Surviving a Pandemic

This is an email Mike Landgraf sent his Lower School teaching faculty earlier this week. We wanted to share his inspiring and hopeful words with our community.

December 2, 2020

I saw a quote the other day that really made me pause and think about our current situation. The quote was, “Kids are not falling behind, they are surviving a pandemic.” With all of the challenges and difficulties associated with the pandemic, remote learning, and schooling in general I see this quote as an invitation to reassess what we are prioritizing. This is an opportunity to experientially teach empathy, kindness, tolerance, perseverance, grace, forgiveness, creativity and flexibility. Not to mention a greater appreciation for nature. It is not so much what we are teaching right now but the how.

It is also important to be vulnerable and not be afraid to fail. We are all learning new things and failure becomes inevitable. The important thing is what we learn from that. As we get a taste of remote learning we need to forget the stress and anxiety it created in the spring for many, but a chance to improve on last year and reset our priorities and expectations during these times. We need to acknowledge that we are helping children and each other survive a pandemic physically and mentally. Make sure we communicate often, provide tools for parents to help engage their children, emphasize accountability, listen, collaborate and partner with parents. These are great opportunities to engage with both the students and parents. 

It is also a chance to change the trajectory of priorities in education. Put civility and civic engagement at the forefront. As a nation, we have not done a good job of teaching tolerance, open mindedness, morality, and kindness. Kids may be testing well on standardized measures, but we are failing on cultivating creativity, conviction, collaboration, problem solving, conflict resolution, humility, and kindness. Because we are not assessing these essential character traits we are not prioritizing them. However, now it is imperative for us to intentionally have these outcomes as our ultimate indicator of if we are succeeding as effective schools. 

We need to not beat ourselves up if we don’t get through the typical amount of lessons or units in a particular subject. At the end of this pandemic, we will realize that our standard curriculum, albeit important, will take a back seat to a curriculum that we may not even know we are all writing. That curriculum is the daily guide we are creating on how to survive a pandemic. Intertwined in that has been life lessons on racial tensions and inequalities, political divides, and the overall need for compassion. Let’s focus on how we are treating one another and what we are modeling for our children. It is these lessons that will have the greatest impact on our children moving forward. It is this hope of increased civility and kindness that makes me excited about where we can be as the pandemic eventually gets under control. I hope that once again we will be united around some common goals to love thy neighbors and treat others as we would hope to be treated.

Our world is in need of healing. In the end, I hope that we will realize that our children did not fall behind, but in fact have taken great strides to make the world a better place and that they will be the ones that help us all heal. 

As educators, we have such a tremendous opportunity to help move the needle on our nation’s moral compass. In the short time I have been at Canterbury, I am so encouraged by what I have seen from all of you and the tremendous character and passion that you have to positively impact each child. We have lots of work to do, and the journey will continue to be challenging, however, I look forward to rolling up my sleeves and doing the work that we are all called to do. Thanks for all that you are all doing!