The last few years under the spell of the pandemic has been beyond strange.......we have lived in very different ways.....shifting our entire lives under the weight of it all.....but education and schooling for kids may have suffered most of all.....I think back to the March when we went home.....randomly on a Friday.....not thinking we would be home long.....and then........we finished the year that way.....juggling and scrambling......to make it all work......my current 4th graders were only in 1st grade then.......then the following year they returned for a hybrid schedule......two days on and three days home......and we adjusted.......figuring out how to teach online and in person.....and juggle instruction for kids that were home and in school........and then we came back to bigger class sizes and everybody back in one spot last year.......the challenges being endless.......just endless.......and then here we are......and so far I have to say it seems as if the spell or black magic that hovered over us the last 2.5 years has been slowly dissipating.....like perhaps the spell is breaking......like a Fairytale where the princess wakes up......and the woodland critters frolic freely........after all the bad things that happened;-) Truthfully this is the best start to a school I have had in years......it seems as if something has been reset some.....now that is not to say there are not many challenges and that education has big mountains to climb related to what it will look like moving forward, and in terms of working toward making up for this pandemic and the effect it had on our kids.....I suppose there will be studies written about it.....the pandemic kiddos......and the effect it had long term.....and for all of us.....let's give a little sigh of relief right adults??? We have been through some stuff the last couple a years and it is slowly fading into the background.....and life feels a little more like.....well life......and now our school feels a little more like a school......like education has returned to its "normal" form......whatever that means;-) my classroom feels like it did once upon a time.....and boy did it leave lessons in its wake......so many......I could write days of blogs about it all.....but suffice to say.....we learned......so very much.......and persisted.....I am so proud of every teacher in America that kept on keeping on during this time because it was not for the faint of heart......not one day of it......so the spell is broken.....or perhaps breaking......and that is my story and I am sticking to it;-)
jperuso
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