“Everything happens for a reason”

“Everything happens for a reason” – how annoyed are we when a family member, friend or colleague throws this line at us when we are amidst tension? But when you really think of the phrase and the current situation in schools, I can’t help but think….”everything happens for a reason!”

Last February, like many other educators across Ontario, I was so looking forward to a restful March break. March break for teachers is that last little pause we get before tackling all the craziness and closing ends that third term bring in schools. I was particularly excited for my break off as I was heading for some sunshine and much needed quality time with my family. Little did I know, a metamorphosis in education was about to happen….

Looking back on the months of March-June, I can remember tensions across all levels. Teachers trying to reinvent their practice, administrators trying to recreate schools on platforms, parents trying to learn how to work and homeschool and somewhere in all of this were our students. The distance learning hit me hard, because I work primarily with the early years students. All of sudden  their free play was gone, their morning gathering took place behind a screen and kitchens and living rooms became their new classrooms. Stephen Merrill was writing about this shift in and chaos that was happening in education all around the world in his article Teaching Through a Pandemic: A Mindset for This Moment , and was urging educators to take this all in stride.  I was trying desperately to set up an early years program that fulfilled everyone’s needs, while at the same time I had to take care of my every so active 2 year old at home. Don’t ask me how we did it….

September came, and we were all back together in our schools. Our context was no longer the same, this time we had plexiglass, social distances and our 3 year olds are expected to be masked all day. So how did we do it?

Well, this time it was different. This time the tensions are are less. This time we accepted and we became creative. We have embraced our outside classrooms, we are more Reggio than we have ever been before! This time we found solutions to learning a second language, as a result our language lessons are more structured, we are using platforms such as SeeSaw, Bitsboard and PearDeck to ensure that our students are speaking with the French sophistication that we expect them too.  Will the oral language of our student be stronger? Maybe, time will tell.

This time we know better. We are more aware our time and how we use our time. We are not trying to get through the curriculum, we are analyzing the curriculum and we are deciding as educators what is best for our students to learn. We are monitoring student progress better than we have ever done before because we are more intentional with our teaching goals. We have heighten awareness of just how precious every minute of every day is in our classrooms.

This time….we know we have more to learn. We are more humble as a staff and we know the learning will never stop. Maybe the sudden push to reevaluate all our teaching practices, reevaluate how we determine the progress of each child was exactly what our institution needed? Personally, I have never worked so hard in my life but at the same time I have also never felt more accomplished and grateful to be working in education. I wonder, how long will this innovation and intentional teaching last?