3 Fond Memories from 2021

The opening minutes of my 2021 year was about as mediocre as they could have been. I certainly wasn’t going to go out and about due to Covid concerns, so I spent my New Year’s Eve at home. At the time, I was still living with my parents (I purchased my own home this April!). I thought I was going to watch the ball drop with my family, but they decided to turn in early. So I watched the ball drop alone as I nibbled on a slice of fruit tart, the sound muted so that I didn’t wake anyone up. I knew that my year could only go up from there, and I was mostly right. I can’t say that this year was perfect by any means, and I’m frustrated that my New Year’s Eve this year will look eerily similar to last year’s due to Covid. However, I did want to reflect on some of my fondest (work-related) memories and accomplishments of the past year.

1. Wandering the Halls

About midway through the 2020–2021 school year, I started teaching from my classroom at school. Everything was still virtual at the time, but I had volunteered to come in and test out some new technology that we were going to use in a hybrid learning setting. One of my colleagues also starting coming into the building, and she brought her daughter with her. I’ll call her Ava.

Ava is in elementary school, but she’s intelligent beyond her years. She’s in this Japanese-immersion program, and her vocabulary in both English and Japanese is already so impressive. I was sick of sitting in front of my computer all day, so she and I started hanging out during my planning periods. We would often wander around the deserted hallways of the school, jumping over the cracks between the linoleum tiles and venturing to the hidden recesses of the school that no one ever bothered to explore. Sometimes, we would just hang out in my classroom and noodle around until her mom was done teaching. Our favorite activities included:

• Playing Hangman (I recently realized that “Hangman” is a pretty messed up name, especially for an activity that’s pretty clean and wholesome. We started calling it “Snowman” instead)
• Playing extreme Tic-Tac-Toe (3x3 grids are for amateurs…try a 10x10)
• Raiding the main office for candy
• Spinning each other in desk chairs to see how many times we could revolve before stopping and/or vomiting
• Kicking and throwing around wadded up balls of paper and tape
• Sitting in a room and trying not to move so that we could trick the motion sensor and get the light to turn off

I looked forward to every one of our hangouts. After being isolated from others for so long, especially from kids, I wanted nothing more than to hang out with Ava and learn how to count to ten in Japanese from her. I hope she had as much fun as I did.

2. Winning my Award

In late February, my administrator sent me a meeting invite so that we could go over my mid-year evaluation. For some reason, he told me to meet him in the cafeteria instead of his office. To my surprise, a bunch of my colleagues were gathered there, waiting to surprise me with exciting news: I had just won the award for Best New Teacher in my school pyramid (my high school is at the top of the pyramid, and there are various middle schools and elementary schools that feed into that high school. Out of those schools, I was selected as the “best” of those in their first three years of teaching).

I think that handing out awards to teachers is a pretty tricky task. Very few of my colleagues have actually seen me in front of students in my classroom, and even then, they have only seen me in short snippets. Student feedback is valuable in some ways, but their perception of excellent teaching is sometimes skewed by imperfect standards like their grade in the class and the amount of work that they are assigned. So I couldn’t help but feel a little dubious by the honor, especially since there are so many different variations of excellent teaching.

I have long struggled with my simultaneous desire for validation and unwillingness to accept it, whether good or bad. On one hand, I knew that I work incredibly hard to be the absolute best teacher I can be. I know that I care immensely about my work and my students. Yet, I am also reluctant to accept any praise for my work because I know I am lightyears behind where I want to be as an educator. I also know that there are hundreds of other teachers who work just as hard as me who didn’t receive this distinction.

At the end of the day, I have to accept that the teacher I am right now is the best I can possibly be at this point in my career, and that I deserve to be recognized for my efforts. I have also come to view this award as an opportunity. Fair or not, awards and honors matter. Teachers who didn’t know me at all now view me as someone who can do my job well, and that respect comes with influence. Moving forward, I hope to use this distinction as a means to advocate for what I believe is best for my students and colleagues.

3. Watching them Walk

I taught four sections of seniors during my first year of teaching (2019–2020), and I told them that watching them walk across the stage at graduation would be a moment I would cherish forever. Unfortunately, that year was cut short by Covid; graduation was virtual. I watched the livestream from my bedroom, shaking my head as each name unceremoniously flashed across the screen. They deserved better.

The universe finally snapped into place firmly enough this June, allowing for my next crop of seniors to graduate properly. On a gorgeous evening, hundreds of seniors gathered at an outdoor concert venue to receive their diplomas in front of their adoring friends and families. I was tasked with herding one section of the students to their seats, which allowed me to wander around the masses and actually meet some of my students in-person for the first time (many had stayed virtual for the entire year rather than switching to hybrid learning). Some were a foot taller or shorter than I expected. Some had grown impressive mustaches and beards that made them unrecognizable from their attendance pictures. All of them sported a radiant smile, eager to hear their name called for their moment in the spotlight.

I was so proud of them as they walked across the stage. They had endured a year and a half of virtual learning. I have been taking a few online courses for the past year, and I can tell you firsthand that learning in that environment is incredibly difficult. Yet, my students still produced excellent work and earned acceptance to colleges and work opportunities amid the tough circumstances. I’m so glad that they were able to walk across the stage to receive their well-deserved recognition.

There are many more memories from this calendar year to share, but my brain now operates in school years rather than calendar years. I hope to publish more of my writing in 2022; I have so many more stories to tell.