Electrical storm in your veins
Raging at unreachable glory
Straining at invisible chains..."
–Rush, The Pass
This continued into my first two years of college. And then one year at a time after that, I began ease off pushing that horrid boulder up the hill, until I finally arrived at one day on the beach.
When I think about all those years, I try to imagine any of them, especially the end of high school, being stuck in the middle of a global pandemic. If that would've happened back then, what would've then happened back then? Would we have gone to distance learning? Would that have helped ease my panic attack, being put into much fewer social situations? Not having to go to class in person? Although the reality is the technology didn't exist back then like it does today to go to all virtual classes. There probably still would've been back and forth to school to pick up school work, and that would've been too stressful for me.
Ugh. None of that matters though, because that's not what happened. Not even close. Today we are most certainly in a world in the middle of a global pandemic, and like millions of other parents, we're helping our two daughters traverse distance learning and limited social situations with friends and the pods we hang with.
But unlike me growing up, our oldest Beatrice struggles with math and reading (except when it comes to saving, giving and spending her allowance). My wife Amy works with her a lot, and so do I in between work, reading with her and helping where I can. Our youngest Bryce does not struggle with any subjects, but we help her as needed as well. However, for both, it's been quite the transition going to distance learning last spring and staying in it all of this fall. They're pretty resilient, though, and we're so grateful for that. We just want them to study, to learn and to do the best they can. To try, no matter how much Bea despises math (and she's quite vocal about that). They may even get the opportunity to go back to school two days per week in the spring, if and only if COVID-19 doesn't surge again in our county (which it has of late, and everywhere for that matter).
Unfortunately there are too many students falling behind everywhere, struggling with distance learning, with some students not even attending online school. It's been difficult for all involved -- students, parents, teachers, administrators -- everyone. We all just want things to go back to the way they were, but until we're mostly vaccinated and infection rates go down with the virus under control, there will be more distance learning and hybrid school models, and more students falling behind.
It sucks. Plus, we just had another Friday the 13th in November. Now, 13 is my lucky number, and yet, Friday the 13th is always associated with bad luck. At dinner one night the week of November 13, Bryce became quite animated and told us that because the last day of in-person school was Friday the 13th in March, when we wake up on Friday the 13th in November we should say "Jumanji" and everything would go back to pre-covid normal.
That didn't happen (even I hoped it would), and it will never happen, but the girls' fall semester grades did happen. For Bryce's grade school, there are no letter grades, but she had high marks overall. For Beatrice, we couldn't be prouder, because she got straight A's. It may not always look like this, but that doesn't matter. It's this moment that matters. And the next one. And the next.
Other "Days of Coronavirus" posts:
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