Normalcy is a gift that is often overlooked and underappreciated.
However, after the COVID quarantine, I've noticed that more students than normal were happy to return to school and a sense of normalcy.
What's even more impressive is the extent that teachers have gone in an effort to create normalcy for students, whether in a brick-and-mortar school or online.
Students may follow one-way arrows down the hall and talk through their masks, but bulletin boards still brighten the walls. Bells ring. The "Pledge of Alliance" is recited, and teachers teach on.
Behind the scenes, however, teachers are constantly battling the agents of anti-normalcy--creating impactful lesson plans that reach both at-school and at-home students, fixing computers that crash in the middle of instruction, and dealing with impatient people who show little empathy.
The tears shed, and frustration experienced by teachers is definitely beyond the normal range. Yet, they show up prepared to give it their best, day after day.
Teachers. We all had them, and most of us can name at least one who made a positive difference in our life. So, please, please, pretty please--take the time to thank a teacher. Any day is a good day to do that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwGjlaxdtPw
Then, perhaps, when these teachers look back on their careers, YOU might be that person who kept them going when normalcy took a vacation.
* Here's a 30-second video full of colorful bulletin boards, masks and all: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75Jj7gq8l9E
H. Weaver
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