Seven months after the coronavirus pandemic hit my state, one of my 8-year-old students in my online virtual karate class asked me this question:
“If you could have five superpowers, what would you choose?”
I told him my top choice would be the ability to speak and understand any language; he said that he would the super power of invisibility and the power to fly.
This question opened up a fun conversation with all the other students…
We didn’t talk about the karate moves or exercises that just spent 30 minutes.
and I didn’t discuss proper kicking techniques or keeping their karate stances low.
We didn’t talk about the pandemic, either. We didn’t discuss wearing face masks or the difference between “social distancing” and “shelter in place.
Our chat time together was the balm we all needed during these terrifying times in our nation.
Mike Soskil, one of the greatest teachers I know, wrote in a Facebook post:
In a matter of weeks, we’ve faced the equivalent of a societal nuclear bomb, and now we’re looking ahead at a societal nuclear winter.
Between the bomb and the winter, there has been a helter-skelter rush to understand Zoom, create curriculums, plan how to educate our children, and figure out just what the heck “school” looks like when it’s no longer safe to be together in person.
I wish we could all just take a deep global breath. A single somber day, maybe even a full week, of reflection.
Our daily schedules have been stripped away. The things we have long taken for granted, from the mundane certainty of oatmeal on the grocery store shelves to the luxury of our preferred brand of toilet paper, are gone.
Whether we are teachers, parents, or both, this crisis is forcing us to confront the big existential questions. Who are we now to our families, our colleagues, and the children in our care? Who are we going to become?
The Most Important Thing We Do for Our Students…
1: Make sure our children know they are safe. We convey to them, through our words and actions, that they can trust us to do right by them for as long as they are in our care.
Mike Soskil continued his post with the words I needed to hear.
I get that teaching is what teachers do. I get that finding some kind of normalcy in this time of upheaval is vital. Before we start looking for the next new tool, the next website we can use, the next learning opportunity, let’s just find ways to connect. The most important thing that we do for our students is love them. That’s more important than ever right now.
I look at my children in the eyes and ask, “How you doing?”
I listen. Then I tell them how grateful I that we have each other to love and lean on during a crisis like this.
