End of the Semester

To be honest... Fall 2021 might well have been the toughest semester of all for me. After a semester interrupted by the sudden closing of the planet due to the pandemic followed by a full academic year teaching remotely with all courses online, I thought the return to the classroom in September would be easier. I was wrong. Being on campus for the first few days was nerve-racking as I navigated the doorways, stairways, and hallways in fear, not knowing who among the students and staff were vaccinated, and vigilantly policing the mask mandate: "Please cover your nose... pull up your mask...go get your mask from your car..." 

After some time, I adjusted to it, but I never felt fully comfortable, and even attending meetings and hosting office hours online instead of in-person did not diminish the nagging feeling that I just did not want to be there. I just wanted to teach and then return to the safety of my home. I began to wonder whether this feeling might be the new normal for me and for many of us as we have become accustomed to home as a retreat from the dangers of the world. Will it ever go back to the way it was? Should it? Will it take a few generations for those of us who have lived through it to be gone?

At the same time, I am very much aware of my asthma condition, more so than ever with the difficulties that I have experienced from wearing a mask on campus and while teaching. By the end of a 75-minute lesson, I have felt out of breath. I take the elevator because with the mask on I am gasping by the time I get to the top of the stairs. I have to pause to catch my breath before starting the lesson, and I periodically turn toward the board and lower my mask to take a few deep breaths. I wonder how I can go on this way if this mandate is still in place the next time I return to campus.

Conversation at home has turned toward contemplating retirement. We are not quite at the age we had always planned for it, but we are seriously wondering whether we should revise our plans and leave the workforce earlier. Can we afford it? Can we afford not to? 

I will be on sabbatical leave next semester to work on human development projects in Morocco. I'm excited for the chance to focus just on writing and editing and observing literacy classes in rural villages. While the recent surge in COVID cases has risen and measures to protect everyone from contracting the latest variant have led to cancelled flights and postponed travel plans, I am thrilled for the opportunity this sabbatical will afford me. 

Between my heightened awareness of medical limitations, the circumstances of the global health crisis, and a much-looked-forward-to sabbatical period, the idea that I might not return to the classroom has arisen in my consciousness and taken hold when I imagine what the next few years will look like.

So, on the last day, as I met with each student and sent them along on their way with good wishes for the new year, I wondered about whether this would be my last "last day." Usually, when a teacher retires, there is a series of "last" milestones that are marked and acknowledged: last "first day," last faculty meeting, last lecture. Friends and colleagues are aware of the impending departure and extend well-wishes. There are retirement events and rituals at commencement. There is preparation and anticipation. Yet, on this day, I was thinking as the last student left the classroom, "This might be my last day here and I am the only one who knows it." If I were to not return, this rite of passage would be gone, and I would likely one day regret not noting it. I made a point of marking the moment when I pushed open the classroom door and stepped into the hallway, and I said a silent goodbye to my teaching career, just in case. 

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