Love in the Time of Corona: Update Twelve: FDoS

 (That stands for "First Day of School")

I've got to admit it -- I'm "SMH," as they say, at the fact that I am still writing posts under the Love in the Time of Corona heading, five months after I started.

Feeling compelled to reach out to all of those teachers who are freaking out right now, and, by the way, I'm not using the term to minimize what they're going through.  The freak-out is real.  And justified.  

Today marks a very different first day of school.  It is like previous First Days, in that many of us had sleepless nights last night.  This time, however, that sleeplessness had a slightly different flavor.  Instead of the "butterflies" of trying to picture that faceless group of young people, adding their excitement, anticipation, and straight-up fear to yours, as they fill up the classroom you've worked so hard to prepare, the emotion has shifted somewhat, along with the rest of our planet and our lives.

Although it's been almost twenty years since I was last in charge of a classroom full of high-schoolers, I recall the anxiety dreams I'd have leading up to Day One -- everything from having no chalk (yes, chalk) to having no clothes.  But this year, the year we've been asked to learn a brand new Learning Management System (LMS) for a group of students with whom we could conceivably never actually (as opposed to -- that word again -- "virtually") meet, by people who barely seem to understand how the LMS works themselves, I have only the following words of "wisdom" to offer:

My mantra, as always, is, "SCHOOL WILL HAPPEN."  It's up to each of us if we want it to happen to us, or for us.

POST SCRIPT - End of the Day Update for the Chicken Littles among us:

DF:  Look up.  What do you see?

CL:  I see the sky.

DF: And?

CL: And what?

DF: Is it falling?

CL: Ha ha.  Very funny.

DF: It's not, is it?

CL: No.  No, it's not.

That's right my friends and colleagues:  We will get through this.  One way or another, we will get it done.

The author, alias "COVI-Dan," in his office, ready as he'll ever be....