Reopening Schools: What Teachers Might Discover!

A Reopening Schools Nightmare?

My typical back-to-school dream usually reflects my former occupation as a waitress and involves a restaurant full of demanding customers.  But this year, I was on a cruise (and I don’t even like cruises!) We had our first K meeting yesterday, and I’m sure all the talk about reopening schools prompted this dream.  I couldn’t find my tickets, luggage, cabin, or anything that I needed to make this cruise a success.  But here’s the surprising part, I was calm, cool, and confident (umbrella drink in hand) and committed to having a good time, no matter what came my way.

I immediately knew that this was the 2020 version of my back-to-school dream.  And the weird thing is, I felt extremely positive when I woke up from this nightmare.  The person who showed up in that dream, was exactly the person I would like to be as we reopen schools and move through the next month of unknowns and new experiences.

Here’s what I’m hoping we will discover:

We Are Better Together

Reopening schools with so many guidelines, puts us all on the same page.  We are all like brand new teachers again.  We have a new teacher joining our grade level this year, and honestly, she knows just as much as any of us do about what this school year will look like.  We are making it up together as we go along and I wouldn’t want it any other way!  We will be a stronger team for it and I can’t think of any future scenario where that is not a good thing.

Media Specialists Aren’t the Only Ones with Tech Skills

Tech is not new, and digital literacy is real and necessary for teachers to possess and maintain.  But I’m not sure I can say that the majority of us have been well-trained and using it to its fullest capacity.  By sheer necessity, our tech vocabularies have grown by leaps and bounds over the last few months.   As we reopen schools, we will bring these new tech literacy skills with us, and be better able to discern when and when not to utilize technology for instruction.

A Pandemic Mindset Might Not Be a Bad Thing

Our mindsets have shifted, whether we realize it or not.  We now know that a pandemic can happen.  We knew it before, but we didn’t really live as if it were a possibility.  This has pushed us out of our comfort zones and forced us to live in those gray areas. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s what life is actually made of.  The more we lean into that mindset, the more comfortable we become with the unknowns and  committed to living as if tomorrow is not a guarantee.

Future Ready Skills Are Where It’s At

If you look at the response of many adults during COVID 19, many individuals were required to draw upon the skills of creativity, critical thinking, communication, and collaboration.  In education, we refer to these as the 4C’s, 21st century skills, or future ready skills.

As I saw pizza places promising free rolls of toilet paper with a pizza delivery or drive-up state fair food offered in abandoned parking lots, it reaffirmed my commitment to make these skills a teaching priority. Colleges and universities say that this is what employers are looking for, but it’s more than that.  These are life skills, not just job skills.

There Will Be Surprises

With every unfortunate situation, there is usually a pleasant surprise that we couldn’t have expected.  Is it possible that we might discover that less kids in a class actually yields better results than more kids with more time?  Are there some children who struggled at school, that actually participate more when working from home?  Will outdoor learning be discovered by many teachers as an effective way to teach?  I plan on keeping my eye out for those rainbows and savoring every one!

Your Inner Teacher Rocks

You are not your stuff.  You are not your mini erasers.  You are not your alphabet carpet, your flexible seating or any of the teacher tools you’ve been forbidden to use.  There was a time when teachers taught with chalk and books.  And I’m sure they were still great teachers. So be open to getting in touch with this stripped down version of you.  I’d bet that you’ll discover that you already have everything you need to be that teacher rockstar.

Reimagining Vs. Reopening Schools

My hope is that when we reopen schools, we do more than that.  We take this unprecedented opportunity, to take a long hard look at our practices and reimagine our schools.  We are supposed to learn something from this and if we don’t, then shame on us.  In many ways, schools have remained stagnant for a long, long time, so rather than focusing on getting things back to “normal,” I hope that we reevaluate and make our schools better than they were before.

Thanks for stopping by,