Mr Peter Stevenson - Dean of Biblical Studies
You don’t get flowers without rain. Or a view without a hike.
These are the words I cling to in hard times, these are the words I’ve been telling my Year 4 class. Good times will come again and it won’t be long till we are back in school with our mates.
In my daily zoom calls, I do my check-in. Could be a finger shoot, or a thumbs-up rating. Some days I get 10 out of 10 others it’s 5, some days, however, are just a fist and no smile.
This lockdown is hard. And students in Primary School notice that things aren’t normal. They notice they aren’t at school, they notice the stress.
Currently, in Year 4’s Unit of Inquiry, we are looking at rights and responsibilities. We asked our students what rights and responsibilities do we have during the lockdown. I was blown away by the responses, the maturity and the perspectives shown. I called a few families to check and asked about the task.
The parents said that they had such a deep conversation with their children about this concept. The answers the students came up with were,
Rights: go to the shops, seek medical treatment, exercise etc.
Responsibilities: wear a mask, hand sanitise, check-in and check out, stay home if sick.
As part of the task, the students were asked about their responsibilities in school, families, themselves and the environment.
One answer really made me think “to have the best childhood I can”.
Right now children are missing parts of their childhood, but they will come back again. What they are gaining is a perspective on how the world is different. That they have rights and also responsibilities. And right now individual responsibility is probably the most important it has been for generations.
I wonder what our students will remember about this time in five or ten years. What will they tell their own children?
Imagine how our students will respond when their children complain of being bored…..
“you’re bored, I wasn’t allowed to go to school for 5+ weeks, we weren’t allowed to see our friends or extended family. Bored, you say you’re bored, you have no idea.”
I think our students will come out of this fine, I think many will appreciate the small things again, like seeing a mate and passing a footy or playing handball. Or sitting in the sun with a few friends talking about whatever….
You don’t get flowers without rain, you don’t get a view without a hike.
You can’t appreciate the good without enduring the bad.
Take care, good days will come again.
