Let Fish Swim

IN 2020, I LEFT the education field. I waited tables, washed cups and glasses, and thought “that could have been me,” whenever I glimpsed a story online or chatted with a friend about what teachers had to deal with that year. When I returned to teaching, it was as if I had returned to a world that had been turned upside down, and not in a doom and gloom sort of way. It was more like picking up a dropped backpack or purse after the contents have spilled out all over the sidewalk. It was like watching a person hastily retrieve the items, shoving everything back into place and coming to terms with the fact that it will never be quite the same again. It was like a fish returning to a tank to find everything clean but rearranged. A lot of things stayed the same, some things got better, but no matter which way I looked at it, things were different.

In the post-pandemic classroom, I’m reminded of the importance of embracing difference. Our students experienced the pandemic differently than us, and they came up with some pretty cool new ways of experiencing the world. They missed out on things, but they also learned to adapt. They seem to live on the internet, but they’re also burnt out and stressed about processing so much information. They’re as fascinated with the past as they are with the future. Their attention spans are shorter but they learn quickly. They are different from us, and that’s okay.

As an educator, things tend to go more smoothly when I focus on giving my students problems to solve rather than telling them how to solve them. Connections seem to happen more quickly when I focus on finding out what they can do rather than what they can’t. When I expect skills and knowledge from them that they don’t have, I think of the fish being placed back into a tank where everything looks a little bit different. Although it’s a little sad to think of these things being lost to time, I remind myself to trust that the fish knows what to do and that the way I feel about things being different won’t stop the fish from swimming.