The best ideas haven’t been proposed yet. The best solutions are yet to be discovered.
I’m speaking specifically of the best solutions to what K-12 choral educators should be doing for their students right now, but the idea works in lots of contexts.
I and my colleagues did what we always do when, 6 days ago, governors nationwide across the country closed schools for extended periods.
We got to work. We brainstormed solutions. We shared ideas online. We built new projects, forms, assignments, assessments.
But the best solutions probably aren’t the ones we’ve come up with in the first six days. And anyhow, faced with massive uncertainty, what our students don’t need is schoolwork.
They need love. They need listening ears. They need social workers and therapists.
So pause. Listen. To your students, to your heart, to the ideas that will evolve (slowly) into their best versions.
What buoyed me today was a collaborative Spotify playlist built by my wife with her students and former students. What buoyed me was a hilariously epic roast in the Rockford Aces group chat. And it buoyed me to see teachers and parents blink and post memes making fun of their own earnest attempts at building Rome in a day.
Pause. Listen.