Hope vs. Optimism and Loneliness vs. being alone

I have slowed down. The world has slowed down. There is now little contact with others. The love that I had of being with others is slowly being replaced by the love of having time to think and to process and to create. The ability to have hours on end to think about what I want the students to take away from a lesson is a gift. It begins to form a cohesive story with a beginning and an end. However, it is so new and different then the choppy content driven style that I am used to that it feels raw and unclear. Like a story waiting to be told. And while the end is predetermined to some extent, each student tells their own story and it is unique, interesting, and spectacular. Through their work I am learning new things about them that I wouldn’t have caught before. 

I thought it was loneliness that I was feeling in the beginning. I was having a hard time envisioning the future. But soon the future looked different. It looked like there should be more time for reflection. There should be more time to learn outside of school. There should be more time for autonomy and purpose. This is the next wave of education. I feel like it is right there before our eyes but we are hanging onto schedules and content. But life is full of twists and turns and content comes when it is necessary. How do we design education so that the students experience and put into practice these concepts and content. How do we let the learning come to them out of interest? How do we motivate them to work hard and look outside to the world when we are locked in our homes? 

I see the change that could be and am optimistic about the future and am willing to work for it. That work that I will do, along with my colleagues at La Paz, will bring about hope.