Perseverance through the pandemic

COVID what? Teachers still gotta teach. Kids still gotta learn.

I teach at a residential placement for kids with autism. These humans are so routine oriented and rely on the same schedule day to day. They couldn’t go to school anymore. They couldn’t see their families. They couldn’t interact with peers. As a teacher, watching this is heartbreaking because you want nothing but the best for your kids. Hearing the sadness in parents voices over nightly phone and FaceTime calls because they can’t see their kids is heart wrenching. As a teacher, and as their primary caregiver, you want to make it all better. How do you explain a global pandemic to kids with severe autism? How do you explain to them why they can’t see their families? Why they can’t go to school? Why they’re stuck in the house for six months?

You don’t. You can’t. It’s impossible. All you can do is smile and enrich their lives the best way you know how. Love them day in and day out and hang on to hope that their lives will one day be “normal”.