It has taken me several days just to get to a point where I am starting to somewhat feel like I am in another galaxy or atmosphere of recalibration, regulation, and reflection (or as my friend Anna has framed it, revolutionary rest) after finishing my 13th year of teaching. Growing up, I used to look at certain things like the number 13 with a bit of superstition and panic. Despite it being year 13 in the classroom, I was still determined to make this a positive year for my students and myself. My students and I would be like the bright neon little ducks decorating the classroom and “just keep swimming” whatever came our way. Whether you have been teaching for one year or twenty years, you know there is always bound to be some hiccups and challenges that you will encounter throughout a school year. Situated in between the bookends of the first day when kids get off the bus and enter the school building to the last day when they leave exhausted from fun sports days, field trips, and end of year celebrations, there are school memories of both joy and laughter as well as pain and stress.

When I went to an Andover Bread Loaf writing retreat earlier this winter, our facilitator Desiree did an exercise that had us think about the things happening in our personal lives, city, state, country, and world since 2020. Listing everything down as a group illuminated a lot of what we shove down and neglect to fully deal with just so we can survive. I did this exercise again, just looking at the time period from June 2021 to present. What has this past year borne witness to for me?

It has seen me evacuating on short notice to Alabama for nearly two weeks during Category 4 Hurricane Ida. It has seen me repairing my home due to hurricane damages, negotiating my own personal health issues, deciding to run for office, getting COVID, teaching amidst the constant quarantines and disruptions posed by the Delta and Omicron variants. It has witnessed me working towards and achieving professional goals, watching devastation of spring tornado and wind storms in New Orleans, grieving the death of my Aunt Cheryl, officially becoming an aunt when my nephew was legally adopted, and advocating against harmful Louisiana legislation. This school year has watched me as I deal with special education audits from the school district and Southern Poverty Law Center, lose former students to gun violence and a car accident, heal from friendship/relationship heartbreaks, and worry about higher gas and food costs. This year has observed me as I process the violent tragedies that happened at two places I am deeply familiar with: an elementary school in the neighboring state and a Tops supermarket in the city where I spent most of my childhood years. As isolated events, all of these things would still be hard and devastating, but collectively they weigh heavily. As I listed the things that have happened to me directly or indirectly over the past twelve months, I feel incredibly grateful to be here, standing, and taking inhales and exhales. However, I would be dishonest if I said those things did not faze me, knock me down, or cause stress to manifest in my body. And I feel this way despite a very intentional commitment to my own health, self-care, and therapy routine.

Teachers and school staff members are humans too. We go through a lot and we have especially gone through a lot over the past two years. We carry many feelings. We carry feelings that can be in direct tension with each other. We often carry those feelings concurrently, trying to make sense of the dichotomy. More and more, educators are asked to carry and be immediately responsive to the heavy burdens of societal pain and unrest. The expectation is that we do everything with a smile, a hug, and a high five and act like everything is normal, all while society and many of our elected officials devalue and silence the teaching profession, underfund education, and cut mental health and counseling services for communities. There has been no collective breath to fully process every micro-trauma and major-trauma or to recognize that what some may term as “disenfranchised grief” is actually grief that needs to be validated and honored. Educators have accumulated a “trauma load.” Our amygdalas are on hijack mode and many of us have been navigating through fight or flight responses for weeks, months, and maybe years.

Hope and kindness provide the salve that keeps me going when my brain has plain just had enough. I believe many educators do this work because their students encapsulate hope and students help us see what is possible in a world that can often feel so difficult. All educators and students deserve safety, dignity, space and time for healing, and a commitment to mental health and wellness in our schools and communities. By truly prioritizing educators and students in our society, we discipline ourselves to believe in hope and transformation.

Lauren Jewett is a 2022-23 Roxanne McCormick Leighton ’67 Endowed Fellow.