I just heard Bill Gates talk about the coronavirus pandemic on television, and one quote that caught my attention was "This is a defining event."
Those words make me think about how this event will define me and how I will define the event in terms of my work, relationships, and values. What will change and what will stay the same?
Seize the moment
We have all read the sage advice about seizing the moment and not letting life go by without recognition of the depth, positivity, and meaning those good moments of life create. Recently a college senior, when giving a speech at a virtual sports banquet, used a quote from the television show, The Office, which exemplified a seize-the-moment mindset: "I wish there was a way to know you were in the good old days before you actually left them."
These pandemic days are not the days we expected, but they are the good old days we'll look back on. How will we make this time matter?
Warm, Welcoming Homes
No matter the size, location, or make-up of the place that you live, it's your home. And during this time, most of us have the time to think about how we can make our homes warm and welcoming now and into the future. This is a good focus because as we've seen during this pandemic, to have a warm, welcoming home brings comfort, safety, and care during this time.
How can we make our homes warm and welcoming? Everyone's list will be somewhat different in this regard. My list includes the following actions:
Those words make me think about how this event will define me and how I will define the event in terms of my work, relationships, and values. What will change and what will stay the same?
Seize the moment
We have all read the sage advice about seizing the moment and not letting life go by without recognition of the depth, positivity, and meaning those good moments of life create. Recently a college senior, when giving a speech at a virtual sports banquet, used a quote from the television show, The Office, which exemplified a seize-the-moment mindset: "I wish there was a way to know you were in the good old days before you actually left them."
These pandemic days are not the days we expected, but they are the good old days we'll look back on. How will we make this time matter?
Warm, Welcoming Homes
No matter the size, location, or make-up of the place that you live, it's your home. And during this time, most of us have the time to think about how we can make our homes warm and welcoming now and into the future. This is a good focus because as we've seen during this pandemic, to have a warm, welcoming home brings comfort, safety, and care during this time.
How can we make our homes warm and welcoming? Everyone's list will be somewhat different in this regard. My list includes the following actions:
- Less things, more time. Culling collections to keep essential items and get rid of all the unnecessary extras.
- A clean home is a welcoming home. Cleaning up the nooks and crannies that we typically don't have time to attend to.
- Grow your own food. Making yard and container gardens to grow our own food for healthy, delicious meals.
- Surround yourself with images and reminders of good times, beautiful places, and your loved ones. Placing pictures that bring warmth and happiness around your home.
- Health matters. Filling the cupboards with healthy food and learning to cook all kinds of tasty meals is one way to stay healthy.
Meaningful, Impactful Professional Work
For those of us who are working from home, this is a good time to focus in on the aspects of your work that you may improve in meaningful, impactful ways. As an educator, this is a good time for me to focus in on how I coach individual students, small groups, and the whole class. It's also a good time to zero in on the details of curriculum efforts that I want to develop and improve. I'm looking deeply at multiple aspects of math teaching and learning including math talk, model making, and deeper understanding of main math concepts at the fifth grade level. I'm also exploring the best ways to motivate student learning across their many varied home lives as we embark on standards-based learning. For example, students are learning about composting. I created an online learning menu of many videos that introduce the topic and an assignment for students to create their own in-house or outdoor composters, then share images and descriptions of their composters on a shared slide show.
Personal Health and Happiness
These days at home have given us the opportunity to notice what we love and what makes us happy and healthy. It is a good time to focus in on personal health today and into the future, a time to put to rest some old-time not-so-good habits. For many of us, we may notice that there's a lot we can do without while there are some aspects of living that we treasure above all others.
Contribution and Community
Contribution to one another is what sustains us at times like these. Most people are looking for ways that they can uplift those around them with meaningful contribution. Creating and sustaining strong communities via contribution and advocacy is essential at any time, but particularly impactful now when we need each other tremendously.