Last Friday the governor announced that we would not be going back to our school buildings to teach for the remainder of the year and that distance learning would continue. What was once temporary, was now permanent. No longer we were going to teach wondering, hoping and planning for the possibility that we would return to our building. We are now planning for the rest of the year to continue as we have been for the past couple weeks, teaching away from our students, other teachers, administration and our wonderful staff members.
One of the most difficult things was planning for contingencies, one week at a time without a clear idea of where we were going. Now that we have a clear idea of what is ahead of us, we have to make decisions about how to we end the school year.
I always have mixed feelings about the end of the school year. I don’t count down the days, and I don’t make a big deal about how we wrap up the year in classes. Yes, we have concerts and graduations, and these things are important, but so is every other day of the year. I work hard to make sure that meaning is spread throughout the learning process. I love the concerts, but more than that I love the journey, and the finality of it all. The finite nature of the school year comes through during the final weeks, and it’s always difficult to see the time run out.
I don’t want to make too big a deal of this time, because the larger journey is important is acknowledge. At the same time the end of the year is a wonderful time to reflect, celebrate, and share all of the hard work from the school year with each other.
I haven’t fully let go of what cannot be done remotely, but I will eventually. There are still things we can still do, with pride, and joy that can be felt across the internet and into home all across the city. That is not the power of technology, that is the power of positivity, and kindness, that my students bring into each other’s lives when they chose, more often than not, to be for each other.
Like everything about this year, it seems like that what I want to do, what my students may need from me in the end of the school may be different than in other years. It feels like the end of this school year will be the second chapter of a trilogy, an ending with much left unresolved, and work left to be done in the next chapter.
The story of this year will not be done in June. What has changed this school year will not magically disappear in the Fall. It is without doubt that bringing out students back to our school in the fall will be far more difficult than sending them home this past spring. And with the addition of the Presidential election, next fall will be one of the, if not the most challenging time to be a teacher in American history.
I am hopeful, and excited to face the fall because unlike in the past Spring, the journey ahead and our destination are clear. The challenges are known, and hard decisions will have to be made, but we can do this. As Springsteen sings in “Jack Of All Trades":
We stood the drought, now we’ll stand the flood.
There’s a new world coming, I can see the light.
I’m a jack of all trades, we’ll be all right.
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