How Does Your Garden Grow?

We will mark the two-year anniversary of when COVID first began to impact our world in Vermont in one month. It has been a roller coaster, to say the least. From the shutdown of schools in 2020 to the hope for this school year, only to be deterred by the Delta and the Omicron variants, we have all felt various emotions throughout these past twenty-three months. And as we look forward to the spring of this year, do we dare think that we see another light at the end of the tunnel? 

Case counts are coming down in our country. Case counts are coming down in our state. Case counts are coming down in our district. Vaccines are widely available for anyone five years of age and up. We are learning to manage our world with this pesky virus in it and are yearning for the label endemic, to finally shift away from the word pandemic. 

We've learned how to do school differently over the past two years and confirmed what we suspected all along: that learning does not only happen in a school building. I'm not suggesting in any way that we return to remote learning; what I am saying is that we have an opportunity to see and view school and learning differently than we did two years ago. But to do so will take courage because change tends to make people uncomfortable. 

We like our routines. I like my routines. We like the predictability of knowing what is coming next and the outcomes of those routines. And we've known that the way that we "do" school does not work for every child, and it does not work for every adult. So as we look forward to the endemic portion of this past almost two years, I offer that we have an opportunity to do something that we rarely have the chance to do: make meaningful change. 

I was listening to a podcast recently and what I heard really impacted me: 

If you're planting a garden, you must first get rid of the weeds. You have to get rid of the dead plants from last year. Any rocks that have shifted to the top, must also be removed. The soil has to be tenderized and broken down to make room to plant the new garden. 

There is plenty that we want to get rid of from these past two years. There are weeds from the remnants of this pandemic. We have plenty of rocks that need to be removed. We have to till the soil and to make room for all our plans for next year. 

And we are going to be careful. We've experienced a lot over these past two years that we want to continue. We've streamed events, and we hope to continue to do so. We've been mindful of our students' and adults'  social emotional health, and we will continue to do so. We've also demonstrated that learning can happen anywhere, and we want that to continue as well. That will require the courage to embrace discomfort and change. 

It's what we do every year that we plant a new garden. We get rid of the things that are not growing, and we protect what still has life. We tend the soil, regularly give it water, and hope for as much sunlight as needed for flourishing. We meet the needs of the garden, adjusting as necessary to grow what we want. 

It's how our garden grows. 

Photo courtesy of www.ratethequote.com