When algebra teacher Lindsey Ray was a young girl, she would pretend to be a teacher while her two older sisters would be her students.

As she grew up, however, she found herself taking other career paths.

She wanted to be an engineer, and then a chef. Her senior year, she wanted to be a doctor. In college she majored in biochemistry, but she eventually felt as though it wasn’t for her.

“I was completely unhappy, so I reached out to a former teacher of mine and I asked her what I needed, what I should be doing, like I was completely questioning my life choices,” Ray said. “Her advice wasn’t the best. It was basically just, ‘Do whatever makes you happy,’ but it made me clarify and realize that I wanted to be someone that other people would come back and talk to.”

Because of the advice she received, Ray decided to become an algebra teacher, a job she struggled with at first.

“You do have the support of other teachers and you do have a mentor teacher, but you’re just kind of thrown into the situation,” Ray said. “It’s just hard to gain balance from what you’re doing.”

Now in her fourth year of teaching, Ray has never had the chance to experience a normal school year, mostly due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

“It has been rough, but I do feel like it’s made me grow as a teacher,” Ray said. “It’s made me more technology friendly, it’s made me more empathetic as a person, but at the same time it’s also been so mentally draining having to deal with both sides of the quarter, like dealing with having students in the classroom and then also having students who are not in the classroom.”

Ray also noticed a change in student motivation and grades since the pandemic. During the first year of COVID, students could just turn in work by the end of the year and teachers would still accept it.

“They got used to it, and so they think that that’s something that should still be occurring,” she said, “and they’re not being held responsible for their work.

“That’s been the struggle, trying to get that responsibility back up,” Ray said.

Despite the workload, some students enjoy Ray’s teaching methods.

“She’s my favorite teacher that I have currently,” sophomore Gabe Shepard said. “She explains things, and then she does it with us, and then if we have questions about how we do it she answers them.

“I think that’s a good way of teaching,” he said.

At the end of the day, teaching is something that Ray still loves to do, but it can be overwhelming for her as well.

“I love teaching. I love my job. I love being able to build those relationships with the students,” she said, “It’s just very stressful having to deal with everything that COVID brought along.”

Due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ray said all of the teachers are trying to find the middle ground between understanding students’ troubles and holding students accountable for their work.

“Teachers are trying to be understanding and compassionate, but we are also trying to raise the bar a little bit from the COVID year,” she said. “We know that it’s difficult because we know a lot of stuff happened during these past years, but we are trying our hardest to have a balance between everything for them.”