Breathing on the 1st Day of School
Welcome Back to School.
Now close your books, breathe, relax and recover.
Imagine this. It is the morning of a marathon and you, along with hundreds of other fellow and friendly competitors, are lining up at the starting line. As you look around, on this beautiful and cool day, every runner is in top mental and physical condition. As the race begins you take off in a state of both nervous excitement and anticipation. You know the race is long and arduous but you have prepared well and embrace the challenge. As you get to the finish line those 26.2 miles have had, as expected, a mental and physical toll on you as well as every runner. Now imagine, as you get closer to the end, in your state of exhaustion, you are told that you have 26 more miles to run. If you are a runner, like myself, a heavy sense of dread should have just come over you because you realize the impossibility of completing the task due to you mental and physical state. Yet, I argue, that this is indeed the scenario that is playing out before our eyes across this entire country. Not with any race or runner but with the openings of our schools and the mental and emotional state of our teachers, students and parents.
Are our teachers and students in the appropriate mental, emotional and physical state to effectively teach and learn?
To be blunt one can argue that teachers, students and parents are returning to school in a more mentally and physically drained state than when schools, abruptly, closed last Spring. Yet we have focused so much of our national discourse on determining what is the appropriate teaching and learning environment that we have not asked the far more critical question: are our teachers and students in the appropriate mental, emotional and physical state to effectively teach and learn?
We cannot overlook the fact that 2020 has been a year unlike any we have seen in America for almost a century. Since the closing of schools and the nation, teachers, children, parents have had to experience the mental stress of quarantine; the traumatic deaths from COVID; a recession with record unemployment; the visual and horrific death of George Floyd and the many others; massive protests nationwide that have ranged from peaceful to violent and a political division that has the potential to irreparably fracture this country. Or a year where going back to school would be a literal life or death decision placing teachers, students and parents alike in a state of stress, anxiety and uncertainty. With all of this at play, how can we say we are all truly refreshed and ready to learn? Maybe the better question is what can we do to get better refreshed and ready? What if we shifted our view and purpose of the 1st week of school as an opportunity, not to begin instruction, but a safe space to take a much needed mental break?
Imagine of the question of the day was replaced with “how do you feel?” rather than “what did you learn?”
Imagine a first week of school where success defined by how well everyone is socially and emotionally acclimating back? Where lesson plans and syllabus are discarded, for a brief moment, in place of activities and assignments that cultivate community and conversation within the classroom. Where the focus of assessments is based neither on pop quizzes or essays but on the social and emotional wellness of our students and staff. Where the pressure of teachers being expected to deliver high quality content is substituted for preaching time, patience and prioritizing understanding the content of the experiences of their students and forming a strong connection, individually and as a class with each them. What if the question of the day was replaced with “how do you feel?” rather than “what did you learn?” Above all its about creating an environment that recognizes that the re-opening of school is less about learning at its onset and more about social, and emotional recovery.
Everyone needs time to breathe. Our teachers, parents and students are entering this year, not like the marathon runner at the start of a race, but the exhausted one desperately looking for the finish line. We have to recognize and acknowledge this. So if we want to have a productive year lets start, not with placing unrealistic academic and instructional expectations on everyone, but by giving all the space and time to breathe, relax and heal. If we are being honest, it is probably the most important assignment everyone needs right now.