49 days. That is how many days we will have not been in school for by the end of the term. You’ll notice that I haven’t said that these are “days missed”; I don’t feel that I’ve missed the days themselves, or the opportunity to teach, but I have missed the boys.
For the most part, my groups have attended my lessons with cheery good humour. However, as we enter the last week, I sense a little world weariness, and a desire for some sense of normality.
But what will that normality entail? Will we all be back in? Are there going to be further periods of lockdown? What are the implications of all of this? It’s not yet clear, nor should we expect it to be. Volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) situations don’t lend themselves to simple solutions.
Thus as we break up for the year, Reinhold Niebuhr’s 1951 “Serenity Prayer” seems particularly apt:
“God, grant me serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage, to change the things I can
And wisdom to know the difference”
I wish you all a good break.
