What lessons have I learned from Covid-19?

There is an old saying that says if you do something for a long enough time, you will see everything. After 20 years of teaching, I thought I had seen it all, and then comes along the first pandemic to strike the U.S. since 1918, and the world is forever changed. 

As a teacher sitting here pondering the changes that we've seen over the last few weeks, I've thought a lot about what I've learned from all of this.

Lesson #1 - You really do need an emergency fund.

With the economy just having come off of its greatest bull run in history, it's easy to see why so many people felt like an emergency fund was unnecessary. I mean, unless you had some type of medical emergency, chances are you could have just gone out and found some extra work to cover any budget shortfall you had. Now with millions of people furloughed or laid off, we are seeing just how many people had no money set aside for this kind of situation. Fortunately for many people, the federal government has stepped in with some very good unemployment benefits. The problem is that the longer this goes on, the more likely they are to run out of money to continue funding. Fortunately, my wife and I were able to save up a couple months worth of expenses before this really hit. We've both also been deemed "essential" employees and continue to get our paychecks. My wife's clinic though has seen some of her colleagues furloughed in the recent weeks which makes that emergency fund so important!

Lesson #2 - Don't take anything for granted.

This is something that we always talk with our football players about. You never know when something is going to be taken away from you. We have now seen this happen first-hand with our spring sport athletes and especially our seniors. Last week, Minnesota's high school league made the decision to cancel the spring season. These seniors will never again get to walk the halls of the school and finish out their high school careers like so many of us did. This whole pandemic has been hard on all of us, but I think it's been toughest on our students who rarely feel the direct impact of so many world events.

Lesson #3 - Distance teaching is tough.

Having taught for two decades, I thought I had seen everything in education. Boy, this whole situation has proven me wrong. I have had to completely relearn how to teach my reading curriculum. I have had to learn how to use Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Seesaw, and a host of technology applications. In the long run, I believe all of these things will make me a more effective teacher, but what a crash course it's been over the last 6 weeks!

Lesson #4 - Times like these reveal character.

Remember all those times that you said you didn't have "time" to finish something or learn something new or start working out? Well, what's your excuse now? Seems like "most" of us have plenty of time now to get those things done. If you still haven't started working out or learned that new skill, maybe it wasn't that you lacked time, but you lacked the motivation. I have found myself definitely not working out as much as I did when I had a set work schedule. There is always "something" that seems to come up to keep me from getting it done. This also applies to our students. We are really learning now who the "self-starters" are and the ones who lack the motivation to complete their work.

In closing, eventually we will move past this pandemic. We will settle back into "normal". Ask yourself what you are doing to improve yourself and your situation with the extra "time" you have. Make this time one where you will look back and say that is when my life changed for the better and as always...

KEEP STACKIN!