When COVID-19 hit, most people were worried about survival. Were we going to be safe? Were we going to be able to make ends meet? What about school? We weren't expecting this.
Some took it as an opportunity to develop their resilience.
Simon Sinek writes a wonderful definition of resilience in his book, The Infinite Game. Sinek writes that resilience is not about merely getting through adversity...remaining stable.
It is thriving through adversity and coming out stronger on the other end.
When COVID hit, we decided this was what we wanted to teach our students.
We wanted to do more than just move our teaching online. We wanted to create memories. We wanted to do new and exciting things.
And when it is all over, we want our students to look back at COVID with fond memories of our virtual experience together.
When COVID hit, we had been holding one recital every month. When the lockdown began, we started running virtual recitals every two weeks. And we haven't stopped since. That's been our version of sticking it to COVID.
In April, we had a joke contest for best excuse for not practicing during quarantine. The winning entry was, "My piano has been in a bad mood because of social isolation...every time I go near it, it tries to bite me."
The prize was to have a song written about it by Boston musician and local genius Rob Flax. I believe he wrote and recorded it in the course of an hour.
You can still see all the entires here. And you can watch Rob's hilarious video here.
We're still thinking about how we can push the boundaries every single day.
While the COVID-19 pandemic has been pretty rough, this is a monumental educational opportunity for the next generation. They are watching our every move.
So, will we teach them how to thrive through adversity? Or merely survive?