Round 1: Version 2

 I don’t spend nearly as much time on Teacher Twitter than I used to, but the general sentiment seems to be, “Online teaching is rough, I don’t like it, and I feel like I’m a first-year teacher.”

While I am exhausted at the end of the day, despite needing to set a timer that reminds me hourly to get out of my chair and move, I genuinely enjoy my online experience. Yes, everything takes me twice as long. No, I don’t know what 3/4s of my students sound or look like. But nothing beats when you are explaining GUIs to 12-year-olds and you reveal that everyone used to have to use a command-line interface. “CRAZY,” they say in the chat. Or when you greet your high schoolers as they roll into Game Design and every one of them says hi back to you in the chat.

When I interviewed at my school, I asked my principal if there was anyone I could talk to about the teacher experience. She told me it was unlikely, as all teachers were on summer break, but she’d try. She called me about 10 minutes later and gave me the phone number of a math teacher. Turns out said math teacher loves Nintendo and is very friendly, so we’ve been chatting ever since. The other day, he messaged me, “So, did I oversell, undersell, or accurately display life at HVAM?”

I immediately messaged back, “Definitely accurate.”

I honestly don’t mind that my students aren’t required to come to my classes. Yes, sometimes it feels like I’m talking to a brick wall, especially when certain students don’t respond. Yes, online teaching has the fisheye effect x100. Yes, answering the same email is exhausting. But I love how engagement looks in my brand of online teaching. I enjoy the control I have without feeling like I’m erasing student voices or disproportionately focusing on certain students. I like the fact that students seem to enjoy coming to my class. I enjoy not being told that my breath stinks and not telling students to get to a voice level zero.

Without the pandemic and a complete paradigm shift in the American workforce, I’m not sure I would have ever considered this career move. Most if not all of my colleagues have children at home—most under 5, some in school as well—and cite the flexibility of online teaching as a priority for them. Me, a young adult with 4 housemates whose idea of a good Friday night is watching a Korean movie about the trials of hell or part four of the Pride and Prejudice 1995 miniseries, is a little out of place.

And yet, I feel myself flourishing. I am seeking out feedback, I look forward to class, I don’t mind sinking hours into spreadsheets or calling parents or developing an assignment, and I get off of work at 5 (we’re not going to talk about the work I push off to Saturday). I genuinely enjoy my colleagues, even though I don’t feel like I know a lot of them, and when they told me that everyone at HVAM is willing to answer questions and help out, they were really right.

On Thursday afternoon, I had a series of panicked emails from a student in my Game Design class. We eventually got on a call, and she set up a time to work with me on Friday. On Friday, after we had worked through the basics of the assignment, we were shooting the breeze a little bit and she was talking about the amount of work she has to do. “I help new students, I help teachers—but I haven’t had to help you too much! You’ve learned pretty fast!” I smile and then think of the many mistakes I’ve made over the last two weeks.

“Thanks. I appreciate it.” I grinned as I clicked out of the window and took off my headset.

I don’t mind being a first-year teacher again if this is what it feels like: the paradoxical exhaustion and thrill that runs through me every day I wake up and remember, every time I see “Ms. Johnson,” every time I glance at my growing to-do list, every time I click the “x” on a classroom.