Winter Sunshine

Every blog post must include at least three quotations from sources more intelligent or talented than the writer. Thus it is written.

Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

Ernest Hemingway, The Garden of Eden

Every person who really knows me can also tell you about my not-so-secret crush on Ernest Hemingway, which — considering his views on happiness — leads me to sadly conclude he would find my latest antics evidence of an imbecilic mind. I prefer to think of myself as an brilliant mastermind manipulating the masses. And by masses, I mean my students. And by manipulating, I mean trying to fix what is broken.

Almost two years into this pandemic and no matter what your opinion is on the matter and how it has been (or not been) dealt with aside, we can probably all agree that normal is an illusion at this point (or at least it is in Washington state where many mandates are still in place). Quarantines. Mask requirements. Vaccine cards. Variants. Boosters. Immunity. Jab jab. Comorbidity. All words I would love to ban from the English language and replace with something else: sunshine.

As we enter this “winter of our discontent” (do I get credit for two quotations there or is that only if I give credit?), I suggest we think about the sun. As the northern hemisphere tilts further from the sun, so goes with it one of our best sources of vitamin D — a key component for our immune systems and other health, even if the literature goes back and forth on its effects on depression (Source 1; Source 2; Source 3). And while a part of the mad scientist in me would love to install classroom lights which mimic sunlight and hand out vitamin D supplements to students, I am left with what I can actually control.

So, considering my students’ lack of communal activities (no assemblies due to Covid) and unhelpful social time (many are tardy or off task because they’ve had almost two years of abnormal social lives), I decided to turn myself into a Hallmark movie and embrace, nay, encourage some positivity and *gasp* happiness. If I can’t bring artificial sunshine into the classroom, I’m going to bring artificial and metaphorical sunshine into the classroom.

Don’t worry, I’m not going to go all Pollyanna on you.

Now time for quote number two.

Folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be.

Abraham Lincoln, supposedly… according to Goodreads… soooo… it was probably really Winston Churchill and was a misquote for “Citizens are usually about as happy as the government tells them they should be.”

About a month ago, I noticed many students started drawing on my front board — very innocent things like cats, flowers, smiley faces, and even just a “hello” to a friend in a different class period. Stuff like this:

I created a “Sunshine Spot” at the back of my classroom on a chalk board that I usually use for hanging some student work. Last Wednesday after work during the online staph meeting, I multitasked as I always do to keep what little remaining sanity that is still intact after over 1 year of remote teaching and so many online meetings that I want Zoom and Teams to be added to a list of swear words not allowed in classrooms. During the current year, I accumulated a little collection of origami, art, and notes made by students and given to me just because. Why keep them to myself behind my desk when I can share it with everyone? And then I remembered the tearable puns I used to have on my classroom door — kids loved those! Tactile, removable, sharable. Inspiration struck!

Quietly I assembled my board, not realizing the evening had other plans for me (I ended up being sick the next day and was not there to explain the board or see kids’ reactions). I decided to split the board in half — the top half was for more permanent additions to the board: drawings by kids, origami, notes. The bottom half was reserved as a constantly evolving space of sticky notes — blank ones for students to leave encouraging words and the written ones anyone could take for themselves or to share with someone else.

When I returned to work on Friday, I was too busy trying to catch kids up to speed and deal with the aftermath of a lockdown the previous day when I was gone and the residual Friday absences from nervous parents/kids. It was not until Monday (today) that I noticed something — two sticky notes were added to the ones I made and a little picture was added to the student “sparkle” section.

How affirming that my students saw the objective and accepted it without a word from me. While I don’t know if this will last or spread, it reminded me that usually our kids want to be better and improve their world, but they just need a little nudge to get there.

And before you think I’m getting to soft in my old age, I’ll leave you with the real reason why I wrote this post, which is captured by my third (see, I did it!) quotation from one of my favorite PNW writers…

It’s so hard to forget pain, but it’s even harder to remember sweetness. We have no scar to show for happiness. We learn so little from peace.

Chuck Palahniuk

This post is my scar.
P.S. Ye approves.