Dear Class,

We’ve been been through virtually everything in two months.

Pun intended.

I’ve shared my screen when maybe I shouldn’t have. You’ve laughed at my jokes when maybe you shouldn’t have. I’ve given you a break when maybe I shouldn’t have.

Can you hear me? Is my mic on?

Do you see me?

These eyes that are trying to communicate everything my covered mouth cannot?

Do you see me?

Do you see me?

I see you.

I think I know your face- but I’m never sure. Former students pass me in the hallway. I’m not sure who is who is who is who. We are all masked. All a little bit anonymous. The building is half full of half faces. Whole-faced students I once knew.

I try to pick out your voice but it’s hard even to match voices with mouths you cannot see.

We’re all muted. I keep looking for the button to turn up our volume.

Type into the chat.

Say it into the chat.

Tell me all your stories in the chat.

I need to know all of them.

In the classroom you seem so close to me— less than 6 feet sometimes— and still so far if I think of the snacks I used to hand out or the high fives I used to give or the taps on the shoulder to get back on task.

You are all little squares on my screen that I try to pull closer to me.

But the chat fills up with things you want me to know too quick-

I’m at my grandparent’s house.

I’m taking care of my baby brother.

I’m at the doctor’s with my aunt.

I got my wisdom teeth out today.

My class invades your personal spaces and still we feel so impersonal. I am just a half-face on a screen- a pair of eyes that say-

Listen to me.

Learn from me.

Talk to me.

Talk to me.

Talk to me.

Please.

I’ve never felt so on the spot and in the background at once.

I’ve never felt like I’m balancing a ball on the tips of my fingers and at the same time watching it roll down the hallway, fast, far away from me.

Work is sometimes submitted at 2am.

“I used my college fund. I bought a new computer, Mrs. G.”

Emails come in.

“I’m sorry, I fell behind. I’m not doing well with this kind of school.”

I treasure each word and I try to commit it to some kind of pandemic teaching diary in my head.

But I’m tired of the documenting.

I’m tired of accounting for new ways of doing things.

I’m tired of giving up things that define the very person I am.

It feels like a hamster wheel and quicksand- if those metaphors don’t clash too much.

A marathon and a wall sit.

A trek up a beautiful mountain that ends with two hours in the DMV line.

It feels like everything and nothing. Something you will never forget but not anything you want to remember.

Teachers look at each other- they know.

We are pushing. Believe me, we are pushing through and sometimes the only push we have are the little eyes that peer at us over the colorful mask and ask, “What are we doing today?”

I just hope you know: I want to teach you again, in my real life classroom in a non-pandemic time.

I want you all to come into class and be too loud, too rowdy, all over the room-not sitting in your seats or being phased when the bell rings. I want you throwing paper airplanes (so cliche) or trying to get me off track by talking about movies you know I like.

I want to ask you to stop talking. (I’d give anything to ask you to stop talking).

Please know this is different and it’s uncomfortable and it’s nothing either of us wants.

But, in some pair of miraculous rose colored glasses of the future, this classroom is just fine. It’s something you might miss. And it’s a special something that we share. Forever.

Hey, make sure you log in on time tomorrow, okay?

And even if you don’t turn your camera on,

I see you.

Love,

All of Your Teachers