"School Daze" - For My Teacher Friends

 ‘A good teacher is one who makes himself progressively unnecessary.’ 

–Thomas Carruthers

     For teachers, the month of September is a lot like facing the holidays for some.  Actually, there are two types of teachers...Those who look forward to the school year and those who do not. Anxiety breeds all kinds of behavior that we may not have seen or experienced in those we know.  Like the holidays, there are those who look forward to them and those who dread them.  All of the reasoning is sound and this is the truth.

     What all teachers have learned within the past year and a half is that nothing is definite and alhtough planning is an altruistic endeavor it has proven to be not unrealistic during a pandemic.  Teachers are the last to know as most of the public has been.  There is just no planning during a pandemic.  The question is, "Should there be?"  

     There has not been one teacher that I have spoken to who has not expressed their anxiety and their worry about their students and everyone else in their immediate circle.  Where has the lack of regard for human well-being gone? It boggles my brain to think that so many Americans are ignoring what would logically appear to be reasonable and sensible. We have already sacrificed so much, and lost so much. This includes our time.  Time with our loved ones; time with our colleagues; time with our friends...You can not get time back.  Time is not refundable.  When you are fearful, time is irrelevant.  Fear makes us unaware and it takes aware what is rational.

     No doubt, many of our kids will return to school operating at a deficit and their anxiety and their excitement will be prevalent.  We will take it slow and we will take it one day at a time.  It will be more important to be consistent if not patient.  We need to be kind and patient with each other too.  We will be covering for each other.  We will be yet again, stepping up and doing what we are required to do.  We need to forgive the inconvenience and embrace our good fortune that we are healthy and we are vital and we are who we are.

     If I have learned anything over this past year and a half is that love matters.  If I have learned anything at all

it is that the pandemic brought out the true colors of those around me and society in general.  September is coming.  Our plans, such as they can be, are in place and the commaderie of those who understand, is sealed.  Wear the mask.  Love....