AUL, Making That Remote-Learning Lemonade
On March 12th, 2020, we packed up AUL & headed home for what we thought was a three-week extended Spring Break. Fast forward twelve months, & we’re still pushing through remote learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Bitmoji AUL staff family portrait
There is no way that we will never know what we might have missed or could have had in not being together during this school year so far. And there’s not much point in trying to figure that out either. Because here’s what we do know: scholars and staff are doing their best in a situation that they did not ask for or choose, that we still have moments of joy, & that we continue to celebrate those moments, & as many others as we can find, as much & as often as we can. While not all together in person as we have been & will certainly be again soon, we have found ways to be together in heart & in spirit, through computers & across miles. Not bad for an educational establishment, we say.
We’ve hosted craft activities & makeup tutorials, empowering IEP meetings & celebratory read-alouds. We meet every Thursday morning for shoutouts & virtual paper plate awards. The teachers share moments, scholars, & silly stories that were highlights of their day, every single day; if your scholar-ears have been ringing, now you know why. We have welcomed Colorado’s poet laureate, Bobby LeFebre, to our virtual Meet walls, & have been moved to chills, tears, & smiles through his words. We have worked extra long on virtual notebooks, poured ourselves into projects, & sent countless texts between staff & scholars a week. We have reached out when we needed help & support, & we have not been shy about not feeling our best. We have learned heartbreaking news. And we have been blessed with joyful news. We have had great weeks, so-so weeks, awful weeks, & everything in-between. The teachers have embraced their inner Bitmoji. If we have to be 2-D, might as well make it cute. We have worked with our community to bring Christmas gifts to our AUL families, an exhale & bit of lightness wherever we can find it.
We have found all of these ways & more to stick together while the pandemic is keeping us apart. This is not easy—it never was, it never would be. But through patience, flexibility, grace, & love, AUL keeps finding the glue that no year would ever be able to take from our community. This is not perfect, the days are long & they are not easy. We do not have a magic wand to fix anything as quickly as we’d like to or make it that much easier. If we did, you know we would. But if we can do what we have with just our hearts, our vulnerability, our sense of fun, & the joy of our community, I really do think we will be alright.
