80’s Elementary Schools and Burnout

I attended Tenniswood Elementary School in the late 80’s and early 90’s.

The school smelled like those soft cafeteria chocolate chip cookies and musty yellow sponges that we used to clean the chalkboard at the end of the day. We took field trips to the Macomb Center for the Performing Arts to see fairy tale plays which I believed to be Broadway equivalents and we practiced multiplication facts in the hallway with Mrs. Hughes for Jolly Ranchers.

In fact, Mrs. Hughes, Phillip Hughes’ mom, dressed like a witch for our third grade Halloween party and had a cauldron with dry ice that we got to fish Halloween treats out of. I clearly recall high-fiving each other and proclaiming it to be the best day of our lives.

Some of the Tenniswood moms had a program called, “Picture Lady,” where they’d present artwork of a famous artist in classrooms each month.

Picture Lady was fantastic AF.

I remember watching a mom prop Van Gogh’s Starry Night up on an easel while she told us all about his life, thinking to myself, “Things to do. 1. Become a Picture Lady when I get older.”

In first grade, my teacher, Mrs. Watts, would stand at the front of the room and we’d switch sentence strips out on the calendar wall to help everyone learn days of the week and time.

“Today is Tuesday,” we’d read together. “Tomorrow will be Wednesday. Yesterday was Monday.”

I used to sit in my seat and roll my eyes impatiently when other students were called upon and didn’t know the answer. “Like, come on, Man. Tomorrow will obviously be Wednesday. Let’s get this shit done so we can get the filmstrip machine cranked up. “

I can vividly picture Mrs. Watts propping the filmstrip machine up on textbooks, and hitting “play” on the accompanying soundtrack tape player.

Once, we watched a filmstrip called “The Red Balloon.” I remember watching her turn the knob on the filmstrip projector as the red balloon floated away, thinking to myself, “Oh, I WILL be the boss in charge of the filmstrips one day.”

Tenniswood Elementary circa 1987 was nothing short of magical for me.

I loved school. I always wanted to be there. I knew that, by becoming a teacher, I could always be a permanent fixture on the school scene.

Jumping tires on the playground, singing songs at the piano in kindergarten, crafting turkeys out of pinecones for Thanksgiving….It gave me the gift of an innocent childhood.

And now, that innocent magic seems to be gone.

Now and Then

In 1987, there were no school shootings.

There was no pandemic.

There were no cell phones.

There was no social media.

Parents weren’t regularly screaming at Mr. Carkenord, the principal for whom the school at which I now worked is named.

I doubt more than half the staff was on Lexapro just to make it through the school days.

Kids weren’t running from the building and assaulting staff members regularly.

Trauma didn’t seem to be infiltrating every corner of the school.

I don’t feel that Tenniswood magic at school anymore.

Now, when I’m at school, my mind races and my hands often shake and my body feels heavy. There is so much to manage that my poor brain and body can’t keep up.

I think often about the teachers who taught me, how they never had to practice lockdown drills, how they didn’t have to worry about teaching virtually and in person, how they could call home without worrying that a parent would accuse them of being unfair.

The trauma our American children are carrying with them to their elementary schools each day is crippling them.

And, as a result, it’s crippling the people who are trying their damnedest to help them.

So many of my students will never remember their school as the place which smelled like chocolate chip cookies (and, in fairness, it doesn’t.) because they’re so dysregulated from the trauma they carry.

Some of my students will simply remember their elementary school as the only place they ever felt safe.

And now, in lieu of a school shooting which happened only 40 minutes from the school in which I work, even that certainty is being compromised.

You Can’t Shake Secondhand Trauma Off In a Day

The wind was blowing so loudly last week that some of my students looked at me, panicked, because the ceiling tiles shook and the noises were frightening. I assured everyone it was just the wind, that they’ll always be safe with me.

But silently, I prayed, “Jesus, please. Please keep me safe here so I can always come home to my own babies.”

I had a meeting for a student the other day and, after the parent signed off, I asked the social worker and special Ed teacher to stay on with me. I started crying and said, “Please tell me, how, after hearing what’s going on in her life, we can even care if she knows how to write with transition words? Screw transition words. Her life is not fair. I need someone to say that out loud with me. This poor, poor girl.”

One of my students carries such trauma that his posture and coloring is affected and he hides under his desk when he feels dysregulated. The other day, he refused to take his coat off and hid under his desk. So I did what I knew to do as a human being. I sat down on the floor next to him and whispered to him while I gently placed my hand on his back.

“You are not alone, Buddy. It’s me, Mrs. Meyer. I’m here with you. Today will be a good day. I’ll always keep you safe. Everything will be okay today.”

But teachers like me can only handle so many of these situations before we burn out.

Burnout

I do the same exact thing for every school break. I trick my mind and body into working in survival mode at school and then, once break comes, I can’t function.

I have these visions that I’ll be making four million Christmas cookies and hand-stringing popcorn for tree garland and then I’m paralyzed by exhaustion and ordering takeout for every meal.

Saturday and Sunday, I was just nasty.

Saturday night, Maeve threw up on the kitchen floor after a coughing fit and too many Christmas cookies and rage circulated through my bones because Mark used paper towel to clean it up and then went to the bathroom with his phone.

After I showered Maeve and tucked her in bed, I walked downstairs to the smell of vomit and cursed everything.

I filled a bucket with lemon Pine Sol and simultaneously scrubbed and sobbed.

I cried for students with trauma, for all of us carrying the sadness of the Oxford community, for the loss of innocent childhoods, for the pandemic and how much its taken from us, for the heaviness of this current time.

I cried because I am so, so tired of witnessing this country fail its children.

Tenniswood Bedtime Meditations

When I fell asleep Saturday night, I closed my eyes and thought about Picture Lady, cafeteria chocolate chip cookies, The Red Balloon filmstrip, and the piano Mrs. Puggini played while we all sang, “Here Comes Suzy Snowflake.”

Because those things will always bring me back to the innocence and magic lost in today’s world.