I haven't written any posts for a while. I haven't felt like it. I've been busy nursing some minor depression, and some psychic paralysis. It's summer. I survived converting my rich, textured, interesting classroom into an online "meeting platform". Thus, wrecking the entire last three months of school for everyone. I felt cheated. I felt angry. ANGRY. But, teaching online enabled me to care for my 91 year-old dad. I drove to his house a few times during each week, and made him dinner. His usual restaurant dinners were cancelled. My goal was to keep him inside, and covid free.
I started having trouble sleeping during quarantine. Normally, I'm an introvert. So, spending time in isolation wasn't really that difficult. But, I missed my students fiercely. Mostly, I felt guilty for all of the fun activities that they had lost. When I would see them dropping off work, or see them online, I just wanted to hug them. I wanted to spill out apologies for their wrecked year. But, I could do neither. Cue insomnia.
During this pandemic, I've been reflecting on some past reading. A few years back, I read a book by John M. Barry, about the Spanish Influenza pandemic of 1918. Vague, hazy memories of how society behaves during a quarantine came back into my mind. And, I recently started reading "The Plague" by Albert Camus. I had read it thirty years ago as part of a challenging French Literature course. These two books have colored my thinking during quarantine. These are trying times. What do we learn from them? I have learned that there is greed and stupidity. There are people who will buy all of the toilet paper in the store, and there are stores that will encourage this type of hoarding to make a tidy profit. But, I also have witnessed people take food to neighbors, check in on the elderly, say a kind word, wear masks, and just behave like decent human beings.
This pandemic isn't over. It won't be for a while. I learned that from Mr. Barry's book. There will be more waves. There will be vaccine development. We will need to have testing and tracing. I was reading aloud, on youtube, a book called "Number the Stars" for my students. It is a story of the Nazi occupation in Denmark. It is a story of a highly organized resistance movement which smuggled many Jews from Denmark to Sweden, hidden aboard small fishing boats. I told my class, after reading it, that difficult times are a measure of who we really are. This pandemic is a test of our character. Will we stay in bed and feel sad about missing school? Will we get out of our pajamas and get work done? Will we engage with our family and make new connections? I want to be sure and constant like Dr. Bernard Rieux. I'm wobbly. But, I'm trying.
