Front Lines and Finish Lines

Social Studies

This is the final week of distance learning, a household term that nobody knew three months ago. This week, we go to the school to pick up what was left behind in their lockers in the Great Middle School Rapture of March 2020.

One of the parents commented on the school thread:

I’m so sorry you have to clean out my daughter’s locker.
I just learned that she was sharing a locker with one of her friends,
and they had deemed her empty locker “the snack locker.”
God only knows what you’ll find,
but that task is far above your paygrade.
I’m sorry in advance.

Middle Schoolers are a strange and wonderful breed, and the teachers cleaning out their abandoned spaces are real heroes on the front lines.

We got this farewell email from Tucker’s social studies teacher:

So I guess this is it – not sure how this happened – it went way too quick for me – even these last few months.
My wish for all of you is that you don’t beat yourselves up too much about what did not get done or what did not get taught.

The way I look at it is this: you did social studies if you talked as a family about this history making event and how it will be something neither you or your children will ever forget.  It’s not often we get a public health crisis like this – thank goodness.

If your family talked about a dream vacation and where you would go or what you would do – then consider that social studies.

If you shared with your children a funny story from your childhood – well that’s history right there!

Perhaps you introduced your kids to a favorite movie or television show from your past (personally at my house we are knee-deep into Season 2 of The West Wing) – that right there is social studies as well.

If you loved on your kids and told them all was going to be ok in the end – that these are times that try us as Americans but it isn’t the first time we have been tested as a nation – then you have done social studies.

Because honestly, being together and persevering though this crisis and coming out intact on the other end – that was the most important thing to happen in your household since March 13.

Moms and Dads, you DID social studies – and you did it beautifully – I just know.

Well, if that isn’t enough to goose your bumps, then I don’t know what is. It’s all I needed this morning.

Here’s to the teachers, students, moms, and dads who have limped across this finish line. Don’t beat yourselves up too much about what is left unlearned and unfinished.

You did it beautifully. I just know it.

Tricia Lott Williford

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  1. This post goosed my bumps, I can tell ‘ya right there! Love your writing, Tricia.

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