A Most Unusual School Year!

Everything about this school year
Screams UNUSUAL. Most unusual!
Classes normally commence after Labor Day.
New clothes and school supplies are purchased.
School districts all have different calendars.

Our neighborhood has many teachers who
must juggle when they teach from home versus
when their children take the bus to school. Child
care is challenging when both parents work. A new
German teacher dropped by to pick up some teaching

  

materials for his budding career. He plans to teach online
from Upstate New York to a school in Virginia.
Searching for posters to give him, I came across a letter
to our daughter from her former teachers in a combined third-
fourth grade class at a private, independent school.

How vastly different those days were as compared
with beginning school this year. The students kept guinea pigs
in their classroom. History projects, singing for birthdays and holidays.
Donning snowshoes for a field trip to Beaver Lake Nature Center
where they did some ice cutting on the lake. The Authors’ Luncheon

   

was a stellar event with parents as everyone munched through
thirty stories and poetry anthologies. Projects on pyramids,
papyrus, pharaohs, and Nefertiti, and of course, the process
of mummification. A service project with an African school,
closing exercises, goodbyes, hugs, promises to stop by
for a visit. Parents were praised for rearing wonderful

future citizens and wished a beautiful summer. We
encountered similar projects and events in schools
in Germany when I taught there, and our son and daughter
attended German schools and became fluent in German.
We hope that all students will return to school full-time.

They need the social interaction with others in a
nurturing environment. Retired now, I still love to
listen to neighborhood children tell me about
school, sports and trips they took over the summer.
They still leave us art work with chalk on our driveway.

Life is not normal as we once knew it but soon, it
will return. Meanwhile, we do our part to help the
young people stay connected with each other and
the older neighbors. From the dog walkers and
young ones in strollers, we still smile and greet them.