Over the past several weeks, I have found myself doing a lot of reflection trying to get this online teaching right. I keep meaning to get my thoughts on paper but then get caught up in the day-to-day work of teaching in this pandemic era. I know if I can catch my breath, there is a lot to learn and reflect on during this time. So, I decided that every day in May, I will share my thoughts on Teaching and Learning. This is Day 15.
This week was our last full week of remote learning. Our last day with students is on Tuesday. We have a few fun virtual events planned for next week but today I dropped off gifts to my students. It was a bittersweet afternoon. It was soooo fabulous to see many of them either waving from the porch or a window after I rang the bell. I knew I missed them but it was REALLY, REALLY good to see them. And it was hard. It was not the kind of goodbye we should have had. And I felt bad for each of them to have to be going through this.
Since the beginning of this, my goal has been to make this online/pandemic learning experience as good as it can possibly be for kids and their families. I tried hard to focus on connections and community and giving them some sense of normalcy. This week, I could tell it was getting harder for kids to realize that this was the end of their elementary years. So I hope that this small gift can help bring a little joy and a bit of happy closure to the end of this school year. And really, putting together the gifts and spending the afternoon dropping them off, seeing some of the kids in the process, was quite a gift for me. Today was so good for my heart.
How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.
-Winnie the Pooh
Oh, this broke my heart a little bit. Still, your students (and so many students!) are lucky to have teachers who care this much about them. Thank you for doing this!
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