KWL, for those who don’t remember it from their elementary school days, stands for
K - What I Know
W - What I Want to Know
L - What I Have Learned
I haven't thought about KWLs and other teaching tools for a while, but the pandemic and the association of bad luck with the year 2020 makes me want to reflect as the year comes to an end.
What I Know about 2020
What I know is that I came into the new year of 2020 with high hopes and expectations. I was looking forward to concerts like with Gone West in Chicago, trips with family on Spring Break and even the summer, visits to see family including one of my sister’s first visit to her childhood home in years. The greatest milestone was my son’s graduation from high school. After 13 years of schooling, nothing was going to hold him back.
What happened was everything started off well enough. Then the news of a virus spreading became more of a reality. We were washing hands and standing in lines for toilet paper. It wasn’t going to come to our small town, it wasn’t going to affect my family, it was going to stop before it got as bad as it did in China.
But it didn’t.
What I Want to Know About 2020
In some ways, I don’t want to think about this year, but it is going to be a part of our lives just like the polio epidemic was for my mother and the Great Depression was for my grandmother. What do I want to know? What are we doing to make sure that we don’t have to deal with this again? Will there be better protocol so that pandemics don’t spread to epic proportions? What kind of mental issues will come out of this and are we prepared for long term effects?
Did we learn anything?
What I Learned about 2020
I learned about perseverance.
I learned about the importance of a core group of support like my best friends who check in to vent or to comfort.
I learned that I touch my face way too much.
I learned that remote learning is not the best for everyone, but it can help students in a bind.
I learned that we have technology that connects us in ways that aided many people whether it is communication, shopping, or entertainment.
I learned that a community truly needs each other in order to endure.
I learned that I have less patience than I am given credit for.
I learned about the pain of systemic racism when I looked into the eyes of a young black woman who felt the weight of the world on her shoulders and lashed out to a person she didn’t know, calling them a racist. If there is anything I learned, it is that everyone reacts to race in different ways. Some will find strength in their experience and see it as their weakness. What does it take to change? It is not the same for everyone, just like it is not the same based on gender, ethnic background, socio-economic upbringing, or any other category of people. That being said, my eyes are open wider than last year, but I can’t see any solution just yet.
So yes, we survived 2020. I’m not setting high hopes for 2021 just yet because it may just be a year that I can show off my new collection of face masks. Whatever the next year brings, I hope we can continue to share it together, even with some distance apart.
