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I entered education a few weeks after a period of immense sadness and fear. I graduated in May of 2001, and was searching for a job in the television and film world. September 11th changed my job search as many shut down work until the start of the new year. There was a local catholic school that had several late openings, and I was encouraged to apply. It was in those opening weeks of my career that I learned the responsibility of the classroom.
The first two years of my education career ended as I was looking into an opportunity to start a local theater company with a friend. The uncertainty of my next paycheck led me to work at a college for several years and briefly teach there. I went from a 6th-grade homeroom to collegiate students. This age group did not feel correct to me.
In the twenty-plus years that I have moved around education, I have finally found my home base. The Audio, Radio, and Video program at the high school level has provided me with the perfect balance. Much like goldilocks and the three bears, it was this one that felt just right. That is not to dismiss the challenges along the way or the current climate in education.
Education in a post-covid world is like nothing I could have imagined. Students are showing deficits in major areas such as reading. They are resilient, but they carry trauma. The complexities of the world have caused them to mature and grow up at a pace that was not fair to their development. And so we adapt.
Fear and uncertainty have surrounded the school children from lockdown drills to an actual global lockdown and lockout from physical school. They could not see their friends, and they were concerned that people close to them may die. The trauma-informed classroom was forced to grow. During this same time, violence in cities increased, and many knew people that had lost friends and loved ones to senseless acts of evil.
Students have been taught a mantra in regard to school shooters, Run, Hide, Fight. These words are much more than best practices in a crisis. They are the decision many teachers are faced with in regard to their careers. Will they run or stay? What will they need to hide from? And what is worth fighting for?
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