Decentered

As I wrote last week, I was planning on sharing some concrete ideas for the first days of school this fall.

And I will.

I think.

But I have become decentered, and getting back to center is feeling difficult, if not impossible.

I write this because I suspect many many many teachers (and parents) have been feeling this way for a while. That is, decentered by conflicting realities that

just don’t add up.

Like sending kids back to school when teachers fear for their lives yet parents need child care. (I’ve written about this before.)

Like watching an entire college town out and about, some with masks, some without, many playing beer pong on front lawns, while you drop off your son in a dorm that appears to be observing precisely zero COVID safeguards. Despite the university’s assurances of a foolproof COVID policy.

Like going home and checking into a motel a mile from your house to protect your daughter from exposure to you — because you spent time in a high-risk college town.

Like making hybrid teaching work. Like waiting to hear what you’re going to be told to do next week or the week after that. Like waiting out negotiations between your school district and your union. Like waiting for your school building to close down again. All this might be de-centering you.

You’ve heard of zoom fatigue? This is reality fatigue. Fractured realities take a lot of energy to hold together.

So let us focus on centering.

Pause.

Uhh.

I can’t.

And so I won’t.

Mantra: If you’re serious about not doing the impossible, you gotta not do it. You’ve got to turn it into something that’s possible first.

And I need more time to do that.