Please stop! I Don't Like It!

 ***OPINIONS ARE MY OWN***

     Can we just please stop with the whole "Learning loss" and "It's because of the pandemic" narrative?  It's not like our kids are the only ones who suffered from the pandemic. The pandemic is world-wide, for crying out loud. EVERY STUDENT, in the WHOLE WORLD, lost instructional time.  Why are we expecting any of our kids to be where they were, according to some random list of standards that were established pre-pandemic? 

     It's not fair to our students and it's not fair to put those kinds of expectations on our teachers. No wonder so many schools can't fill positions or have teachers leaving the profession in droves!  Historically, teachers have always done more than what is expected, paying for supplies out of their own pockets, meeting with students outside of the instructional day, attending their students' extra-curricular activities, lesson planning outside of their allotted "planning time," in the evenings and on weekends, all for pennies on the dollar.  Other professions are able to leave work at work. They walk out the door at 5:00 and they're done for the day. Not teachers. We think about our kids and new ideas to inspire them 24/7. When will enough actually be enough?

     Now teachers are being required to "catch students up."  Seriously?? Catch them up to what?  Maybe, just maybe, we should be honoring our teachers for putting their lives on the line each and every day, for their students.  Maybe the standards should be changed to meet the world in which we're living, a world dealing with the pandemic.  The Delta Variant seems to be attacking the younger children. Just last week a middle schooler in our state died from Covid.  We have students who don't, or won't wear their masks.  Every day, teachers and their students run the risk of catching this horrible disease, and yet, the teachers keep on teaching.  Why? For the love of the children. For those light bulb moments? Because it is truly an honor to impact the next generation. 

   So, please stop! Stop blaming learning loss on the pandemic. Stop saying the we need to catch our students up to where they should have been before the world was plunged into a pandemic. Stop piling more and more on the plates of our teachers. Many of us are at our breaking point.  Just stop! I don't like it.