First Day

"Okay, which system are you using to deliver assignments, VERGE or Google Classroom?"
"Google Classroom."
"Which video conferencing system are you using, TEAMS or Zoom?"
"Google Classroom."
"Are you telling me you are not using TEAMS or Zoom, but instead are using Google Meet, which is imbedded in Google Classroom?"
"I don't know.  I'm using Google Classroom."
"Which video conferencing?"
"Google Classroom."
"I'm using VERGE and TEAMS."
"I'm using Google Classroom and TEAMS."
"I'm using Google Classroom and MEET."
"Can you make me a co-owner of your class so that I can be in your live sessions?"
Radio silence. 
So, all of you are using a variety of platforms that you don't understand.  And, I am reliant on you in order to do my job and co-teach your sessions. 
Most of this went down after eight days of training, one hour before we were supposed to go live, on our first day of school.  All of the multiple teachers I have to collaborate with in order to access my students were using a hodgepodge of platforms, not really understanding how most of them work and failed to include me on them, no matter how much I asked. 

I sat, waiting for the moment when the kids were supposed to start logging on for school.  I felt like I was sitting on top of a giant machine, The Washington Post's printing press or like a uranium centrifuge processing plant or something, feeling the vibration while it geared up and start whipping up speed, going up to full bore.  Then, it crashed.  And crashed.  And crashed.  Tab after tab on my computer with the students' access pages showed the various sites crashing.  Texts and phone calls from district started flooding my phone.  My own internet started failing.  I felt an immense panic and started crying hysterically.  I'm using my Mac, not that shit the county gives us.  I upgraded my internet.  All of our efforts, all of the stress and it was all failing.

I set up my Google Voice a few days ago, though I no longer mind if my students or their parents contact me directly by phone.  I was surprised when I got a text from one of my most at risk student's sister, before eight o'clock.
"Hey, I'm Alberto's sister, I'm helping him but I have questions...."
I texted her back immediately, but never heard anything back. 
"Hey...I miss you...what am I supposed to be doing?"
I messaged back and forth all day on the county's system, oddly feeling like I was talking to an old friend instead a girl that just entered fourth grade, one of the few that knows how to use all this online shit. 

My email blew up for a minute, from the vice-principal and principal, telling me that I had a new student coming in to kindergarten.
I scoped him out the minute they put him in the system and realized it was Prem's little brother. 
I can't wait to meet him.