You've got this!

A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

Here we are, together, under a national emergency none of us could ever see coming. We have taken great responsibility in doing what we can to limit the spread of COVID-19, making tough decisions to socially distance ourselves to protect the vulnerable ones we love as well as the many vulnerable ones we will never meet. We have closed schools indefinitely for some districts, others closing temporarily with no guaranteed date of return. Additionally, districts have uprooted face-to-face classrooms in favor of digital, home-based platforms. A move consisting of a tremendous amount of work on behalf of schools - all done at lightning speed.

COVID-19 has done something else. It has unwittingly forced us to be part of a grand social experiment none of us saw coming. We have - on a national scale - moved from a brick and mortar education system to a homeschooling platform almost overnight. As a career educator, scholar, and parent I will admit I’m fascinated by this experiment. This week alone, I’ve been intently following parents’ social media posts wondering how families, forced to hit the ground running, have fared.

Their self-reports have not disappointed. Through social media tweets, posts, comments, an emerging trend of this grand anthropological, social experiment is clear. Homeschooling is hard. Shonda Rhimes perhaps best captured the zeitgeist of what many are feeling when she tweeted: Been homeschooling a 6-year old and 8-year old for one hour and 11 minutes. Teachers deserve to make a billion dollars a year. Or a week.

Yes, teaching is hard. Yes, teachers deserve to make a higher salary (though I am admittedly biased on the latter). But know this as well, teachers have had years of practice to hone their craft. According to research, teachers on average plug away at their profession for five years before reaching their potential. Five years! Before that, we have days just like some of you have had this week, where curling up in the fetal position seems like a safer option. To be honest, even in my twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth years of teaching, those days STILL popped up from time to time.

While I can't magically transfer all those lessons learnt under your belt, I can ease the learning curve of homeschooling by providing support. For the entirety of this crisis, I am committed to posting at least one easy-to-digest teacher tip per day. One trick, one strategy, one idea teachers commonly use to create positive learning experiences in their classroom. Sound good? I hope so. In return, I only ask one favor. Please share this page if you think it is a good fit for your community. Your feedback will help guide this work. Otherwise, I could continue to type into the digital void - but what kind of fun would that be?

I’ve got you. We’ve got this! Stay safe my friends!

Johanna Thorpe M.Ed., Ed.D.