What can we give educators to help them through this crisis?

I agreed to do a sort of wrap up/pep talk/inspirational presentation to 15 or so media advisers this coming Saturday at Castle View HS. The event begins at 9 a.m. and includes some professional speakers and plenty of sharing among educators, with the purpose being, as the marketing states, "TLC, no PLC." In case you are not familiar with those acronyms: Tender Loving Care vs. Professional Learning Community.

PLCs have been in favor among school officials for some time and tend to focus more on curriculum and management issues. TLC seems quite appropriate for the special pressures today's educators are under.

A problem is that I have not been in a classroom during the pandemic, though I certainly have been paying attention and have had some conversations with current advisers and teachers (not to mention children and grandchildren who are living with the Covid realities for two years).

I'm not sure what to say as of this moment, so I may use this blog to do some reflection and try out some ideas "on screen." After all, I am never quite sure what I want to say until I see it on paper or on my monitor.

But here is one strategy that I am thinking about: when the world seems overwhelming and depressing and overcomplicated, there might be something to rededicating ourselves to a more constricted world... maybe just the school campus or community.

It's the same approach we often use in developing research topics or almost any sort of explanatory or persuasive writing: tighten the focus on provide depth over breadth. Make the scenes come alive. Take readers where they can't go. Highlight the specific and let readers make some of the inferences about more general points and claims and trends.

Students are as interested as anyone else in society's big questions and controversies, and many of our top students would like to explore those issues and share their own ideas. And, just like most adults, solutions and progress are not easy to find. 

The entire enterprise of high school, for instance, seems wobbly right now. The pandemic has endless effects, most unanticipated and most calling for change or limitations. There may have never been a time in the past 50 years when it was this difficult to be a teacher or student.

And yet, young people are still looking to the future, and teachers can find some comfort in doing the same. 

I hesitate to write "This too shall pass," since it is so vague and so unsupported in any particular instance. But the bad times DO pass. The Spanish Flu was horrible and at least as damaging as Covid, but the planet survived. Human nature did not change fundamentally and we can guess that this pandemic won't change human nature in any significant way.

Tomorrow I will try to flesh these ideas out and discuss how focusing more on our community might provide enough energy and purpose to get us through the next few months or years.