We Never Left Work: Challenges to Sustaining High-Quality Teaching and Learning during COVID-19

During the shift to online remote learning at the height of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, a group of researchers administered a qualitative survey with a desire to hear teacher voices. Responses were received from many areas of the world from educators at all levels of teaching. In this paper, we analyzed qualitative survey responses from 314 literacy educators in the United States. These educators were K-12 teachers, instructional coaches, and instructors from teacher education. We sought to learn how a sampling of U.S. literacy educators was impacted by COVID-19 in their teaching and in their profession. Teachers experienced stress and uncertainty as their roles and responsibilities shifted. The story told about teaching and learning was rewritten. Data revealed implications for the future of teaching and the teaching profession.