations it’s disappointing and also reinforcing to not meet them in the future. This just adds on to a negative self-image. Yeah, I quarantined at the end of last semester. It was tough to keep track of my kids and how they were doing on a regular basis. It wasn’t as tough as I thought it was going to be, it just meant different and new challenges. The pandemic has changed my perspective on what it means to have time for mental health in the classroom. For example, taking breaks and taking time to discuss issues with students as a group or individually. These breaks are opportunities for teachers to really connect and also hopefully take care of some concerns that are running through student’s heads. So, going forward I see myself planning on providing moments like these should the need arise. I also feel like my content has changed to accommodate the pandemic in a few ways. Those have been helpful for students both here and at home. In the future, I can’t see why I wouldn’t keep the same format so that student access is not limited to only being here or only online.”