Life teaches hard lessons to the old and the young. Yesterday, my wife and I probably took for granted the usual, causal motions of the moment: Hugging our son, feeling the love in the hugs of his children, embracing dear friends, the handshakes of others. Add to those losses the quiet of our neighborhood, the disappearance of school buses on our roads, the silence of school playgrounds at recess, the exuberance of students rushing to board buses for the ride home. Further the drive to the local supermarket takes us past businesses we frequented but now fear will struggle mightily once reopened, that is, if they ever do. Never mind “No shoes, no shirts, no service”. Signs announcing limits to the number of shoppers at any one time in a store are everywhere. Gloves and masks needed for shopping make us more anonymous than ever. We feel the need to ask, who was that masked man/woman? The Lone Stranger is our guess.
We are amazed by the number of heroes in this world. Where do they find the courage to do what must be done? We are touched by the grief of families who have lost so much.
My father was born during the great pandemic of 1918-1920. Two siblings, a brother and a sister, both passed on the same day due to the flu. His story was not unique. The randomness of that disease and today’s scourge is the stuff of nightmares. My father, like many of his generation, spoke of graduating from the “school of hard knocks”. He told me you learned from life. Life didn’t learn anything from you.
The primary lesson taught by the Rose Brucia Educational Foundation concerns personal space. As applied to epidemics, it is called social distancing. With today’s virtual connections at one’s fingertips, it would seem difficult to keep social distance. I read an essay by a psychologist that suggested physical distancing as a more appropriate expression. Your daily actions reinforce our teaching strategy. Dorothy Nolte, author and family counselor, stated, Children do learn what they live. Then they grow up to live what they’ve learned.
There an awful lot of stuff on your plates right now. Maybe you are looking for some other resources to bolster your home schooling responsibilities, to give your child or children some relief from the sameness of the day. We offer the videos from our site as short breaks from the day’s lessons. Go to our site, www.rosebrucia.org, and check them out. Scroll under “Free Curriculum”. There are video lessons and lesson plans for Kindergarten, First and Second grades. Short in duration, hopefully engaging and age appropriate; make use of them as you will.
This crisis will produce knowledge about the world we live in and especially about ourselves. It has left its mark on us all, some more devastatingly than others. It is a very different world now where Be Safe and Stay Safe now mean the same as I HOPE to see you again. I can’t wait to be with you once more.
Please Be Safe!