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What Will We Learn?

I burnt the bacon. Let me be more clear. On the cookie sheet were the charred remains of what could have had the chance of being bacon. What I saw on that cookie sheet was failure.

I tried. I got up early. Hosted my first zoom meeting for our leadership team from the kitchen, so I could also have breakfast ready for my girls. Instead, one had a grapefruit and the other a granola bar. I had a heartache.

I am not the only one. We are all experiencing such moments. No matter our internal fortitude, this crisis will shake us. I know we all are trying to find our balance. I know we all want some control back. And we want answers. How long? What if? Is this enough? Is this too much? In our dark moments we also want to look to someone to blame …or to someone for hope.

Let me try.

We will not return to life as we once knew it. It will not be the same. At least mine won’t be. And I, for one, am grateful for that.

We will have learned through this crisis that we need to collaborate more than we need to compete. We need to communicate honestly and clearly. That goes for all of us… politicians, parents, employers and heads of school. We will realize that there were always conflicting demands on our time and it is our responsibility to determine the boundaries, so our lives have balance for our well-being. We may very well redefine productivity and temper expectations of ourselves and others. We will have learned that we need family – however eclectic that is – more than we need broad acceptance. We will be better listeners. We will be more forgiving, more kind… especially to ourselves. That just the beginning…

I get it. It is scary. We don’t know what tomorrow looks like. We never did. We were just fooling ourselves that we had some semblance of control – some handle on the future. At Wheeling Country Day School we were acutely aware of this. We have been waxing poetic that learning can no longer resemble the classroom of 1991. Afterall the world that a 5-year-old will enter as an adult is one we can only imagine. We knew changes in education needed to be made. What we didn’t know is that by the end of March, the current world for that 5-year-old would be turned on its head. We were thrust into remote learning. This challenged the status quo and ended up allowing so many creative teachers to step into the light as leaders.

Change came at all of us in hyper speed. We only have one choice in response – we have to slow down. Take this one day at a time. If that is overwhelming, try one step a time. With due credit to Disney, “Just do the next right thing. Take a step, step again.” It is all that anyone can to do.

If it takes 21 days to form a new habit, it looks like we might just have long enough to make this our new habit.

I know. These are turbulent times. We cannot stay calm every step of the way. We can fake it when we need to though. Just like we look to a flight attendant during turbulence. If he remains calm, your anxiety is lessened. We need to find our “calm.” There are children watching us. The soundtrack to the day cannot be the constant drone of the news. They need to see and hear us laugh. They need to celebrate small victories and persevere through small failures especially with mom or dad in the next room. They need to play. We need every bit of this too. Sure, we will fail and then we will do the next right thing.

Today I tried again. Mixed the pancake batter. Cooked the bacon. Minded the timer. Started the morning zoom meeting. Fourteen minutes later Ella appeared in the kitchen and applauded my crispy, but not-burnt bacon. She looked at me and then at the batter still in the bowl. In my amazement, she made the pancakes. Perfectly misshapen pancakes that I will never forget.

Elizabeth Hofreuter is head of school at Wheeling Country Day. She is a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard University Graduate School of Education. She has two daughters.

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