education

So after doing school at home for six days now, I have learned three things:

The eraser icon is really fun to use on the Zoom whiteboard. Algebra may never be the same again.

The cookie jar is far too close to my kitchen table/desk.

Doing a virtual chapel just feels…flat.

I prep what I plan to say. I flip through the Benjamin’s Box story and make sure the Resurrection Eggs are nearby.  I have the Bible verse marked and ready to read. And then my sweet, understanding husband positions the camera and tiny tripod on the ironing board and does the 3 – 2 – 1 countdown. (We didn’t realize it at the time, but if you look closely at the video, you can actually see the ancient ironing board reflected in the fireplace glass. Sigh. I hadn’t counted on that. I have a lot more to learn!)

Everything seemed to go pretty much as planned. When finished, though, there wasn’t that normal feeling of ‘got it!’ I attributed it to doing this at 10:00 pm after two long virtual meetings. I silently prayed that the Holy Spirit would take the meager words from my lips and transform them into at least a few spiritually meaty morsels for the students and parents that would see the video the next morning.

I marinated on this thought throughout today.  I was sincerely puzzled. Why had the chapel time seemed so flat, for lack of a better word, last night?

You have it already figured out, don’t you?

The kids aren’t with me. I’m not seeing their faces, listening to their giggles, watching their wiggles. I’m not able to gauge the pace of how I read, or use a softer or slower voice if they’re really into the story. I can’t turn to look at them to drive home a particular point. It’s just me and the camera-on-the-ironing-board.

I miss them. My life is not the same. I am grateful for the technology we have so that we can still maintain a decent level of connection, but it’s…flat.

I have a new appreciation for the importance and value of other people with me in real-time. Thankfully, we will be able to fully rejoin the human race soon. And when we do, my world will be joyfully full of lively, noisy children who can teach me how to switch from the eraser icon back to the pencil tool more easily.

 

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But in the meantime…join me in spreading joy to our neighborhoods this week. It’s nearly Easter, so let’s hang those colorful plastic eggs on at least one tree in each yard of each neighborhoods. Think of it!

When I was a little girl, my parents would take us to ‘see the lights’ at Christmas. It brought some of the magic to the season for me. Now, we can bring some Easter cheer to our friends and families, in the midst of our safer-at-home scenario, when we all might have a feeling that life is a little ‘flat.’

I can’t wait to see families take bike rides together to see egg-laden trees in our neighborhoods. Have some fun with this! Make all the eggs on one tree the same color. Another house do a different color. You could create a pattern (purple, yellow, purple, yellow)…can you tell I’m a math teacher at heart?

The point, though, is to just have fun together. Make our houses and neighborhoods a fun place to be. Who knows, once we can come out of our COVID-19 hibernation, we might strike up a few new friendships. That would make life definitely NOT FLAT.