This is not a retreat
They’re almost socially distanced anyway. East Tennessee, September 2019.
The other night, I dreamed that I was aboard a sinking ship.
Yeah, my subconscious comes up with reaaaaal subtle metaphors.
Actually, in the dream, it was sort of like we were on a sinking ship and then were supposed to sit down and watch a movie about people who were on a sinking ship, which is exactly what it feels like to experience life right now. The scale and scope of everything that is happening, from fires to the global pandemic to hurricanes to racial injustice, is impossible to take in. We just get our tiny corner of it to try to make sense of, and then we’re watching everyone else from at least six feet away.
Trying to make a school function under these circumstances is a new and sometimes heartbreaking challenge. How do you build trust and connection via Zoom, especially with a kid who is wary of teachers? What do you do when a kid refuses to do the work? How do you acknowledge milestones or special effort? And how do you build toward something when we’re not sure what we’re building toward? It does feel like a sinking ship sometimes.
When I think about the symbolism of a sinking ship and what it means, I see chaos, resignation, and being trapped. Those don’t have to be my real life experiences, though. What does it mean to abandon ship? It means to let go of the journey I thought I was on and plunge into the unknown. Well, guess what. That’s what we’ve all been doing for quite some time now. We can handle it.
This week, The Little Middle School would normally be having its fall retreat. We drive into the mountains of Tennessee to come together as a group, freed from the constraints of the classroom. New leaders arise as students display skills and talents that are hidden when sitting at a desk: The courage to be the first to do the zip line. The emotional intelligence to encourage the student who is the most scared to do the zip line. The generosity to help tidy the cabins. The creativity to contribute storytelling or improv comedy to a cooperative game.
We go out of our way to learn and honor these things about our students and help them learn and honor these things about each other. Despite the fear and uncertainty — despite the sense of being on a sinking ship, with the rate of increase of COVID cases climbing once again in the United States — we have to continue to find ways to connect. We’ve got to keep problem-solving and innovating. We’ve got to hang onto the idea that it won’t always be this way, even as we accept that this is the way it is for the foreseeable future.
We’ve done some fun things. We’ve played games and written plays for Zoom. We’ve had weekly calls for parents to check in. We’ve checked out each other’s artwork, science experiments, and musical performances. And next week, we’ll get together in person in small groups, outside.
With everything that there is to learn about how to be together with masks and social distancing — with everything that there is to learn about each other — our academic subjects will be put aside. We’ll dress for the weather and explore the neighborhood. We’ll make some outdoor art using temporary media. We’ll take pictures. We’ll do sports. we’ll play games. We’ll figure it out.
Our first forays into socially-distanced learning won’t be perfect. Nobody has ever taught in a mask (or learned in a mask). We don’t know how to do it yet. But we’ll figure it out. We’ll learn, we’ll accomplish new things, we’ll grow — no classroom necessary.
A retreat signifies a drawing back, a simplification and reduction. In the mountains, this is easy to accomplish: no cell service, a rustic setting, and a laid-back agenda with plenty of room for students to splash around in the creek for hours before dinner and play basketball for hours afterward. But in this time when we’ve already spent months in retreat — when we’ve already had our activities so severely curtailed and our ability to explore has been so profoundly limited — I can’t think of a better way to honor the occasion of our fall retreat than to carefully venture out into the world together.
