Good Hard Things, Marie Kondo and Concurrent Teaching

Last Sunday I was folding my laundry, Marie Kondo style. It felt good. It was a simple task in which I could control the outcome, which is important to me. I'm a kindergarten teacher in the public school system. My county is run by a school board that favors the county parents needs over their teachers overall well-being. They have pivoted back and forth on EVERYTHING during the reopening of our school system due to parent pressure. But I digress. Back to laundry.

I have fallen in love with the Marie Kondo method of folding clothes. It takes HOURS. It takes all of my focus. It's visual, tactile, and kinesthetic. Originally, I did not think I would like this Marie Kondo folding. The best folding I had ever done was merely lying my freshly washed pile of clothing on the "pile chair". Each morning, I would sift through my pile chair to find my wrinkled, but clean, outfit for the day, and that was ok by me!

Once I turned 53, I decided that this is NOT the way grown ups fold clothes. So I tried adulting with my folding and it quickly became, my lady jam. Now I have a new laundry problem. I hate to take my neatly folded laundry out of the basket and actually put it away. Instead, I just stare at it and think, "now that's one nice basket full of laundry!".

Marie Kondo folding is a good hard thing. It takes time to learn. It's methodical and repetitive, both activities to which I often equate the words "soul sucking". Even though it took all the adulting I had to finally learn this fancy folding, it made a substantial difference in how I felt about every. damn. thing. Even as the pandemic, American politics and protests raged around me, I felt good about the control I had over how my pants looked so neatly folded in a drawer.

Folding Marie Kondo style is a good hard thing. The pandemic and American Politics are bad hard things.

Which leads me to being back in the classroom and teaching kindergarteners "concurrently." There are many things I love and hate about concurrent teaching, all neatly wrapped up together like my undies and socks.

For those of you who don't know, concurrent teaching is a practice in which there are 7 -10 children in the classroom, and 7-10 children are at home. The "homies" are projected onto a screen in our classroom. They can hear all of us talking, and see what is happening in our classroom. They can hear and see me teaching. When we are in small groups, my IA teaches those kids at home. What a perfect way to have children engaged in school four days a week, right? Absolutely not. The children at home are harder to engage, when they are actually logged in and as a teacher, I'm now working 60 hours a week instead of the usual 50. These children are 5 and 6, which is problematic when play is the principle way they learn academic and social skills.

When I look at the smart board on which my "at home" students are projected, this is what I see: a forehead, an empty chair (of some child who left to get their supplies an hour ago) and many budding artists, who are bored and "kind of" listening. I see children living in dire poverty without any adult supervision. I have children who turn their cameras and microphones off when there is yelling in the house. The best visual though, is the kid who is doing summersaults on the couch. He couldn't care less about his computer right now because he is doing what a 5 year old should be doing. There are frustrated parents trying to log their child in to our google classroom. I see a frustrated little girl who has raised her computer hand time and time again only to be called on once, and a child playing games on their tablet. What.. the.. hell. This is a teachers WORST nightmare. Trying to engage children on-line on a wing and a prayer.

And that's just the screen! The kiddos in school? They must stay in a four foot square, and forgo playground equipment at recess. They have to walk four feet apart from the person in front of them feet between them and the classmate in front of them as they walk to PE. They are unable to hug or help a friend who has fallen and is crying in pain because they aren't allowed to touch each other. Their choice time is side by side play. Because of safety guidelines, the children must chose a toy bin and sit in their square on the cold tiled floor, without being able to build or create something with other classmates. I have had to tell them, "I'm sorry honey, you can't put your train track together with your friend because you will be too close to him.

It sounds a lot like school in the 70's I know, but now we know more about how children learn. Our classrooms look different then it did back then and as teachers we know better how to teach our students, except in a global pandemic.

In school, there is no arguing about who cut in line, who will sit next to whom in the cafeteria, and who took who's toys. Which cuts down immensely on my work. Which is great right? Actually, it is not. Kids need those arguments and challenges in order to learn how to be decent grown ups. These social challenges teach them empathy, compassion and honesty which are so needed in today's world. Most importantly, it helps them to learn that they aren't the center of a universe that has been revolving around them since the day they were born.

All of this is a bad kind of hard right? Absolutely not. This, is one of the best kind of hards there is. Taking the impossible and making it possible in a way that supports children's learning and helps me grow as a teacher is a gift. Is it easy? No. Is it perfect? Far from it. Is it engaging and meaningful?...mmmmmm, kind of? Does it feel like "real school" for teachers and children?... mmmmm, kind of? Here's the kicker in all of this; the kind of's are the window of hope that lead from bad hard to the good hard. The kind of's are where persistence, grit, flexible thinking and all of the meaningful things we know about good teaching come into play. Those "kind ofs", get rid of that "hell on Earth" feeling you might have when you get your first glance of your screen beam, a technology which you may or may not have ever used or heard of.

Even though concurrent teaching is quite possibly the WORST kind of teaching imaginable,

I am lucky and grateful. In the gratitude column, I have some pretty gracious and thankful families this year. I have the most amazing IA in the world. She is one of the best, most honest friends I could ask for. She is competent, loving, funny, and able to manage this strange, not so nice, new technology. She is my work wife. She manages all of the things I can't manage with grace and ferocity. I can't imagine being alone, and trying to take this on at any grade level.

I'm sure you've heard, " Alone, alone, all all alone, alone on a wide, wide sea, with 25 unruly passengers who are saying "You paddle! Why should I have to paddle??? What will paddling teach me? This is bull ----! Is there a snack machine on this junk pile of a boat? I need a snack. Bruh, did you seriously just take my phone?" Concurrent teaching at it's finest.

A woman who is one of the best, most caring teachers I know texted me one day a few weeks ago. She's my Sunday coffee partner and clothing guru. We teach the same and love our students the same, it's a match made in heaven. She wrote how she knew concurrent teaching was going to suck and how angry she was about it. I texted back Glennon Doyle's inspirational quote, "We can do hard things". Her response was, WHY DO PEOPLE ACT LIKE IT'S GOING TO BE FINE???? Can't I just feel my feelings without having to be told it will all be ok???" Clearly, Glennon's quote did not make my friend feel warm and fuzzy. It did not give her the hopeful feeling it gives me, and I get that.

To many of the nations teachers, "We can do hard things," feels like being trapped in a 4x4 square, just like your students.

My dear friend wanted to know why everyone was being so positive and glossing over how hard it was going to be to go back in to school and try to teach concurrently. She is a hands on, hugging, loving teacher - this concurrent teaching is NOT her thing.

Trying to be the best friend I could, I told her that her feelings were legitimate and then I explained my situation. I was two days from going back to school. I had to believe it was a good hard, and that I could do hard things, or I would falter, which is not the way I wanted to cross that bridge into an unfamiliar landscape. After all, I knew if I held it in my heart that going back in to school was a bad kind of hard, my little ones would too. Because that's the way kids are. Kids feel it all. After I responded with the words above, she sent me a kiss emoji. I felt like just maybe I'd allowed her to feel her angry and me to feel my hopeful. That conversation was a good hard thing.

Which leads me to my now. As I'm writing, I have my first month and a half under my belt. I have cried at least once a week. I have been planning and failing, and planning again with some success. I have scraped and dry knuckles from hand sanitizer and washing my hands constantly. I am with my children seven hours out of a seven and a half hour day. The county believes that one planning day is enough. It is not. It is filled with meetings because they can't have them during the week. I walk into a hallway where an antibacterial sprayed over each and everything the children touch. I'm pretty sure it causes cancer because the fumes and odder hurt my lungs. Our room fills up with Clorox spray and even with the windows open, there is a mist like the one that settles over the Golden Gate bridge in the morning. Because of our new late start, I get home at 6:15, walk my dog, make dinner and finally settle on to my couch at 8:30. This is not fun.

I haven't been able to exercise since the day we went back to school. My body knows this and is releasing all the muscle tone I have worked so hard to develop over the last 3 years.

Would you believe thought, that I have never been so grateful to be in my school and my classroom. My principal, who believes in leading with love, is present to cheer us on. My AP's whom I technically consider to be my big brothers, come into my room DAILY to visit and catch up on our kids and lives. One of them pops in reciting every word from Step Brothers with me and we yell, "THAT'S NOT EVEN ENOUGH FOR WINGS!!!! His name is Nighthawk, and fittingly, I am Dragon. He is also our resident Animal Control agent - there's no mouse he can't catch. Or snake. Or bat. Yes - we have had them all. My other AP has a big' beautiful laugh that you can hear down the hall. He comes to my room, smiles and waves hello each morning. He reminds me loudly that my Jayhawks are playing on Saturday, and usually comes back around 2, to remind me I haven't turned in my attendance. He is very patient with me about my lack of attendance skills. Both of these men have supported me in ways I'm sure they will never know. I am one lucky teacher.

And then, most importantly, after a year, I finally have the joy of hearing my little's tiny feet coming down the hall with their new light up shoes. They are wearing their Spiderman and Frozen back packs which are the size of their entire tiny bodies. These backpacks make the children look as though they could topple over like a turtle at any moment. They are also equipped with a gallon size container of hand sanitizer that swings back and forth from their backpack zipper.

My kiddos face challenges that no five year old should have to face: they can't use the playground equipment. WHAT? Yep. No swings, slides or monkey bars (the favorite by far), but children are resilient and they have found the simple joys of playing shadow tag, racing around the cones that define our small outdoor "zone"on the blacktop and the soft dirt where they play. The have created a "planting club" as they dig in the dirt. They look for ants and worms. On the blacktop they love drawing with big, thick pieces of colored chalk. They draw dinosaurs, hopscotch tracks, their names and each other's shadows. Seeing these happenings bring so much joy because what they say is, "school is happening here! Children are laughing, learning, playing and becoming friends!" It's like the best unplanned PBL ever! The children laugh and smile, enjoying the ability to move their little bodies in the frenzied, haphazard way that 5 and 6 year old's do. Recess, for us, is a good hard.

In the classroom, the kids have to play in their little 4x4 square for choice time. They can only pick one basket of toys. So what do they do? They sit in their square, playing with their toys, trying to make buildings like their friends, talking about the crappy sandwich their mom or dad packed for their lunch, and their favorite princess or super hero. They have turned choice time back into choice time, without my IA or me telling them any thing other than "stay in your squares", as we while we try not to cringe. We know choice time should be MUCH different. Is THIS new version of choice time appropriate for our littles? Absolutely not. But we are living in the time of a global pandemic, and it's pretty damn good to hear those voices and see the creativity that comes with those untarnished brains. Choice time like it is, is a good hard thing. So I suck up my bad hard, and try to focus on their energy and joy the children bring to our school.

Teaching children who are screen cast onto your smart board, children in the classroom , wearing a mic (and forgetting to turn it off as you say things no one should hear you say) and operating two different computers (wait, which one is connected to the SmartBoard?) is one of the hardest things. Ever. But my IA and I, we work hard long hours planning together. I manage the classroom, she flawlessly and patiently manages our kids online. We use what we know to be true about kids' learning and social emotional needs, to put a daily plan in place. The plans are never perfect, nor are they executed perfectly (but let's be honest, what daily lesson plans ever are). Despite these challenges, every day we say "did you see what ______ did? That was definitely my high for the day! "

This morning, I was thinking about how my IA and I left the building to go home on our first Friday back. We were completely exhausted and battle worn. Regardless, we were smiling.

Our spirits were happy, knowing we had gotten through that week and survived. We had gotten through everything that was thrown at us. We knew that we could do good hard things together. For us and for the kids. Before we left the building that day, we high fived each other and joyfully said, "WE CAN DO HARD THINGS!"

After we hugged, she left, and I stayed awhile and finished tying up some loose ends. I packed up my computer and books that I know I will never touch over the weekend. I walked to the door, and looked at the tiny desks in my room that were finally full of my little's work and shut off the lights. I knew there were many more hard things to come, but in the quite of the moment, I took a deep breath and from the bottom to the top of my heart, and whispered, "We can do hard things. Especially the good kind of hard".

*Glennon Doyle is the creator of the lines "good and bad hard" and "we can do hard things."