My kids are doing some really beautiful writing right now. One wrote seeing school now is weird because it used to be a city of teenagers and now it’s a silent fallen kingdom. But when he went to the nearby creek, he could hear the nature noises better without people noise.

And he sat on a rock and noted that no matter what else is happening, the creek continues to seek out the river. The mission is always to reach another body of water. And he said isolation is hard but that’s what we’re doing too- still moving to reach one another. A mission.

He’s a 9th grader- and he likes this writing so much he asked me to share it with the class. How great is that? It made me wonder, though we miss them and want to be with them, if maybe some of the kids are now thriving with the noise of us no longer drowning out the rest.

He sat on a rock by a creek and wrote. I believe my classes are meaningful places but also I see perhaps we are the noise that makes it harder for them to hear & connect with what they believe matters. This piece he wrote made me think. You live, you learn. Even apart, we learn.