Teachers share how they cope, miss students
LAFAYETTE, La. — Louisiana students and teachers learned suddenly before dismissal on a Friday afternoon that schools would shut down for a month.
It was jarring news, and on top of all the questions — Would there be distance learning? What about meals? What happens with testing? — many educators were just plain sad.
“Oh my word, this is even harder than summer break,” said Jennifer Babineaux, a first-grade teacher at Broadmoor Elementary in Lafayette.
She described the initial feeling as something similar to mourning or grieving. She’s not alone. Blogs using the same descriptors have circulated on social media as teachers related and shared.
“The announcement was made during our last hour, which is my planning (hour), so I never got a chance to tell any of my babies goodbye,” said Lucie Mesuch, who is in her 29th year teaching middle school in Sulphur.
Taylor Wallace, a fourth-grade teacher at Woodvale Elementary in Lafayette, was out of town the last day of school, and her substitute called her at the end of the day to let the kids say goodbye on speakerphone.
“It made me so emotional to think that I wouldn’t see them for a while and even more that I couldn’t be there to help them through this huge transition,” Wallace said.
And now Louisiana schools will be closed at least through April 30, as Gov. John Bel Edwards extended his stay-at-home order last week to align with guidelines from the president and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Teachers miss their students. They worry about them — that they’ll lose what they’ve learned this year, that they’ll fall behind, that they won’t be fed enough or loved enough. Teachers develop relationships with students from all backgrounds and home lives, and they worry what will happen while schools are closed.
“I worry about my students who come to school to be loved, who need the support they find there,” Mesuch said. “I have one student who had not been himself the past few days. I wanted to talk to him Friday, but he told me he was OK and would talk to me Monday, so I have been worried about him.”
She’s thankful and proud that her district, like others across the state, has been providing food for those who need it.
Soon after Edwards’ proclamation closing schools, teachers were able to return to campuses briefly to collect items and finish grading for the third nine weeks. Being back on campus without their students stirred emotions.
Carletta Anthony Jones teaches fourth grade reading and social studies at a school in northwest Louisiana.
“I just arrived at my school, Natchitoches Magnet, and the tears are just falling!” Jones said. “As the young ones would say, ‘I’m feeling some type of way.’ I really miss my students! My prayer is that my students, coworkers and all stay safe.”
When art teacher Erin Parish went to clean her room at Natchitoches Magnet, she wanted to make sure the classroom would be ready for kids when — or if — they return this year.
“To cope, I sat outside looking for four leaf clovers, taking photos, and trying to create crowns, praying the entire time as I do it,” she said, “trying not to let my mind wander and become panicked.”
Her husband told her if they do come back with just a week left, at least she would get to say goodbye to her eighth-graders and watch them graduate on to high school.
“That broke me a little and got me crying because I really, really miss my kids,” Parish said. “I didn’t say bye on Friday because I was extremely ill. I didn’t get to tell them that I’ll miss them. I didn’t get to tell them that I hope they still create and can’t wait to see what they have made when we come back. I just pray they’re all OK and healthy.”
In nearly every comment, teachers have expressed how much they miss their students, whom they’ve spent so much time with. That makes school like a home, Lafayette student teacher Raegan Abshire said.
“It’s like a second family,”
Abshire said.
And email and video conferencing don’t quite fill the void, teachers are finding.
“I miss working with my students, man,” said Mark Burt, visual art instructor in the Bossier Talented Arts Program. “I really miss seeing an engaged student — the expressions they have on their face when they solve a problem with my tutelage and encouragement.”
Andrea Buchanan McFarlain, a teacher at Sulphur High School, feels the same way and is surprised when people expect her to be happy about being out of school.
“Everyone assumes we are so excited to be ‘off’ work, but I’m miserable!” McFarlain said. “I miss my students!”
Like many teachers, she’s worried about how being out of school this long will impact student learning.
McFarlain teaches junior and senior Advanced Placement English and an EdRising course for future teachers.
“All classes involve testing for college credits, and I want my babies to get those credits,”
McFarlain said.
She’s been messaging her students online assignments to help them prepare for upcoming AP exams, which will be given online and in a shorter format.
“My classes work best face-toface,” but she’s figuring out the web conferencing software Zoom, she said.
McFarlain “hopes and prays we are able to go back,” echoing a sentiment so many others are voicing. They hope to return to school this semester, fit in some instruction and say a proper goodbye, especially to seniors.
“I hope people take these health directives seriously, and I hope, if it’s safe, we will get to go back to school for a few weeks and at least let our seniors graduate,” said Christa Cunningham, creative writing and AP English teacher at the Magnet Academy for Cultural Arts in Opelousas.
“While I know this is for the best, I feel bad for kids missing out on experiences they were counting on,” she continued. “I feel sad for the older kids who are missing milestones such as prom, ring ceremony and graduation, rites of passage that everyone gets.”
It’s that social aspect of school that worries Cathlean Gilmer Snyder, a math teacher at Southwood High School in Shreveport. The transition for her students to online learning hasn’t been challenging “as far as the coursework is concerned,” she said.
But her high-schoolers are concerned with what life is going to look like and when life is going to get back to normal, she said.
“I just try to make sure, very much, to take care of them in that way, too, just as much as I’ve made sure they’ve finished their math curriculum,” Snyder said. “That’s important, that math is important. But making sure they get through this time of chaos OK and stable and emotionally all there, that’s what’s most important to me.”
Wallace plans to see her kids again one way or another.
“If we don’t end up going back to school this year, I do fully plan to host a get together for our classes when it is safe to be able to celebrate their hard work and success this year as a whole,” she said. “We will get a chance to say our proper goodbyes, somehow, someway!”