For those of who don’t know me, I’m old. I mean that chronologically.  People who do know me, frequently wonder if I’ll ever grow up.

That’s some opening, Rich.  Why did you start like that?  Well, it’s my way of sharing that I’ve spent a lot of years in schools.  During that time, the vast majority of the teachers I’ve met did not have a job. They had a vocation, a calling to work with children. In some instances, and perhaps you can identify with this, the work turned into a job.  In most cases this was a temporary shift and their love of kids helped them deal better with the less pleasant aspects of their work.

In recent years, it’s become fashionable to find fault with our system of schools.  For too many teachers, this has been a tough time of unfair criticism and underappreciation.  Too often we’ve forgotten how to say “thank you” to those whose lives revolve around teaching our kids.

Consider this a “thank you” note.  Thank you for all of the hard work and continuing to try to do the best you can in spite of the uncertainty and the demand to do something we’ve never done before on anything approaching the scale of recent weeks.  The times make us question ourselves and our work.  They should not make us question our goodness or our commitment to the kids we serve.  Talking with friends around the country who are still young enough to be working in schools, or in this case, working NOT in schools, I see countless examples of selfless behaviors and incredible responses…

• School staff and volunteers working incredible hours to be sure that all kids have something to eat. The fact that this happened almost from day one should not lead us to assume that this was easy,
• Teachers finding ways to check in with their kids, not to check their homework but to be sure they are OK. School leaders and teachers affirming the importance of supporting connections and relationships with their students.
• Teachers designing and sharing instructional and learning experiences using technology on a scale rarely required of them.

As we continue to work at providing valuable, meaningful learning experiences for kids… kids of all ages and abilities, kids with a range of challenges, kids whose life circumstances don’t provide them the tools that are the requirement for the successful completion of assignments… I wonder if we’ve had time to consider bigger questions… questions like “What really matters?”  What if in our haste to try to do the best we can in this time of remote learning we have created impossible situations/expectations for parents?

Please, this is not intended to suggest that we need to question our value, our commitment to kids, the desire of kids to learn.  During the past two weeks I’ve had the privilege of interacting with a number of members of the Modern Learners Community.  Once each week, Will Richardson and Missy Emler have hosted an open Zoom chat for educators both here and abroad.  There is an incredible assembly of talent “in the room”.  To a person in each session the consensus that emerges is that this is a time of great challenge and perhaps even greater opportunity.  To a person, the sense is that designing lessons and experiences for kids that more or less resemble schooling is a mistake.  Marking time until we can get back to the familiarity of schooling is an even bigger mistake.  Wait! What? You mean getting back to the routine of school might not be a good thing?  What are the options?

You might recall from earlier posts that I’ve referenced Dr. Ryan’s commencement address to the graduates of Harvard’s graduate school of education.  He built his talk around six questions.  I’ll borrow shamelessly from his talk here and ask a few of my own “what if” questions.  They are not intended to be answered as you read this.  My hope is that you will consider these as your plan experiences for kids in the coming days, weeks, maybe months.  My hope is that we may be inspired to look beyond what school has always been for us and for our kids and to use this time to test the waters.  The pandemic has given us permission.

So here goes…

What if we have inadvertently demanded that parents re-create schooling in their homes?

What would this time of homeschooling look like if we focused on home learning focused on learning beyond the overloaded curriculum that has become a part of our children’s schooling experience?

What if we thought of school not as a journey with an end (graduation) but as a time when we learn how to become learners? What would the important things or skills be that we would need to become successful lifelong learners?

What if all the stuff that we learned in school and all the stuff that we’ve packed into the curriculum is really not the right stuff?  (Think Paul Simon and Kodachrome)

What if much of the work we are creating is a living example of trying to do things right rather than taking the time to determine what is the right thing?

Conclusion…

As I was pondering a conclusion to this piece, I took a break and did a bit of reading.  I found the following in a blog post from Diane Ravitch.  She offered the words of Michael Matsuda, Superintendent of the Anaheim Union High School District in California.  He wondered what our kids and their grandkids might recall of this time.

Fifty years from now, when our students are old, when they have children and grandchildren of their own, they will look back and say, “Do you remember what happened?” I picture them pensively reflecting, staring silently, breathing deeply, perhaps tearing up, and then after reliving the experience to the very end, smiling, “Those were the times of amazing grace, when people came together with kindness and compassion to support each other, when they made sacrifices for complete strangers, when schools became beacons of hope for families who were food deprived, and when teachers transformed educational experiences through emotional connection, through affirming mental health, and through meaningful learning.”

It was a time like no other, when the world came together, collaborated, communicated, created, thought critically, and acted with compassion to save humankind.

I know this will be true because I see it happening right now. I see it in our Food Service workers as they prepare and pass out food for thousands of our children. I see it in our teachers as they work tirelessly creating new curriculum and a new way of virtual learning through a completely transformed system. I see it in our students who connect and help each other virtually with enthusiasm and care. I see it in our IT workers who have refurbished thousands of laptop computers for kids to use. I see it in our counselors and social workers who reach out to young people suffering from depression, isolation, and emotional starvation. I see it in our administrators who work endlessly, filling all the gaps in a topsy turvy world. And I see it in total strangers, coming out of the woodwork, volunteering time and sometimes money to pitch in and to help heal a fractured world.

…But as we face this threat today, let us go forward knowing that things will likely get worse before they get better, that stress will mount and tempers will flare, and that we may take it out on those we love most – our children.

Remember that one day, our young people will become adults, and how we respond in these most traumatic times will forever imprint on them whether it was our darkest or our finest hour. It is up to us.

It’s been said that the health of a society can be measured by the way in which it cares for its weakest and most vulnerable.  Thank you for all that you are doing to bring, in this most vulnerable of times, gentleness, hope, caring, support and direction to one another as well as to the kids and their families.   Be well.  Rich