I swear I won’t go on about this forever, but you have to understand something. Last school year, I was at my absolute lowest point. After a workplace injury in the fall, I didn’t know names, words, how to do my job, or how to handle stress without stuttering. I couldn’t stand up straight or run or sleep or put my teeth together naturally.

I was a god.damn.fucking.wreck.

Family and teachers and an incredibly supportive Advisory class rallied around me. They tried their best, but I was alone in a dark, confusing puzzle that could only be solved by impatiently moving the pieces around until I didn’t have to anymore.

My brain was on fire. I was confused. I was emotionally volatile. I screamed until I was hoarse while gripping and violently shaking the steering wheel of my car in a Lowe’s parking lot; Siri didn’t recognize my voice for two weeks. A therapist dropped a surprising four-letter diagnosis after some uncharacteristic outbursts in school.

Later, two friends left this plane, and a pandemic enveloped the globe. In my pandemic life, my scrambled eggs began to firm up as the world expected less of me. I ran more and felt the systems come back online one fuse at a time.

As school neared again, I felt conflicted about returning to the scene of my injury. A new administration led by a team of people I respected took the reins, and despite the uncertainty of how to teach and learn during a global pandemic, I put my trust in them for at least one year.

Our district delayed the start of the school year as others did the same in an effort to ensure safety, but in early August, we returned.

Teaching was the wild west from the jump. We were hybrid. My daughter started kindergarten virtually with new kids and a new teacher and new technology. We had to put a Chromebook in the hands of a 6-year-old and put her on Zoom in the hopes that she would learn while I did virtually the same for my students.

At my school, I saw students twice/week that were sleepy and confused, sometimes showing up on the wrong days, and in constant need of reminding of how to wear a mask or that they had school work on the days they weren’t in the building or that they shouldn’t stay up until 5 am. Every lesson my partner teacher and I planned was built for two days of instruction: one day in the building and one day out. Also, we had to plan for students that were fully virtual and create recorded versions of both lessons and post them along with our Canvas announcements, presentations, bell work, guided practice activities, and exit questions for kids that may be in the building sometimes and for kids that would be in the building never. All of this was was something we were doing while we were both trying to survive and raise our young children in a fucking pandemic.

Throughout the process, we were both tested mentally, professionally, as colleagues, and as friends. We grew together and had to find the strength to work beyond ourselves in the most difficult of situations. 

The strangeness of it all was punctuated as we pushed our black plastic carts from classroom to classroom.

Tears were shed behind closed doors. Chests were tight. Stress and uncertainty were the norm as swaths of students disappeared from class for quarantine. Teachers got sick, but the strongest people I know wiped their eyes, put their mask back on, and went to the front of the classroom anyway.

To stave off the crazy, I pushed to run 100 miles in the month of August. I didn’t hit the mark even though I was doing 2/days for a bit. When I finished the month with only 62.39 miles, I refused to stop and aimed for it again in September.

In that month, Danielle and I did tremendous work. We built momentum in the uncertain. We began to feel like we were making gradual progress even though so many students were doing so poorly.

During one of our planning sessions, I remember seeing September 23rd in my agenda for the first time and viscerally reacted to the site of the day: the first anniversary of my head injury. I shook and cursed and pushed ahead trying instead to focus on a century of miles in the hours before dawn. Secretly, my colleagues planned Yancy Crawford Day and surprised me with the greatest show of support one could ask for. They wore plaid and Cubs gear and blasted Thrice. Boyd wore his one pair of jeans. They supported me on a day that had such negative connotation and turned the anniversary of an injury into a holiday.

On the last day of September, I hit 100 miles, a previously unaccomplished feat, but it was the love of my colleagues that meant more by far.

In October, we began synchronous learning and recording Google Meets instead of Screencastify lessons. Teachers retired their carts and returned to their rooms thus allowing students to travel from classroom to classroom in small groups. In late October, I had a COVID scare after a rare weekend with friends. I was forced into the basement away from my family until I was given a clean bill of health.

The leaves of October slowly revealed the bones of November.

The election. 

A dead body while I was on an early morning run. 

Whenever I think about the way her red hair covered her face, I can see the headlights and hear the mechanical hum of that grey Acura.

A college mentor responsible for shepherding me through student teaching abruptly died of the virus. Thanksgiving neared, and the school went virtual due to the alarming increase of COVID cases in Marion County. I brought my daughter into my classroom two days a week while she continued her elearning. 

Christmas. New Year’s games played over Google Meet with friends. December turned into January.

The first Wednesday back from winter break, our school’s superintendent walked into the classroom I was working in. He had a conversation with us that felt like it was something more pointed and personal than he let on.

We talked about hybrid schooling, attendance, and infection rates. As he walked out of the room and down the hall, I wanted to shout his name and tell him how furious and disappointed I was about how the school’s insurance company JWF Specialty — in case anyone from there is reading, absolutely fuck you in as many turns of phrase as human language can generate, you purposely incompetent jackass fuckwads. Fuck you until the goddamn sun burns out and life as we know it ceases to exist — treated me. When I was injured, they made my recovery more difficult. I wanted to bring my injury back around, but for many reasons, I watched him walk down the hall instead.

Later that afternoon, after a string of bizarre texts from multiple friends, I walked into another teacher’s room in my socks RE: the capital riots. I had to check in with another person because it didn’t seem real. April and her student teacher Kylie were the only ones left on the lower level, so we talked about the strangeness of the day. 

Another scare. This time, it was a rapid test. 

February — there were rumblings of return to full-time instruction with all students. There was a surprise week of all virtual learning because of bad weather, and I taught — at least partially — from home.

March,

— Covid shot —

and April

— second Covid shot —

bled together.

After spring break and kids came back together four days/week, time moved differently. It was the first day of school again, again, again. Kids changed. Dynamics shifted. Previously well-behaved students played into unseen expectations and unstated responsibilities they were previously free to ignore. Focus drifted. Classes got louder, dismissal routines became more complicated, and students were shackled by poor conflict resolution skills and their perceived roles in the social strata.

Cohort 19 — my seventh period class — grew seven heads with giant fangs, forty-eight arms and obliterated everything in its path once the two hybrid groups became one. The class was by far the most unruly, disruptive bunch of students I had ever taught. At the height of their powers, it felt like there was no hope. We met as a group of teachers to discuss strategies to curb the negative behaviors and incentivize positive ones instead. We started a tracking sheet to quantify discipline and rewards with data, we did goal-setting activities, and we retrained them on school expectations. It made very little difference. To manage, I meditated during my prep and did my best to remember the importance of kindness on days their behavior made me want to literally explode. 

Regardless, we pushed on and continued to work for them.

ILEARN practice tests and  testing came and went. In May, the same Thrice song that played during the Yancy Crawford Day parade was blasted during a staff meeting, and I was called to the front of the meeting to receive an honor I’m still not fully sure I deserve. I blacked out as our principal spoke. I remember very little, but I do remember how happy I was to see my wife and two young children in the cafeteria. I hugged my friends and stood proudly with my family.

I came home to yard signs and my parents. We celebrated.

The year slowly wound down.

My daughter started reading entire books on her own.

We talked about next year and supplies and schedules and the end-of-year items. We finalized grades, added comments, cleaned our desks, and discarded the piles of paper and old seating charts.

Field day.

My wife texted me not to pull a hamstring shortly before I jousted students and fellow teachers without a proper stretch. We walked students to the busses, counted middle fingers, and said goodbye.

And then, just like that…

it ended. Briefly, the burden is lifted.

Many questions remain. Is what we did enough? What will the long-term outcomes be for these kids? Are they safer or smarter or healthier than they were before? What comes next? What will next year look like? The questions will undoubtedly pile up as the summer sun untangles our knots.

As the year closes and I walk out of my room for the final time this year, I look back with pride. I remember fear and strain and joy and the mundane. I grapple with loss for myself and others. I saw this year what great people are capable of. I also saw the toll it took on them. For all we’ve done this year, let us never forget this:

Stress and uncertainty can press down and change people in unexpected, unpredictable ways. The unknown has the power to humble and humiliate which is why the people and the places we serve matter. Being in the right place with the right human beings can make all the difference. Kindness and unwavering support can make people in the back of the room step to the front. It can make the kids you’d least expect to hug you on their way to summer break ask for one. Support and friendship? That’s the kind of thing that might be able to make a guy with a head injury turn around and do the most meaningful work of his career.