Encouragement

 "Nine tenths of education is encouragement."

-Anatole France

The word encouragement has been running through my mind a lot the last few days. I've been really wrestling with whether this message is meant as an encouragement to me personally or if it is a message urging me to offer encouragement to others. Either way, I've decided that offering encouragement to others is always a good idea, message or no message.

A month ago, I was very encouraged. We were building up to a school year that was going to look like every school year leading up to March 2020. I was excited to have a school year where everyone walked in happy. But alas, that is not where we ended up, and I know that many people are very discouraged, which is the polar opposite of our key word here, so I want to offer some encouragement.

At one point last year, I was having a conversation with a teacher in which they were expressing how "over" the masks they were. They were tired of wearing them, tired of correcting students wearing them, and just plain old tired of looking at them. I agreed with all of their points. I still do. I'm not looking forward to another year of being the "mask police", but I also recognize that the masks weren't really the thing that was stressing us all out last year. They were just the most obvious, visible symbol of what was stressing us out. Here is a partial list of the things we did differently last year:

- Block Schedule

- Advisory in the Middle of the Day

-Two Lunch Periods in Three Lunch Rooms

-Short Passing Periods/Restroom Breaks During Class

-Students Report Directly to Classrooms at 7:45

-Capacity Restrictions at Events

-Temperature Checks

-Facemasks

As I really look at that list and think about which ones were the biggest departure from the kind of "normal" we all miss so much, I have a hard time weighing the masks very heavily. Certainly the block schedule was a bigger adjustment and posed bigger challenges in terms of delivering instruction. 

The advisory in the middle of the day plus the remediation period at the end of the day meant a lot of non-instructional time for students, which is always a challenge. 

Lunch was an ordeal. Sure, it was quieter and cleaner, but there were just so many moving parts, and it required so much supervision. Plus, staff didn't all get the opportunity to eat together.

Having less time between classes may have cut down on some hallway shenanigans, but I know that having to dedicate class time to maintaining and monitoring the bathroom schedule was a colossal headache.

While any time spent with students is a great way to build relationships, having students in the classroom the second they (and sometimes you) walk in the door is just not a low-stress way to start the day.

Being able to attend school events and support our students in their extra-curricular activities is such a huge part of building school spirit, and with capacity restrictions, we didn't get to foster that spirit and the positive energy that goes with it.

Temperature checks just made entering the school day feel more like going through airport security than showing up to school. When we greet students at the door, it should be to let them know we are happy to see them, not to scan their head and ask them about symptoms.

Facemasks are a hassle. I miss seeing people smile. I don't like them at all, but I have a hard time putting them on the same level as the other items on this list in terms of the disruption and stress they cause. 

In conclusion, if I could've had the choice to get rid of everything but masks last year, I would have done so in a heartbeat, and I would have been over-the-moon excited about it, so for this year, I'm choosing to be over-the-moon excited to come back even if we do have to wear a mask because that is so much better than what we had to work around last year. My encouragement to all of you is to look at it the exact same way. We are coming back to school 99% normal after a year of maybe 25% normal, and that is a pretty exciting thing to think about. Also one tenth of education has to be coffee, right?

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