COVID TEACHES US TO SWITCH HIT
Our preparation for the coming school year reminds me of learning to play baseball. Stay with me. This is going somewhere. I promise.
Most players start out hitting right-handed. Unless they’re left-handed. Then the opposite is true.
There is an advantage, though, to learning to hit from both sides of the plate. If the pitcher is right-handed, it’s better to bat left-handed and vice versa.
The ability to bat both ways makes you a switch hitter – not an easy skill to master but a great way to maximize your performance no matter who the pitcher is or what they throw at you.
Are you still with me? Good. The metaphor should kick in any second.
Before the coronavirus pandemic, there was no reason for schools to switch hit — meaning move from classroom instruction to distance learning and back again.
Now there is.
We will start school Sept. 2 with plans in place to either resume classroom instruction – virus permitting – or provide a distance learning program that reflects the many lessons we learned about remote education last spring.
But not only that. We also will allow families to choose distance learning over classroom instruction if they feel more comfortable keeping their kids at home. That’s like hitting from both sides of the plate at the same time!
July can be a quiet time for schools – a pause between the rush to complete one year and the rush to prepare for another. Not this July.
An enormous amount of heavy lifting – literally in some cases – took place in July and continues through August as we prepare for whatever the coronavirus throws at us.
Our administration, teachers and support staff are working in teams and task forces to reconfigure classrooms, create safety protocols and adapt Seabury style learning – engaging, experiential and differentiated – to socially distanced and/or remote learning environments.
We know every school wants to do what’s best for their students and families. And we know that “what’s best” will vary from school to school and community to community based on their unique situations and capabilities.
An overwhelming number of our families told us through a survey that they want us to resume classroom instruction. And we will. Unless and until state and county guidelines tell us otherwise – in which case we’ll simply step to the other side of the plate.
“I don’t think many schools will be able to respond to changes as seamlessly and quickly as we can,” says Head of School Sandi Wollum.
For more about the coming year and our Seabury Safe Start Plan, check out Sandi’s latest post on our Wise Words Seabury Blog.