On NOT Going Back to Normal
BETH CRIDER
“Well, who is going to cancel prom?”
This question appeared in a chat box on our weekly Peoria County Superintendents’ Zoom call this morning, February 8, 2021, at 9:00 am. Hi, I’m Beth Crider, and I’m currently in the dark, dark wilderness that is education during a pandemic.
First, a centering passage: “Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” - 1 Thess. 5:16-18
Flashback to a year ago. On March 9-10 of 2020, I hosted a meeting of education administrators to experience the work of Shawn Achor, a Harvard-trained psychologist that uses evidence-based, positive psychology strategies to build a positive frame of mind, and I was going to bring it to Peoria County schools. Educators were tired and burnt out. Oh, just how precious. By that Friday, March 13, 2020, we were told that we needed to completely revamp the education system in our state, and it needed to happen by next Tuesday. My friends, there is not enough positive psychology in all of the world to handle that curve ball. But it was only going to be for a few weeks, and then things would get back to normal after we did this new thing called “flatten the curve.” I was so cute.
It has been almost a calendar year. “The wilderness” is simply the only way to describe it. The education system is just that: a system. What all needs to happen when you shut down the brick and mortar structures? Quite a lot, actually. So here is a short list of things we needed to figure out from Friday to Tuesday last March: get everyone a device, get them WiFi, feed everyone, PE?, do we make the kids go all day (synchronous) or do we let them log in when they can (asynchronous), how will we clean, do we still pay everyone, what do we do with bus drivers? I could go on. Then school never came back. New questions including: how do we do graduation/prom, do we give grades, can we do sports, do we allow staff and students to bring their stuff back and pick up the stuff they left, who will water the plants and feed the fish? Again, I could go on.
I wish I could tell you that things improved once we came back to school in the fall of 2020. There were all-new sets of questions around mitigation and returning to in-person learning with the virus not relenting. We had to figure out quarantine procedures and how to take everyone’s temperature. Whole districts shut down at a time due to staffing shortages.
I share all of this knowing that most of you probably understand. Any difficulties that I have encountered as Regional Superintendent could be handled with a colleague or mentor because surely someone had been through it before. There has been no one to call, and I routinely wonder when the adults are going to show up and help. Then I look in the mirror and pep-talk myself, “Beth. You are the adult.” I mean how in the world do we, as the verses above state, “pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus”? I didn’t get a graduation for my college senior. I don’t have answers for my school superintendents. Family members got Covid.
The build-up serves a purpose to my writing. The education system is still currently deep in the wilderness. The pandemic has been unrelenting, throwing challenge after challenge our way as the question from just this morning demonstrates and the stark reality that another group of students that we love will miss out on all of the experiences school provides. In the middle of the exhausting decision-making and pivoting and adjusting, the grief and struggles with anxiety and depression come for so many in tidal waves. A few teachers locally got the vaccine, and I started to hear, “When we get back to normal.” NO! No, no! The old “normal” did not work for everyone, and the system needs to change. The great magnifier of the pandemic showed us that marginalized communities disproportionately are affected by a crisis of this magnitude. We can’t go back there. God has provided us an opportunity if we are wise enough to use it.
As we begin the long walk toward recovery, I have challenged the staff at my office to consider something new. We tried to come up with a vision word like “rebirth” or “renew” or “recover.” Nothing really landed. Instead we are going to Ignite, Inspire, Innovate. Coming out of this dark wilderness, what new things do we want to keep? What needs to go forever? We can’t just go back to some old system because it is comfortable. God has provided this opportunity for us to transform, and I want to be a part of leading the educators in Peoria County toward a new mission for delivering education.
This long rambling essay needs some editing and possibly a better way to thread the idea of rejoicing always and praying continually, but I’m going to leave it messy. That is my world right now, and I need space to keep making things new. Along with the verses in Thessalonians, I have anchored myself with Rumi’s “The Guest House.” I try daily to invite in each guest, “that has been sent as a guide from beyond.” I use the Psalms when I feel like raging.
I will close with the deepest well of gratitude that I have for the educators that go to Imago. Your grace and tender mercies have been unparalleled during this time. And I want to simply say thank you.
Apparently Beth Crider needed to write this essay because it poured out of her as fast as her hands would type. She serves as the Regional Superintendent of Schools for Peoria County, which is an education administrator, which means I drink coffee all day. She was a Kindergarten teacher for 17 years and misses it. Beth has attended Imago for four years now! She is really lucky to be sheltering in place with Brien, her husband of almost two years, her boomerang 23-year-old daughter who is home to do an internship and go to grad school before she gets married, her almost 21-year-old daughter that goes to ISU and Rockne, her beloved Vizsla. Ask her anything about food, sports, school and reading. She just finished Live Wired by David Eagleman and is fascinated by what the human brain can do.