Northern Quebec is COVID-free, but teachers still feel pandemic stress

Peter Halliday chuckles when he thinks about the euphoria he felt getting back to school this September, after months away from his students.

"I was so excited that I was supposed to be retiring at the end of this year, and after like, 10days I was going, I can't retire in a year like this. I'm going to do it next year!"

Now, just two months into the school calendar, he is so exhausted, he doesn't know anymore.

The fatigueHalliday describesis echoedin many of the responses to a CBC/Radio-Canada questionnaire sent toteachers across Quebec.

Some 800 respondentsoffered written testimonies where they describefeeling anxious and tiredas they try to do their jobs amid the pressures of the pandemic.

Physical distancing nice in theory,impossible in practice

Halliday teaches English Language Arts to high school students at MacLean Memorial Schoolin Chibougamau. NorthernQuebechas had only 9cases of COVID-19 in the region since the pandemic began and currently has no active cases.

But teachers stil have to enforcestrict public health rules.

Halliday says the staff made what he calls "noble plans" when they returned in August that would allow students to move around without mixing.

But within days, he was feeling overwhelmed trying to maintain distancing between groups and trying to make sure students were wearing masks in common areas.

"We're stepping on each other's feet and we're banging into each other. And there's just this real level of of chaos."

Halliday normally offers a period of remedial English to students from various grades in his home room. But the pandemic rules mean those students can't be together, so he and other teachers offering extra helphave to move from class to class.

Technological trouble-shooting leaves less time for curriculum

Annabel Busby, who is married to Halliday,teaches social studies to high schoolstudentsat MacLean.

She was relieved to be back in the classroom this fall, but quickly began to realize how many additionaltasks the pandemic had added to her plate.When she talks with other staff, they're amazed at how much extra energy this year requires.

''It's killing us. And we're the end of October!''

Thanks to technical training offered by the Central Quebec School Board, Busby felt comfortable enough to start using teaching platforms in the classroom in September,preparingher groups in case they had to make the switch to online learning.

But her smartphone-ready students find computers a challenge, and she spends a lot of class time troubleshooting, which means delays in covering the curriculum.

Busby quickly realizedalearning gap had opened up because of a chaotic spring move onlineand a long summer break.

"We're noticing some of (the students)have really been impacted by not being in school since the middle of March of last year and we're trying to kind of retrain them."

The retraining required some heavy lifting. Many of the older students at MacLeanfound jobs when in-person classes stopped in spring, and school was far from their minds for months.

Halliday says for some of the younger ones, the months off werelike an extended Christmas vacation: for weeks on end, they were staying up late playing video games and sleepinginto the day.

"It took us, in some cases, three weeks to get these kids back on a daytime schedule again."

Spectre of red alert always present

The spectre of an overnight change to red-alert status due to COVID-19 is never far from Busby's mind.

She worries about a new student, recently arrived in Chibougamau, whom she tutors a couple of times a week on English vocabulary. If the region went red, that contact would probably be lost.

"To me, more than anything, that is teaching. And you just won't havethat if you're completely online."

Busby says she would have to think hard about whether she wanted to continue in her line of workif an uptick in COVID-19 casesmeant teachingat a distance for the foreseeable future.

Halliday says he andBusby are both resolutely not looking too far ahead. But with the winter monthsapproaching, he's thinking about how he'll deal with a stuffy classroom.

MacLean is slated for major renovations, including a new ventilation system. For the time being, though,the sun beats down on students through the windows on one side of the school, so that even at minus-30, the classroom is overheated.

"I can see them wilting in front of me."

But public health rules prohibit him from installing a fan.

Hallidaylets out a long exhale as he talks about the energy he has to put into ''allthose things that didn't use to matter, but matter now."

And he's frank about ittaking its toll.

"Thisis my 30th year in my career and there was a beautiful rhythm, a beautiful routine to it."

The pandemic has disrupted all of that.

"Now I'm waking up at five, five fifteen in the morning and getting up and having a coffee and doing my schoolwork in the morning because I'm too tired to do it at the end of theday before."

He worries about the effect the fatigue is having on his patience. He's not sure what his thinking will be when his official retirement date arrives next spring.

Busby shares an office with three other teachers. There's a20-year age difference between them, but they're all equally exhausted. Andit's only two months in.

"We're all kind of going: 'holy cow, I hope we can keep this up.'"