4.16.21

Not going back, moving ahead...I'm moving, moving forward...
Said I'm moving forward
“Moving Forward”  by Israel Houghton
 
Throughout the school year, we faithfully gather as a community for Meeting for Worship. When we were on campus before the pandemic, messages were often delivered by Middle School students and teachers. When we transitioned to online worship, space was filled with messages from our younger students often hoping that no one got sick from COVID or lamenting our prolonged separation. Last week, a few of our 3/4 students were moved by the Spirit to speak and they expressed their mixed emotions about pivoting from online learning to in-person. One speaker identified his mixed emotions but reminded us all that we had to move forward. 
On Monday all in-person learners in our Lower School came back on campus five days a week and every grade (Kindergarten-Grade 8) participated in our first week of pooled testing. Once again I heard the familiar buzz of learning in our classrooms. I was impressed by the seriousness with which each one of our Grade 1-8 students approached the new task of taking a nasal swab for collection. The old normal and the new normal co-exist.  
 
Despite being asked to wear masks, being mindful of their distance from others, and twirling a swab in their noses, children embrace their childhood in the midst of a pandemic. From my office window, I watch them eat lunch sprawled far apart from each other on the sidewalk chatting up a storm, gleefully batting each other with foam noodles at recess, and digging out worms and digging holes to sit in in the Peace Circle.
 
Change is hard. Many of us adults have a difficult time with not feeling in control of our lives and there has been much we could not control over the past year. Yet, in the last two weeks, our students in words and actions are teaching me how to embrace the fact that I don’t have control over life and that sometimes it is best to just move forward. 
 
In peace and partnership,
 
Angela 
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Located in College Park, MD, Friends Community School is a progressive Quaker K-8 day school, founded on the belief that every child is a valued member of our community. We offer a challenging curriculum imbued with strong values of equality, integrity, community, environmental stewardship, simplicity and peaceful conflict resolution, rooted in our Quaker heritage.
Friends Community School
5901 Westchester Park Drive
College Park, Maryland 20740
301-441-2100