teaching

MK Clancey

Journal Writings from April 29, 2016

It is over.  I sit alone in a room that I had shopped around for her to live. It is beige, two big windows, the hospital bed she lays in, a wicker coffee table, a large bookcase with photos of our family all watching, a night table covered in a green tablecloth, a phone, lamp and a statue of Mary.  Across the room is her desk, covered in medication filled  boxes. Her dresser is blocked by the mattresses we have been sleeping on for the past few days.  In the corner is The Chair.  A big blue monstrosity which would slowly rise to lift her to a standing position so she could transfer to the wheelchair which I sit in now, my pen and journal on my lap. My mom, she lays there in front of me.  I swear I see her chest rising as if still breathing, she is not, I tell myself. Her hands, that were blue at the start of this day, are now pure creamy white.  They look beautiful, she always had such long delicate fingers.  I have taken the oxygen away, hearing aids gone, teeth out, glasses off, just her – at peace.

The room is quiet and I am sort of in a good place.  A place of peace.  I am glad we have this time together.  I am not afraid nor anxious to leave, for once I do, I know it will be a race, a big To Do List.  It is peaceful alone here with her.  I touch her hands and kiss her forehead.  “Mom,” I call out.  I still can’t believe that she is gone.  Oh my goodness I think, I’m an orphan!

I hear the phone ring and rise to answer it.  It is Richard from the funeral home returning my call.  I’m new at this,” I tell him, “What can I expect to happen?”

“They will see the nurse upon arrival and sign some papers. Someone from the staff will lead them to her.  They will put her on a stretcher.  You may want to leave the room,” he tells me.  

“Okay, sure,” I respond, my voice cracking. I hang up the phone and go back to sit and be with her.  I will miss her very much.  “Mom,” I tell her, speaking in the voice that she used so often with me when giving specific directions.  “You make sure you let me know that you are okay.  Don’t let me down.”

My husband Tom returns with a glass of wine from the dining room downstairs.  We sit, in quiet, in reflection, in sadness and peace. I wonder if it is only us three in this room, or is my dad there, my brother, people from her past.  

I am startled out of my thoughts by a  knock on the door.  Upon opening,  I see a young woman in a black skirt, black shoes,  white shirt and black sweater.  She has short brown hair parted on the side and looks more like a hostess at a restaurant than the undertaker I was expecting.  She is alone.  I look around the hallway expecting more, and ask her if she is going to do this all by herself.  “Yes,” she replies as if I had asked a stupid question.  I show her to my mom, who lays there, eyes closed, mouth open, resting.  She looks around, surveys the room, the situation.  She asks us to leave as I was told she would.  We step outside and the door closes behind us.  I stand there in that hall,  “What’s happening,” I ask Tom, letting my head fall on his chest.  He puts his hand on my neck and says nothing, he too is new at this. 

Several minutes later, the door opens and the stretcher is wheeled out with a long maroon faux-velvet bag on top of it.  I know my mother is inside.  “Which side is her head?” I ask.  She points to the side away from her.  I touch it, still not believing that this is the end.  A nurse from the assisted living home walks over and tells the young undertaker the plan.  “I will get the elevator, then I will signal to you when it is here and okay for you to bring her down.” They don’t want the other residents to see this.  I chuckle in my head, like they don’t know death happens here, just dining, bingo, and good times!  The signal is given and my mother is wheeled to the elevator that she and I have ridden in so many times, for the last time.  Funny, I think, everytime she has gone to this elevator she has been wheeled, a wheelchair and now a stretcher.  Tom and I follow, we take the stairs.  I should have ridden with her. 

I see the pretty young women who I first met when I began to look for places to move my mom.  She expresses her sympathy.  “She had a nice room,” I say with a pretend smile.  “It was so sunny and she could look out and see all the flowers and the Christmas Tree during the holidays.  How do we work the rent moving forward?”

“Up to the family,” she replies, “take as many days as needed.  We will just charge you day by day, not for the entire month.”

What a sport, I think to myself.  I am annoyed that I am talking business already.

In the background, I see the stretcher with the faux-velvet bag and my mom being wheeled out the front door.  Good, I think. I’m grateful they didn’t take her out the service exit.  

I watch as she is lifted  into the back of a minivan.  She closes the door, they drive away.  I wasn’t sure what type of transport vehicle they would use, but this was not what I expected.  Like she uses it for her family, when she is not The Undertaker.

My mother’s time of death was recorded as 5:00 pm.  It is 8:45 by the time we get into our car.  I am still wearing the clothes that I had packed three days ago when it had been warm and sunny.  Now it is cold and wet.  We ride to get some food.  As I walk in, I care little what others may think of my appearance, flip flops in the pouring rain.  My eyes are swollen and my hair appears greyer now than it had last weekend.  As Tom orders, I peer out the window, seeing my reflection looking back at me.  I try to smile, to mock the smile others have told me looks just like my mom.  I want to see her face looking back at me. I don’t.  She was much prettier than I am. 

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Reflection on a Year of Teaching

K. Clancey June 2021

At the end of each reading and writing unit, I include a lesson on reflection: what it is, how we do it and more importantly why we do it.  As a second grade teacher, I feel teaching young children the process and value of reflecting back on learning and events is a lifelong learning skill which I hope that they will continue to apply throughout their lives.  I begin by showing them a mirror, and connecting their thinking to the ideas of their reflection looking back at them.  I model the thinking that goes on when one reflects by asking the literal question: What did I learn?  Then more importantly teaching and modeling the thinking about the process and how I might revise it next time by asking the big overarching questions of:  Would I do it differently next time?  How might I make it better?  Why did one thing work and another not?  Did I find any strategies especially helpful for me in this process?  What advice would I give others who will be doing this?  Your thoughts might be that these are some pretty heavy questions for second graders, but they can do it if the modeling of the process is done through a think aloud right in front of them over and over.  The advice my students offer me is often much more insightful than my own responses.

As this 2020-2021 school year comes to an end, I can’t think of a better time than now for me to take some of my own advice and reflect on this school year, the School Year of Covid.  Starting with the big question:  What did I learn?  

I learned that we are never safe and to never think, no matter what county you live in, that you are.  I learned that people need people and that isolation from family is crippling.  I learned that love is a much stronger feeling, emotion, powerful force that I had realized.  I learned that there are amazing people in our world, selfless, strong, brave, and brilliant who put others before themselves even when it means risking their own lives.  I learned there is always hope and we need to keep that hope alive.

Over this past year I also learned to be more observant and a better listener to those around me.  As a teacher, I saw the isolation of my colleagues and students.  Zoom just didn’t seem to cut in in that area.  I was heartbroken for those who missed graduations, proms, and for some, almost a whole year of learning.  Covid taught us new meanings to the words fear, sadness, loneliness, and mourning.  Covid also expanded our definitions and usage of many words rarely applied before such as shield, cohorts, and the oxymoron of social distancing.  Mask, a word mostly used during the month of October, is now a noun I use multiple times every day.  Remote students in my class became frequent users of the word glitchy and mute as well as a new meaning to the phrase, you kicked me out.  This year I actually did a lesson on adding dialogue to a writing piece by teaching the strategy of, unmute your character, the whole class got it! 

Over this past year I also learned some new things about myself, my teaching, and my lessons.  In  past years, cold, rainy, or too hot weather kept my students indoors for snack and lunch yet this year we lived like the mailman:  Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these students from the swift completion of snack and lunch. We put on our coats, hats, gloves, rain boots and whatever else was needed, we gathered our chairs, towels, yoga mats and ate outside.  This beautiful 20 minute outdoor snack time really benefited my students, my relationship with them, and my lessons as they had time to talk, face to face with others their age.  If time permitted they would play, remember that word?  I had conversations with them about snacks, games, families, and pets.  During one of these breaks, trying to think of socially distanced games, I taught the whole class how to play the game, Mother May I.  For those of you who don’t know this game, one participant is the Mother (can be a father as well) and all the others are the children.  They line up in a big long line and attempt to make it up to Mother, by asking if they might take some steps.  The names of these steps encourage imagination and creativity as children create names for steps and how they might go.  Mother then can give permission for their request by stating, “Yes you may” , or deny their request but offering an alternative.  Here is how a round may go:

Child:  “Mother, may I take 8 Giant Steps?”

Mother:  No you may not, but you may take 4 Umbrella Steps.”

You would be amazed at how children innately create what an umbrella step might look like as well as other steps such as a ballerina step, a shark step, a frog step, a football player step, a fairy step, the list goes on and on.  

Outside we also discovered a beautiful pond.  I always knew it was there, yet we never really paid much attention to it until this year.  A freshwater habitat right in front of us and as luck would have it, our science unit was habitats. We observed and learned about frogs, frogs, and more frogs.  We actually had an entire day devoted to the study of frogs called:  Froggy Friday.  I had never done that before.  Soon after, we discovered other living things in the pond, turtles, tadpoles, fish and plants, amazing plants that would soon sprout big yellow flowers.  Guess what the next unit was: plants.  Had this outdoor science classroom been there all along?  So glad that we found it during our new 20 minute snacktime break.  I also revised many lessons in a need to address my remote students and the social distancing that needed to be maintained in the classroom.  Tried and true lessons, taught with some revisions over the years, now expanded to include a wide variety of technology choices.  With my students, we learned how to use Jamboard, Google Docs, Sites, Slides and a wide variety of online reading sources and learning tools.  The use of Google Classroom provided me with a means of teaching that more efficiently met the learning styles of my students by providing them with written directions as well as the auditory ones that I gave.  Visual learners could review screencasts of lessons and processes taught live during the day.  Communication improved as parents were able to see what their children were learning and watch lessons as well.  Zoom, a tool I was barely familiar with, now became a lifeline to teaching.  It also provided me with an additional tool to meet with parents throughout the year and not just during conference time.  Parents found it to be more convenient than coming to the school and waiting in the hallway for their scheduled conference time.  

As this year ends, I reflect on my learning.  I have learned that at the end of my twenty first year of teaching, that I can learn.  Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks?!  For this old dog learned many of them and learned them fast! 

I encourage all educators to pause and reflect on their learning and experiences this year.  You will cry, smile, feel a tug in your heart, and wish to God that the whole thing never happened.  But, there is no denying that we all learned a great deal, and that is worth sharing. 

What are some of the things you learned about yourself or your teaching? I’d love to hear.