Newsletter

An excerpt from a newsletter bulletin I wrote today:

As the week began and my students and I did not return to our school, I sent out a request to my
high school English students. I asked many questions: “How are you doing? Is there anything
you are particularly worried or upset about? How are you passing the time?” 

Some sixty replied. All of them were worried about their older family members and working
parents. All of them were restless. They missed school. They wanted school work to keep their
brains busy but not to stress them out any further. My most difficult, intractable student (of my
154) called us his second family. 

I continue to teach them, in a sort of heartbreaking way, trying to give them meaningful things
to think and write about, shooting videos of myself reading to them, trying to figure out an
online learning platform with frustrating limitations that I’m still learning on the fly. I comment
on every message they send me, projecting warmth and care (and an April Fool’s joke or two
this past week). I’ve not heard from over half of them, and I wonder how they are coping. It
feels like I am projecting out into a void.

Confinement is an insidious enemy for today’s young people: they already spend less face-to-face
time with friends than at any point in human history, and this will exacerbate their feelings of
loneliness. They need caring adults to connect to them in the best ways we can. Perhaps you
might consider writing a handwritten letter to a young person who might not know the delight
of receiving such a thing. We still have ways we can care for them.