Nevermind

Imagine that you are in a group with three of your best friends, you are standing outside with a light wind blowing, a few birds chirping, one of your friends is describing their first date they met through an online dating service. Suddenly a fire truck comes by with the siren blasting. Your friend doesn’t stop sharing their story, the firetruck passes, and all three friends start laughing, while you are taking a minute, trying to piece together what you think they might have said and why they are all laughing. 

Take a moment and think about what emotion you might be displayed on your face; is it a look of confusion and thought or do you smile, nod your head and maybe even laugh? Next, you ask your friend to repeat the last part because you missed it with the fire truck siren. Your friend quickly says, “Oh, never mind.” Then another friend starts talking. How does this make you feel? As your friend passively brushes the story and laughter off, you might feel disappointed and left out of the group of friends. Anything else you might feel? 

Now let’s apply these same concepts to our classroom, our students, and those that are deaf/hard of hearing. Do similar situations happen during the school day? Sure they do! It may look different such as background noise or music, lack of visual representations of the content, a classroom of small groups all talking, social groups at recess or lunch, the list goes on.  

The same applies during family gatherings such as Thanksgiving, Christmas, Diwali, Eid Al-Fitr, Festa Junina, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa, just to name a few. 

While completing my master's program at Ball State University, one of my deaf professors described this feeling as being brushed off like a dog that wants to play but you’re just busy doing something else. 

Please think about these situations and how they may make you feel. Take a moment and repeat the conversation for someone who is truly wanting to know what you said when they ask you to repeat yourself. These moments are fleeting for some and isolating for others. If we are going to cancel anything this season, let’s cancel Nevermind.

I stopped knitting in March of 2020. It was a small thing that happened amidst some big things. There was this new thing called a pandemic. We were all blinking like Dorothy staring out into Munchkin Land. My daughter and her family moved in with us. We had a toddler in the house and a daily wifi supply that needed to be stretched between two high schoolers, one grad-schooler, and 3 adults with full time jobs. So the knitting got shoved into a cupboard because we had to figure out grocery pick up and all the Zoom features.

Then time became blurry. The initial event felt a little thrilling like being stuck at home during the blizzard of ‘78. Then came the slump of daily reality. We stopped making homemade bread and added routines for checking the numbers in our county and the emails for school status. We’d pause while ordering another box of masks on Amazon and ask, “are we in Season 2 of the pandemic or have we moved on to Season 3?” 

In my work with PATINS and supporting teachers for the blind the pandemic has caused me to view my stakeholders in a new way. I had always known that the 140 or so itinerant teachers for the blind in Indiana struggle with feelings of isolation. When your caseload is spread over several districts or counties and you’re also educating staff about a low incidence disability, isolation comes without “unprecedented times”.  

Now they were being called to work in isolation from their students, and find ways to teach tactile skills remotely over a visual medium. They kept going, and they kept calling asking for ideas. We established some online professional learning communities to share obstacles and ways to overcome them. New strong bonds forged between teachers and families. Many who were hesitant to learn new assistive technology for braille were now forced to get a crash course, and finding they could stare down their fear of the blinking braille curser.

Many teachers and districts were forced to look at the accessibility of their online content. They worked to learn how to post and curate higher quality lessons and materials. The daily showing up to do the next impossible thing has generated better methods for future education. 

I’m trying to restart knitting. The weather is turning cooler, and life is feeling cautiously calmer. I have mastered the grocery order, which I will stick with post COVID. It saves time, I waste less food, and I’ve learned that it is much easier to leave the M&M’s out of my virtual cart than out of a real one.  I can make it to the Zoom meeting like a champion, putting on my earrings and lip gloss 2 minutes before it starts. 

I’m not sure why I’m restarting now. The daily showing up doesn’t feel much different, and I can’t say that I feel like the crisis is over. I’m hearing the phrase “new normal” lately like we used “unprecedented times” in the spring of 2020. “Normal” isn’t a real thing, right? But I can see glimpses of “new” on the daily, and will continue to look for them. 

This morning I had a Zoom meeting with a single Accessible Educational Materials (AEM) team member who was the only one available. Their other team’s lead person was in a classroom subbing because their district did not have any available subs to fill in, and the other members could not take the time out of their extremely busy schedules. In fact, their district is down not only in substitute teachers, but in classroom teachers and paras as well.

There seemed to be an expectation that as we resumed in person learning and were hoping for some sense of normalcy in schools this year, things might lighten up. That does not appear to be the case.

Job openings are available across the state in about every capacity involving education. Job postings are found for teachers, support staff, school nurses, administrators, counselors, bus drivers, cafeteria staff, and the list go on.

Many of these vacancies are not necessarily because of an increase in overall staffing, but an increase in people leaving the educational system.

An article, “How Bad Are School Staffing Shortages? What We Learned by Asking Administrators” in Education Week of October 12, 2021, from administrators polled, “Fifteen percent said shortages are “very severe,” 25 percent said they’re “severe,” and another 37 percent classified staffing challenges as “moderate.” Just 5 percent of administrators said they are not experiencing any staffing shortages in their schools or districts this year. Another 18 percent said the shortages are “mild” or “very mild.””

The article has other interesting statistics that I will let the reader refer to.

As we all see in the daily news, this is not isolated to the field of education, it is a growing concern on a national level, in every form of employment, but that is another focus.

So, for whatever reasons, these staff shortages now exist, and they are numerous. This must have an impact to some degree on the student education. I am not sharing anything that is not obvious to anyone regardless of the circumstances, but it does involve us all.

On a personal note, this school year my five grandchildren, ranging from kindergarten to 6^th grade, all have wonderful teachers and support staff. I know their school district is facing similar challenges, but the impact to my grandchildren is barely noticeable.

For all of you educators that continue in the field, in this Covid Era that is so challenging, your dedication and persistence are having an immensely positive impact on students. Thank you!