Friends, I have to tell you the full truth about hybrid learning.

You may need to be seated because you already know I don't hold back and sugar coating isn't part of my vocabulary.

I mean, with hot, angry, tears racing down my cheeks, I feel COMPELLED to tell the actual, whole truth.

I am a former public educator (currently a writer and grad student). So, lest you cast stones or assume I'm downing teachers I am one of you.

I GET you.

I have prayed for you and I'd never, in one million years or for one million dollars would want to try and pull off the sheer heroics of teaching during a pandemic.

Y'all are legit miracle workers. Keep that sh*t up.

However, I keep reading about pandemic parenting and how none of us were ready and we don't know what we're doing and trauma and fear and on and on but FRIENDS...

Hear me when I say...

Our 👏 Kids 👏 Are 👏 Suffering 👏

As a public educator, current student, and mother of a child with extra needs, I will be the first to say that kids are resilient as h*ll...way more than we give them due credit.

However, this picture is from today...

Day two,
Attempt eight,
Hour seven,

of what is apparently now know as "hybrid learning".

We've homeschooled,
Virtual schooled,
In-person schooled,
Private schooled,

And now we're mixing allllll that sh*t up and expecting little people to keep some kind of rhythm when they are going back and forth, to and fro, this way and that way, masks and separation and isolation and....

What in the fresh hell, my friends!?

Let's pretend that our son's behavior diagnoses didn't rely on structure, predictability, and reasonable expectation. Which. It. DOES.

What we are asking our kids to just 'figure out' is absolutely insane. And all of this without the consistent in-person support of friends, coaches, or teachers.

I mean what the...!?!?

So, today, our boy went from homeschooling to in-person schooling to just magically being expected to know what to do, when to do it, when things would be due, how to find answers without help, and on and on goes the list of crazy.

Y'all I can't.

And I am a legitimately, certified in two states TEACHER.

So, HOW are we to expect parents who work full-time (many of them multiple jobs) and have zero education training to comfort our kids' fears, maintain home as their "safe space" but also teach and instruct them on concepts we forgot immediately after memorizing it for our test in 6th grade!?

Friends I am BESIDE MYSELF right now.

Again, for the those grabbing your torches and pitchforks already, I do hope you understand me when I say that what has been asked of our teachers and administration is totally insane and yet they continue to pull off some next-level magic.

But how much longer can our kids, our parents, our communities survive with this on our shoulders!?

I am exhausted and it's day two.

I can only imagine the weight my boy is carrying after today.

So, hug your kids.

Play a game, throw the football, order pizza...take some pressure OFF tonight.

Send your teachers a Starbucks card just to remind them that they are heroes in this mess, too.

And take a breath, mama, because none of this makes sense and it is all too much right now.

-B.

*Follow me or Join our Conversation.