If you have been around my corner of the internet for a while, you know that I teach virtual secondary classes for diverse learners. I have been in this specific digital space since the fall of 2020. Having spent decades bridging practical pedagogy with instructional technology, moving into virtual instruction felt like a very natural fit.
What felt less natural was the quiet that followed.
Between 2016 and last year, I somehow managed to go nearly a decade without going through a formal district observation cycle. When you have been in education as long as I have, administrators tend to trust you to run your room, close the virtual door, and steer the ship. I took it as a quiet compliment, but last year the cycle restarted. My principal and an official from the state Department of Education joined my virtual meeting to observe. It went well, just as I had hoped.
Fast forward to this week, and the universe decided to make up for all those quiet years in a single morning.
I was scheduled for two separate observations, an hour apart. The first visit included my principal and a representative from the state Department of Education. The second brought an entire district team alongside an observer from our regional office, all looking at ways to strengthen secondary transition programming for students with special needs.
I did not volunteer for the double feature, though in truth, I genuinely enjoy opening my classroom to observers. I find the process energizing in the same way I love keynoting a room full of educators at an educational technology conference.
Even so, after thirty-one years in public education, the human nervous system does what it wants.
At 1:15 in the morning, my eyes snapped wide open. I am an early bird by nature, but 1:15 is an hour reserved for quiet house pets and late-night infomercials. I lay there in the dark, mentally rehearsing the sessions, running through our digital routines, and thinking about my students.
I intentionally did not tell them observers were coming. In the online space, surprise guest lists can trigger immediate panic. If they knew state and regional officials were dropping into our Google Meet, some might have logged off before class even started or skipped the day entirely to avoid the anxiety. My job was to shoulder the stress so they could simply show up and be themselves.
When the morning arrived, the first session ran like a dream. We were focusing on transition goals for life after graduation, paired with reading fluency and finding the right expressive voices to match the text. My student was engaged, the conversation flowed, and the instructional rhythm hit that rare, beautiful pocket where everything feels purposeful and natural.
Then came round two an hour later.
We were tackling future transition planning again, but the digital gremlins decided they had been patient long enough. Microphones acted up, access permissions lagged, and digital tools that worked sixty minutes earlier suddenly refused to cooperate.
A younger version of me might have felt a rush of panic, wondering if a frozen screen was an indictment of my teaching ability. But thirty-one years on the job brings a certain grounded peace. You take a breath. You smile. You pivot without missing a beat, troubleshoot alongside the student in real time, and let the observers see what authentic digital learning actually looks like when the wheels wobble.
By the time the second meeting ended and the last visitor signed off, the adrenaline that had carried me since 1:15 AM completely vanished. An hour later, sitting in the quiet hum of my office, the exhaustion settled in like a lead blanket. The feedback across both visits was overwhelmingly encouraging, but the real victory was simpler than that.
Teaching has never been about producing a sterile, flawless thirty-minute performance for a clipboard. It is about creating an environment where students feel safe enough to log in, try hard things, and watch an adult model patience when technology falls flat on its face.
The Monday meetings are finished, the observations are in the books, and that initial wave of exhaustion has finally worn off. Looking back from the calm of a Friday morning, I am reminded that the best moments in teaching are rarely the ones that go according to the script. Now, if you need me, I will be clocking out on time and welcoming a very quiet weekend.
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