Suddenly and absolutely, it seems everything is different in NYC and around the world.
To contextualize, we are on Day 4 of NYC Schools being closed for several weeks at minimum, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Educators are reporting to their public school workplaces for the last day, preparing to be gone from their schools for . . . a few weeks or longer? I read somewhere this apt take on the effort to keep up psychologically and tactically: What on Thursday seemed unthinkable, by Sunday seems quaint.
After we wish colleagues well and go off to work remotely, we don’t know for sure when we will see them in person again. We don’t know just when we will see our desks and our hallways again. We don’t know when we’ll see this year’s students in person again, though we hope to see them in April, and we will certainly see many of their faces online as Learn From Home starts next week.
Perhaps you share the feeling of already-somehow-engrained homesickness for daily routines of as recently as a week ago. (Friends came over for dinner. We were so carefree . . . this was just last Saturday, 6 days ago, and also distinctly part of a previous era.)
Perhaps when you are out, staying 6 feet away from everyone, your eyes have become scanning devices for surfaces not to touch. Perhaps your mind sometimes focuses on what’s different (the phone call is back as a way to communicate, every email subject includes the word COVID, time is not behaving normally at all, so many places are closed, newspaper articles begin like this: “If your income has fallen or been cut off completely . . . “, we have gotten advice to avoid gatherings of 500 . . . 250 . . . 50 . . . 10 people)— and discovering that despite massive changes, some things are still the same (the weather is cool and warm by turns, too many too-fast drivers, spring flowers and puppies, street signs, your coworkers’ faces . . . though you see them on Google Hangouts now).
Also echoing through each day, this thing that so far in our society stays the same: that in times of societal disruption, systems of privilege and oppression play out and reproduce, unless we step in to dismantle and replace them with something way better. So we step up our habit of finding ways to join forces with others to look out for our communities—and seeking ways to get stronger and more expert, so we can do more better.
Appreciations to educators who are doubling down on student-centered, mastery-based, and culturally responsive-sustaining practices, as you shift to online interactions with students, and simultaneously grapple with the turbulence of this time.
Below, we share a bit more that is holding steady: some of the human things students need from us. These are requests from students to their theater teacher Lily at MC Living Lab School Flushing International HS. Students name these needs: encouragement, patience, interesting activities, support to overcome shyness, and "food sometimes". Lily keeps her students' requests posted on the wall, for a daily reminder of what they ask from her as they engage in lessons and activities.
Our community has always been spread across the 5 boroughs—and now it is time to figure out and share ideas for how to provide encouragement, belonging, caring, and learning, through a time when we are together in spirit, but not in schools.
We’re here for you, NYC— Joy for the MC team
Drop us a line at team@masterycollaborative.org to share how you’re meeting the needs of students, share your experience of this exceptional time, or share what you need in coming days.