A few days ago, a student I am coaching started his session with, “I am so happy to be in-person again.” What? He’s never been happy to go to school! Clearly, distance learning has made him appreciate being in school, something that I would never have expected.

We know that there is a vaccine and a finish line, but it seems like the end will never come, and we are the adults. Imagine what it must feel like to have lived all of this as a child or young adult.

After watching several inaugurations with the expectation that it was business as usual, I surprised myself to be so emotional during the swearing in of President Biden and Vice President Harris.

As we finally say goodbye to 2020 and look forward to the hope that 2021 brings, I thought it would be interesting to ask my students what their 2020 resolution would be if they could go back with all of the knowledge of the year.

Most years, students have spent three months in traditional school routines before the first longer break, Thanksgiving. This break is followed by three additional weeks of school and then we go out on the longer, winter holiday.

Well, it happened. We all thought that schooling couldn’t get more complicated than last year, but thanks to the Covid 19 pandemic, schooling has gotten strange. Between online school, self-monitored assignments with office hours, and in-school classes this year has become a tangled ball of yarn instead of what used to be a “standard” school schedule.

Prior to the pandemic, our children would be greeted at their schools with an opening bell and homeroom. Then a bell would ring and off to first period. At the end of that class, a bell would ring, everyone would pack up their books and supplies, the halls would fill will talk, laughter, and movement, and the children would be off to their next class.

Buckle your seatbelt; we are in for another bumpy ride. But you already figured that out as we continue to be inundated with the school emails that let us know that plans aren’t finalized… yet. Rather than imagining all that might go wrong, we can better spend our time creating what we can control right now.

My children always loved back to school shopping. The shopping carts (they each had their own) were filled with lots of colorful supplies that they anticipated needing for the schoolyear. While we might not choose to physically fill the carts this year, we can virtually prepare for the needed supplies and get our children excited about their new, colorful organization tools.

It’s July 1st and we are still in our houses. Our semi-quarantined lives have brought the gift of more time; time to connect, time to plan, and time to reflect. My reflection has solidified my ever-increasing respect for the tenacity of our children.

Another school year in the books, and this year was one for the records. Many of us can remember feeling completely overwhelmed in March and counting the days until our children were on Spring Break, and then…

While we are compulsively checking the news and trying to balance work and homeschooling within spaces that are getting tighter as the weeks blur into each other, we aren’t necessarily noticing that our children are gaining learned independence.