at the heart of learning

 

The Pandemic and Learning

what is being learned during this pandemic?

all of us have so many more demands 

on our time and psyches

than what we’re used to,

for the students growing-up and learning how to learn

is challenging even in the best of times,

each person’s path is difficult,

potential glitches always there,

now, at home, there are off-screen temptations

that somehow need to be resisted,

there are on-screen possibilities that allow paths forward

but paths that are even harder to walk,

change is a demanding taskmaster

who forces us to break through old ways

and find new ways to still be ourselves, and successful,

I hear of school’s worrying

that their standardized indices of learning are suffering drops,

since schools have had to go to distance learning

with the usual patterns of instruction and response disrupted,

what can be learned, 

though while not on the old syllabus,

is at the heart of being human,

of being a successful species,

who we are at our best is they who adapt,

they who view a problem as that which can be solved,

they who will not yield, who will find the paths forward,

the world of this pandemic challenges us,

I believe that what we can learn 

is how we can endure the trials,

how we can rise to the challenges.

by Henry H. Walker

January 6, ‘21