Life Reimagined-At Least for Awhile

March 17, 2020

Dear Students,

I want you to know I miss you already--I really do.  I know when most of you heard we might be shutting down the school for a bit, you might have been excited.  You might have loved the idea of getting a little bit of an extra 'vacation'.  Trust me when I say that many of your teachers were right there with you.  And yet...

I know many of you were also a little concerned.  Some of you were worried about the COVID-19 virus and were wondering if we were going overboard, or if maybe, just maybe, this was something that was bigger and scarier than we were really willing to wrap our brains around.  You might have been worried about your parents or grandparents, or other loved ones who are immuno-compromised.  And some of you were worried that the other stuff you were worried about might seem petty and small in light of the bigger crisis going on around the world right now.

You know what?  You have every right to be worried about both the global pandemic AND whether or not your senior prom or your graduation might be postponed.  Those are perfectly valid feelings.  Honestly, just last week I was talking to some of you, saying that I really didn't think those things would be affected, but if you've even watched a snippet of the news in the past week, you know that things are changing rapidly, hour by hour even, and the honest truth is that we just don't know.  The adults in your life, charged with offering you both guidance and structure, simply don't know.  Trust me when I say, though, that we are doing our best and are trying to be flexible with the influx of information so that we can best provide for you.

I've always cringed when people--even people in the world of education--talk about what happens in 'the real world', as opposed to what happens in school.  ("Well, in the real world, if you did that...")  But I have always thought that was a belittling, narrow view of things.  Your real world is whatever time and space you're inhabiting at a given time, and therefore the world of high school is no less real than the world of someone who earns a paycheck at a nine-to-five job.  High school is the real world for you right now, and that comes with certain expectations and norms for you.  It comes with work and stress and deadlines, of course, but it also comes with dreams of prom and graduation ceremonies and other senior activities, and from seeing your friends every day.  It comes with expectations of relationships you've formed through the daily interaction with your teachers and your classmates.  It comes with an understanding of a system you've been engaged with for 12 years now.  For some of you, it may come with the safety of stability or food that may be lacking at home.  And losing that--not knowing how long it will last--can be incredibly disconcerting to many of us.  A vacation means we know what we're going back to at the end of a specific time period, but this uncertainty in the world right now means we don't, in fact, know what--or when--we'll be going back to our 'real world'.

So, yes, it's perfectly normal to spend some time worrying about the 'what ifs' and 'what will happens', but try not to live there.  Look forward with hope and flexibility and creativity.  At school, we are working toward making sure you can access learning and services you need for however long that needs to happen.  Roll with the changes, know that it's not going to be a perfect process right away, and also know that that's okay!  There will be a learning curve for all of us, and we will need to be able to grant each other grace.  Aside from school, though, there are lots of things we can do as we proceed through this ever-changing environment.  Of course, practice good hand-washing and social distancing, as has been recommended by, you know, EVERYONE.  But also, Facetime your friends who bring you joy, help out your parents around the house (who are also stressed, by the way),  sing, create art, read--a lot!--and write, even if it's just a journal for yourself.  Binge-watch your favorite TV shows, or watch that movie you've been meaning to watch on Netflix.  Stream a yoga class online, or even sign up for an online dance class you can attend from your living room.  Send goofy Snapchats to your friends.  Try cooking a new recipe you've always wanted to try--tell your family you'll be the cook for the night!  It's all about balance, and finding joy in doing things at home, either alone or digitally together, in order to maintain our peace of mind and positivity while doing what we can to slow the spread of the virus within our community.

In the next few days, we'll all have a clearer idea what online learning will look like for us, at least in the short term.  Will we know how long we'll be there?  Probably not.  That's okay.  We'll take it one step at a time, and we'll be flexible as we re-invent our real world, for however long we'll live in this particular time and space for education.  Feel free to ask questions, and I'll be honest enough to let you know when I don't know the answers, but know that we're in it together.  I miss your smiling faces, and I'm excited to get back to the business of what we do: learning together and building each other up within our classroom community.  Whether we're sitting next to one another in a building or we're supporting each other through the online world, what we do best is helping each other grow and connect and learn from one another's perspectives.  This new 'real world' won't change any of that for us.

See you soon,
Ms. L