• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Advertising
  • Write for Us
  • Job Board
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact
    • Consulting
    • Advertising
  • Shop
    • Books
    • Shirts

The Educators Room logo

  • Start Here
    • Impact Statements: Teacher Expertise
    • Newsletter
  • Browse Topics
    • Content Strategies
      • Literacy
      • Mathematics
      • Social Studies
      • Educational Technology
      • ELL & ESOL
      • Fine Arts
      • Special Education
      • Popular Topics
        • Teacher Self-Care
        • Instructional Coach Files
        • Common Core
        • The Traveling Teacher
        • The Unemployed Teacher
        • The New Teacher Chronicles
        • Book Review
        • Grade Levels
          • Elementary (K-5)
          • Middle (6-8)
          • Adult
          • New Teacher Bootcamp
          • Hot Button Topics
            • Menu Item
              • Principals' Corner
              • Charter Schools
              • Confessions of a Teacher
              • Interviews
              • The State of Education
              • Stellar Educator of the Week
            • Menu
              • How to Fix Education
              • Featured
              • Ask a Teacher
              • Teacher Branding
              • Current Events
  • Podcasts
  • Courses
    • Practicing Self-Care to Avoid Teacher Burnout- An 8 Week Course
    • Becoming An Educational Consultant
    • Teacher Branding 101:Teachers are The Experts
    • The Learning Academy
    • Books
    • Shirts
  • Education in Atlanta
  • Teacher Self-Care
  • The Coach's Academy
menu icon
go to homepage
subscribe
search icon
Homepage link
  • Advertising
  • Write for Us
  • Job Board
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact
    • Consulting
    • Advertising
  • Shop
    • Books
    • Shirts
×

July 5, 2021 Instruction & Curriculum

The Parable of a Teacher’s Post-Pandemic Pause

  • About the Author
  • Latest Posts

About Michele Lamons-Raiford

Michele Lamons-Raiford is a hearing American Sign Language (ASL) and English teacher at Pinole Valley High School in the West Contra Costa Unified School District. She has been a High School teacher for the past twenty years, as well as an Adjunct Instructor at Solano Community College for the past fifteen years. She has a BA and MA in English from Cal State University Sacramento, and teaching credentials in English and ASL from Cal State University East Bay. She is a devoted wife, a mother of a beautiful Neurodiverse Son, and a lifelong Advocate for ASL, Deaf Culture, Students with Special Needs, Culturally Relevant, Culturally Affirming, Anti-Racist School Cultures, Climates, and Diversity in Educational Institutions and Organizations.
  • You Don't Have to Watch the Tyre Nichols Video, But Be Ready to Talk About It - January 30, 2023
  • Moving Beyond Diversity to Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging: Lessons from a Sunday Sermon - January 24, 2023
  • Teachers Need Trauma-Informed Practices Too - January 5, 2023
  • Trevor Noah's Farewell Speech Was an Ode to Black Women in Education - December 22, 2022
  • Our Son's Paraprofessional Changed Our Lives. Paraprofessionals Deserve Higher Pay. - December 9, 2022
  • Use 3 I's to Rediscover Your Purpose for Teaching - October 19, 2022
  • Racial Equity Work That Actually Works: Lessons from Dr. Lori Watson - October 7, 2022
  • Mythical, Fictional, Make-Believe...as Long as They Ain't Black - September 20, 2022
  • Should We "Flatten" Education? - September 12, 2022
  • Voices from the 2% - September 8, 2022

“I gotta fight every night to prove my love!” I will never forget this scene from the movie The Five Heartbeats when the boyfriend comes back to the table and find his girl with another man.  Now, how in the world am I going to relate that line to teaching?  For those of us in this “fight”, we may feel like we are constantly fighting to prove our dedication, qualifications, and our worth! It seems like many still cannot decide if we are allies or villains from one moment to the next!  If I have learned nothing else from this pandemic, it is that we all have a story to tell. 

The best advice I can give those who are reimagining a post-pandemic life and trying to figure out if they can survive another extreme “shift” in education, is to pause. 

Teachers already persevered through ever-changing standards, No Child Left Behind (NCLB), Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), only to be hit with a global pandemic that threw us into a world of distance education I doubt even the most tech-savvy of us were completely prepared for.  One of the most important things teachers learned to do post-pandemic, was to pause.

  We paused to think about how the mental health of both teachers and students was finally being highlighted. 

We paused to think about how education was finally being fully funded (albeit temporarily). 

We paused to think about how systemic change was now being focused on. 

And we turned those pauses into a full-fledged re-set!   

While a pause may be defined as a brief and temporary interruption, the use of a post-pandemic pause has become one of the most important tools in a teacher’s toolkit. 

Watching a heated school board meeting? 

Pause. 

Sitting in a virtual faculty meeting where the Chat has turned some educators into what the kids these days call “Internet Gangstas”? 

Pause. 

Feeling overwhelmed to the point where we want to quit? 

Pause. 

I am looking to this upcoming school year as a huge ball of potential, praying for positive, and sustainable, shifts in education.  The power of a pause can be a type of mental regrouping, and in some cases, a career saver.  Post Pandemic Pauses have made me re-think and reflect on so much of my career, and my future in education. 

Parables are simple stories used to illustrate a moral or spiritual lesson, but there is nothing simple about the pandemic we are just now beginning to see the ending of (Oxford English Dictionary).  The stories teachers will share after what we have gone through this past year and a half will be extraordinary, and potentially unbelievable.  A Biblical Parable might help to guide our efforts to both pause and reflect. 

One of the most famous parables in the Bible is the Parable of the Prodigal Son.  I ask us to look, however, at the Parable of the Sower (Matthew 13). Whether we look at the Old Testament version (Genesis 26:12-13) or New, the messages in the parables mirror.  In this respect, I will take a metaphorical view of the Parable of the Sower. One’s efforts to teach the masses could sometimes feel like spreading “seeds” of knowledge on an unpredictable path, hoping and praying that it falls on “good ground”, in this case, a receptive student who is willing to learn.  This pandemic has shown us that if we focus on the path, we might lose sight of our purpose.  Staring into a sea of black boxes has discouraged the best of us, but as I stated in “Black, Square Boxes”, we never know the potential impact we are having behind them.  We need to pause, focus on why we got into education in the first place, and know that while this pandemic may be the most globally impactful shift we have had in education, it will not be the last. 

Change is inevitable in education, but it does not always have to be something we dread.  What this pandemic has also taught us, is that if we are hoping for systemic change, it often begins with the teachers.  I would advise the powers that be to join us in our post-pandemic pause, recognize that teachers are the experts in education, and utilize our degrees, credentials, and experience to guide policies, procedures, and post-pandemic practices.   In the words of Barack Obama, “Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Related posts:

Hybrid TeacherBuilding a Plane While Flying, Lessons Learned from a Hybrid Teacher and His Student Teacher Suspend Standardized TestingSign the Petition to Suspend/Waive Standardized Tests in 2021! Compassionate Teaching is Key Especially During This Pandemic TeachersWhen Schools Go Virtual: Don't Blame the Teachers!
« Frederick Douglass: “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?”
Keeping Up With the Tech-Savvy Teacher Next Door »

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

The Educator's Room was launched in 2012 to amplify the voice of educators. To date, we have over 45+ writers from around the world and boast over twelve million page views. Through articles, events, and social media we will advocate for honest dialogue with teachers about how to improve public education. This mission is especially important when reporting on education in our community; therefore, we commit our readers to integrity, accuracy, and independence in education reporting. To join our mailing list, click here.

What we do

At The Educator's Room, we focus on amplifying and honoring the voice of educators as experts in education. To date, we have over 40 staff writers/teachers from around the world.

Popular Posts

  • My Union Showed Up for Me, and I'll Never Forget It
  • Your Students Deserve a Diverse Classroom Library. Here's How to Set It Up.
  • You Don't Have to Watch the Tyre Nichols Video, But Be Ready to Talk About It
  • "Let's Make This Happen": Following Student Interests to Interest-Based Mentorships

Featured On

Buy Our Books/Courses

How to Leave Your Job in Education

Practicing Self-Care to Avoid Teacher Burnout

Using Your Teacher Expertise to Become an Educational Consultant

Check out our books on teaching and learning!

The Learning Academy

Footer

↑ back to top

About

  • Privacy Policy
  • Disclaimer
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Accessibility Policy

Newsletter

  • Sign Up! for emails and updates

Contact

  • Contact
  • Services
  • Media Kit
  • FAQ

 

Copyright © 2021 The Educator's Room.