Education in the time of Corona: Views from Vermont

     It's after 9 pm and it's another day of where is all the down time we supposedly have at home? Another fine day of workish stuff, cooking (sourdough bread and mushroom soup), and a good run when the sun came out (not as fun as yesterday's surprise ski adventure on 2" of snow hacking around in the woods and hoping to beat nightfall:).      We had faculty meeting today and being so late already, I will only reflect on the sadness of how little support it seems we can provide for the most vulnerable kids. The most noteworthy are students who are in difficult home situations and not only do they have trouble connecting via the internet, but they probably don't have a good space at home to do work and they may have parents with their own struggles and then they feel worse about themselves and personal challenges they may have been putting behind them begin to resurface and all this progress they may have made and all the stability and reinforcement they ge...

Day 9: A new week, gloomy weather....       Okay, that was all fun and games last week to be in this novel, stay at home world. It's hard to overestimate how uplifting it was last week to have sunshine and a hint of spring to liven up the otherwise potential sobering reality of our enforced social isolation.       This week? Not such inspiring weather with temperatures just above freezing and cold rain falling most of the day (although the lightning storm last night and pea sized hail was a bit of a thrill).       What does the new week bring? I guess a bit of the uncertainties are becoming a bit less uncertain (is that tentative enough?). Was it Thursday afternoon that the Governor told us schools would be closed for the remainder of the year? I was surprised more about the timing of this than that this was the decision I kind of expected. It seems this finality could have waited until late April or something, but I think the Governor wa...

Day 8: Time Flies      It's hard to know where time goes in a day. It's now well past 8 pm and I feel this has been another full and successful day, but basically everything on that checklist of "things I can get done now that I don't have to go to work" remains unchecked.      I hear from some of our students that they don't have time to do all their schoolwork, although the teachers are aiming to assign only a few hours per day of work. Even though the kids have cleared the 6-8 hours per day of school off their schedule, it's hard for even the most dedicated ones to complete some of the work expected.      I think some of this, for all of us, is the odd way time gets eaten up in these unusual times and some of it is adjusting to the new situation and figuring out how to structure our lives. Some relates to the stresses we feel in uncertain times. And maybe a fair bit is the time some of us spend listening more intently to the news, ...

Day 7: Schools Closed for the Remainder of the Year!!!!      WOW! Just heard that announcement. While this is something I pretty much predicted and thought likely even from the time we first closed, the reality of it is sobering. I haven't had any time to process this at all, except harkening back to my earlier recognition that this has already been an unexpectedly early start to my retirement from Compass.      The list of implications of this closing of schools are more than I can (or care to) detail here. Obviously one area of regret is the impact on graduation and this celebration of student growth and accomplishment. There are countless other elements of our spring programming that will be sorely missed. As I often say about Compass, while our 12th graders may not always be the most hard working in the US the rest of the year, they probably do more in the last month of school that almost any other senior in other schools.      While e...

Day 6: Compass Newsletter      It's amazing how time passes when you think you don't have that much to do. Luckily I remembered today was newsletter day, so I got that done before going out to ski (the best of social distancing sports). Seeing how hard it can be to keep up with the blog daily, I think I will copy my newsletter introduction here, as my inner compass is leading me to listen to the news and call it the end of my "work day," such as it is. Getting Remote Learning off the Ground First off, I hope all are well and adjusting to our current reality.  There seems to be a couple schools of perspective on responding to the pandemic: one relates to slowing down, taking things as they come, and finding acceptance. The other perspective is to acknowledge how stressful these times can be and to know that is okay and "normal" (when all else is not normal). I guess you can hold both simultaneously and maybe both are similar in affirming whatever y...

Day 5: Faculty Meeting Day Something on my calendar I actually have to attend to! I suddenly feel so much more "essential". There seems to be a couple schools of perspective on responding to the pandemic: one aligns with my non-ambition post of yesterday and finding acceptance. A lovely poem from a neighbor expresses this well: You do not have to become totally zen, You do not have to use this isolation to make your mar riage better, your body slimmer, your children more creative. You do not have to “maximize its benefits” By using this time to work even more, write the bestselling Corona Diaries, Or preach the gospel of ZOOM. You only have to let the soft animal of your body unlearn everything capitalism has taught you, (That you are nothing if not productive, That consumption equals happiness, That the most important unit is the single self. That you are at your best when you resemble an efficient machine). The other perspective is to acknowledge how stressful these t...

Day 4 (or weekday 4, day 6 if you count the weekend): On Non-Ambition It seems trite to note how fast this is all changing and to think we were in school just a week ago and.... Before getting into ruminations on life under social distancing, for educators shaping communication with students, I want to link to the overall remote learning letter to our 9th graders sent out Friday.  This felt super clear to me, well organized, and eminently doable for the students (I hope:). We'll see. Not sure if you can get to the embedded links in the document but if you want access to that, email me . Onto Ambition, or lack thereof: I realize so many, if not most, of the strategies people use to get through life and its stressors have been suddenly been taken away. Retail therapy, going to the gym, hanging out in bars, social immersion, etc. are pretty much off the table. I guess people could try to replicate these in their own isolated kind of way and there seems no shortage of stories ci...

Day 3: Small is Beautiful I'm struck by the value of small scale in these crazily changing times. For Compass, our small numbers (70ish students grades 7-12 and 12 teachers and a few other staff) make us feel able to be nimble and responsive. Some of this, of course, is just tiny numbers--only a few kids and families need food support, on line meetings only have to accommodate 14 or so, the number of kids without internet is single digits rather than hundreds or thousands. If we have to chase down kids not responding with their remote learning, it hopefully will be just a few and staff could even go to their houses to check in. I also think our staff (and students as well) can connect and find common ground for whatever is needed because we are smaller, more cohesive, and everyone can be included and contribute to the decisions we make. I don't envy the hard work our local public school district administrators are doing to organize multiple schools, large numbers of teachers...

I have no idea if my insights are worthwhile to anyone but me--most of this seems common sense but in case I can be of any help to anyone else, I'll continue to share my thoughts as things evolve. I expect to share my background soon (as soon as things slow down.....????) but at the moment, next steps seem more immediate. But briefly, I should note for anyone who doesn't know me personally, I am the director/principal of a small middle-high school that serves grades 7-12. I draw on 30+ years as an educator in a wide variety of settings from outdoor and international travel to higher ed to consulting with a bunch of schools where I got to steal a lot of great ideas. I keep thinking about those big number calculations on how much traffic or smoking costs the country in lost productivity. We should count up the cost of all the school administrators writing largely similar correspondence to families about how we're planning for remote learning and developing plans for food di...

Education in the Age of Corona Day 1 It’s 9:17 am on the first day of ?????. I’ve managed to dither away a few hours of reading in bed, checking internet news about the virus and trying to understand what does a lockdown really mean (are people over quarantining? Being too lax? Is there any clarity?), checking the sourdough starter, stretching, listening to VPR…. I had figured we would take three days for “curriculum camp” to plan for remote learning and this big, unknown, unscheduled what comes next time would be postponed until the end of the week. But we were so productive yesterday that here I am, with literally nothing but time and sunny skies and my laptop to ruminate on what now? Up til today, I’ve been immersed in the immediate, take it one step at a time/what needs to be done now (probably not the worst approach going forward). I’m sure I’m not unique in noting how fast this has all evolved. It was last Tuesday night when I told a friend who asked about our plan...