Editorial
“A
smooth sea never made a skilled sailor.” It’s one of those sayings of indeterminate origin. Is it an old African proverb? Or was it spoken by American president Franklin D. Roosevelt? Or maybe it was discovered and translated from Greek on a stone in the Aegean Sea? Regardless, it’s an apt saying for the last three semesters of teaching: we’ve all been challenged, and we hope we’ve come to the end of this thing stronger than we were before. That is the optimist’s version, of course. There’s no denying the millions of lives lost to COVID-19, the furloughs and missed mortgage payments, the cancelled reunions and performances, the parents sick in hospital beds and the students who can’t bring themselves to get out of their own. As teachers, we had front row seats to so much of this struggle, and we faced multiple challenges of our own. And this is certainly not over. Though it looked for a while that the 2021–2022 school year might be back to “normal,” COVID variants and vaccine hesitancy continue to make our seas look choppy. Who knows what this school year will bring? And yet, there is hope. A safe and effective vaccine is readily available in much of the developed world, and there are organizations working to bring it worldwide. Restaurants and concerts and travel and all the other things that fill our non-work hours are feeling more and more comfortable. We’re still enjoying that new hobby we picked up during the slightly slower pace of the last year and a half. In June, teachers and students around the continent breathed a sigh of relief, donned their swimsuits, and jumped into the pool. The God who neither slumbers nor sleeps, who sees our coming and our going, has sustained us through a difficult year, granted us summer respite, and brought us back to our classrooms—our callings (Psalm 121). We hope that rather than sound flippant or out of touch, this issue— Lessons from COVID—celebrates the resilience and agility and positivity that so many teachers brought to their craft over the last few semesters. We found new ways to do old things and reasons to scrap the old things altogether. Some of us discovered practices we had that were unintentionally inaccessible or unnecessarily complicated. Educators of all generations ventured into using technology in ways they had never imagined. We brought the theater production online, and it went well. We held the enrollment interest meeting on Zoom, and new families still signed up. As parents, we learned about our children and their teachers. As coworkers, we stepped up, even when our plates were already full. In this issue, you’ll hear from principals, chaplains, parents, and teachers about what went well in their COVID school year. Maybe you’ll empathize: I loved Jamboard too! Maybe you’ll pick up a tip: I never considered asking Christian Educators Journal October 2021 3
