The Journal presents my weekly reflections on being a private, Catholic school principal during what promises to be a year filled with energy, excitement, challenges and possibilities…
Last May, in the confusion of a school year that limped to the finish line and felt – in some ways – like it has never actually concluded, we did not know when we would return or how we would return. This May, calendars are set, fall meetings are scheduled, autumn plans are on the books.
mere days, students that we in education worked so very, very hard to get back in school will be thrilled to leave it. Faculties will clear out class rooms, leave the halls and transition into their summers. School buildings will once again be empty. Lights will be dimmed. Doors will be locked.
This time, however, we know when we will be back.
Last May, in the confusion of a school year that limped to the finish line and felt – in some ways – like it has never actually concluded, we did not know when we would return or how we would return. This May, calendars are set, fall meetings are scheduled, autumn plans are on the books.
There is comfort in that, a comfort that has a powerful mental and emotional effect.
When asked by family and friends outside of education to describe the pandemic “year,” more often than not I have said “it’s been impossible” and it surely felt as though it was. The choices I faced as an educational leader, the unanticipated situations and the balancing of the good “bad” decisions, the mistakes I know that I made all contributed to a sense of impossibility, and a feeling that I was not serving anyone well from our students to our faculty to our families to our community at large. I have never in my career felt more out of touch, out of place or out of control.
This past Saturday was graduation at my school and, as I shook the last hand and as the caps were thrown, I felt a sudden shift, a lifting of a weight and a definite and palpable unburdening.
The finish line which had seemed so distant as to be unreachable came into view.
There will be time in the coming weeks to reflect on the year and to celebrate its successes. Perspective will have its moment and I will be able to review the pandemic months with more objectivity. The summer brings peace. It brings time off. It brings solemnity.
Most immediately, it brings the finish line.
This is the final edition of Teach & Serve Volume 6.
Look for Volume 7 on Wednesday, August 4, 2021
We didn’t get out of the year without one final quarantine this past week. Is it the last of the pandemic? I hope and I pray that it is!