Continuity

 Imagine, if you will, that you are a kindergartner who has not set foot in the school that he attends. Not ever, because of COVID-19 restrictions and distance learning. Then, suddenly those restrictions are partially lifted and you are allowed/encouraged to come for a half-day of in-person instruction. Continue to imagine what that experience would be like if, when you showed up, the rest of your class for one reason or another has decided to ignore the invitation and stay home. You were the only child in this brand new world of classroom learning. 

Now imagine that you are a substitute teacher. Online learning has offered a pretty steady gig for new substitutes this year and allowed them to show up for fewer hours and you get to work from home. That is, until those lifted COVID-19 restrictions made the job a little more complex. And the job you picked up just happens to be the one that takes place starting on the first day of in-person learning and the job you took is for kindergarten which is a far cry away from the graduate student teaching you were doing at a college level before the pandemic hit. 

Now imagine that these two people meet in the same room on that first day of "real school." 

Now stop imagining because this really happened at my school this past week. Lionel was the five year old who came to school with his mother on the first day to take his place among a small group of the classmates he had met only on Zoom. Mister George, as he chose to be called, was a former Marine and took a dedication reminiscent of his service to his country to the job he was about to do: teaching a group of five year olds how to be in school. "Real school." When it turned out that it would be just Mister George and Lionel for the two and a half hours that afternoon, neither of them balked. They got straight to work. 

They counted. They read. They drew. They went outside to get a snack and play on the play structure. Just the two of them because even though some of those COVID-19 restrictions had been lifted, we were not allowed to mix classrooms or cohorts. When recess was over, they hustled back to the classroom for another story and some coloring. Toward the end of the day, the sub plans ran a little thin for just one student. That's when Lionel asked if he could play with the Lincoln Logs that were sitting on a shelf not far from his desk. Mister George was relieved that he couldn't find a thing wrong with this idea, and the two of them worked for the last half hour on towering structures that tumbled initially, but grew stronger on the second attempt. 

Then it was three o'clock. Lincoln Logs returned to the bin and the shelf, backpack retrieved and chair pushed in, Lionel said goodbye to Mister George as he walked out the gate to his anxious mother. She didn't need to be anxious. Lionel would be coming back the next day. And so would Mister George, who explained to me that continuity is important for kids. 

I could not disagree with that.