'An enormous responsibility': COVID-19 through the eyes of Grade 3 teacher Emma Boswell

If you spoke with her high school teachers years ago, Emma Boswell saysthey would likely tell you they never expected her to enter the teaching profession.

But if you spoke with Boswell herself now, you wouldn't be surprised she's currently teaching Grade 3 French immersion at West Kent Elementary in Charlottetown.

Even through a phone call, her quick wit, gentle humanity and raw honesty is apparent as she reflects on what her life has been like since the COVID-19 pandemic shut down Island classroomsin mid-March, only reopening them this fall.

"I actually made a joke about it," she told CBC News. "I jokingly said in a group [message]to my staff that if we shut schools down or had to do online learning, I was going to quit.

"I very quickly went back and said, 'I don't really mean that,' because I realized I may be eating my own words in the future.'"

'Double the work'

As COVID-19crawled its way across the globe, public schools on Prince Edward Island shut their doorson March 17and eventually switched to online learning.

There's ... not a single one of us who doesn't come to work remembering the importance of what we're doing and the responsibility of it. Emma Boswell

"I was devastated," said Boswell. "Maybe 'shock' is probably a better way of putting it."

"I guess I just didn't see it getting to that."

Suddenly Boswell was forced to figure out a way of teaching 8- and 9-year-olds online,and in a second language.

"I had to make almost double the work, because I had to explain to parents what it was I was asking the kids to do in English, and then create the lessons in French," she said.

Teaching from home

Boswell quickly realized that creating virtual lesson plans wasn't the only uncharted territory she would have to navigate.

"It's very different face to face with a child," she said. "You want to still create a healthy boundary between the fact that they are still your students, even though they're at home and you're at home."

Boswell recognized she wasn't the only one dealing with the additional stress of COVID-19. And with that, she said she had to learn to keep her conversation with her students "human" while maintainingthose boundaries.

"Sometimes, especially in the pandemic situation, you're having conversations with people that are pretty raw," she said.

But Boswell there were pleasantaspects to working from home,like being able to take walks on her lunch hour.

Boswell saidthe most difficult part of the pandemic for her has been the uncertainty.

First, officials planned to reopen schoolsApril 16 but that date ended up beingdelayed almost five months.

Having to plan to start up in September with no certainty over whether that might change at the last minute if an outbreak happened?

"That was very, very hard."

Few complaints from students

Public schools on the Islandeventually re-openedthe second week of September. Arrow stickers were plastered on school floors, maximum capacity signs hung outside bathrooms and, again, there was no other option than to adjust.

"It's unbelievable how resilient and adaptive [students]have been and for the most part, with almost no complaints," said Boswell.

"Obviously, some of the things were harder for them to process, like not being able to see some of the other kids in the other grades."

Boswell said she hashad to remind herself what she can control and what she can't.

"You're not the one who decides whether they're at school or not. So that's not my responsibility," she said.

'Enormous responsibility'

As someone entrusted with keeping so many children safe during a global pandemic, Boswell said she tries her best not to focus on it.

"It's an enormous responsibility and it can be almost like freezing," she said."It almost, like, stops you in your tracks if you think too much about it. At least, for meit does."

Instead she's taking it one day at a time, thanking those at her school and remembering that she's not the only one working to educate children in the face of the pandemic.

"There is not a single teacher, administrator, staff member not a single one of us who doesn't come to work remembering the importance of what we're doing and the responsibility of it."

With the holidays finally here, Boswell said she has been looking forward to a break.

"I'm just really excited to have a little bit of time, because it has felt absolutely like non-stop," she said. "It feels almost like it hasn't stopped since March."

More from CBC P.E.I.