Navigating a New Norm

All the world is abuzz with news of the novel coronavirus, COVID-19. It's hard not to escape the daily inundation of posts on social media and blaring reports on the news. I guess if I would just tune out - hide my phone from myself, and turn off the television, I would be just fine. Ignorance is bliss. Right? Hm.
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​Granted, this is a global anomaly and our family has diligently followed the recommended guidelines as Colorado has been recently swept through like a tsunami. Our little town of Aspen, normally hopping with hoards of tourists for spring break right now, is thankfully shut down in efforts to keep our year-round residents protected. We have hunkered down in the isolation of our homes - doing our part to flatten the curve for the whole. School has been canceled for the past week and the forecast is for closed doors continued into at least mid-April, though no one would be surprised if it were longer. We, along with others, are mourning the things that keep us running like clockwork, but on the other hand, I'm quite enjoying the platter of crudités that we can leisurely savor together rather than the incessantly full plate that we spend 10 months of the year scarfing on the run in every other direction.

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As a teacher, with a teacher spouse, and two kids in the middle school, we are anticipating quite a change to the way we run day-to-day business. Between teaching, coaching, driving a bus, and shuttling to and from practices and rehearsals, we have spent only a few hours together within the walls of our home during the work week.
Granted, we are a close family, and all of our downtime otherwise is spent together, so these unexpected seven days really haven't been far off the cuff from our regular breaks. The only difference is adjusting to the mental implications of being isolated and anti-social for more than a couple of days. Tough for teens, but my introvert self isn't complaining.

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I'm curious though, how we will evolve (or dissolve) when, starting on April 1st, our district implements a remote learning plan to carry out the year's remaining schedule of academics outside of the classroom walls. My forecast is for initial chaos as a whole in these uncharted waters with technological glitches, and new work-at-home parents containing kids under their roof and keeping them accountable to this drastically new norm of school. Personally, I am digesting the knot in my stomach as my husband and I are expected to plan daily multi-media lessons to include video instruction supplemented with afternoon online "office hours", while our kids will be alternately expected to "attend" their classes and tune into said multimedia lessons and office hours with their own teachers. I sort of feel like a little pack of caged guinea pigs, though ​honestly, I AM intrigued for this unexpected opportunity in alternative engagement with students.

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In the interim - for the next week, it'll be all I can do to feign sanity as we try to keep our kids' eyes off of a screen and our feet on a trail of dirt or snow for at least an hour each day while we plan efficient collaborative lessons using best practice in relevance and engagement on a remote learning platform. And breathe.
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Cheers to uncharted waters... and paths unpaved.

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Stay tuned for our upcoming schedule and the remote learning resources we'll be using!
(As well as my state of sanity.)