As previously, I am sharing a theme and a short reflection. You are invited to reflect on this theme as well. A reply can be any length. You can send words, pictures, music, or anything else. We will share some of your submissions by email, social media, or other means throughout the week ahead.
Submit by replying to [email protected]
FIRST, AN ANNOUNCEMENT AND AN ADDITIONAL INVITATION
Announcement: The Governor has extended the stay-at-home order in Illinois through May. Further, the state is recommending the use of face masks indoors and outdoors in any circumstance where it is not possible to maintain 6 feet of distance between persons. As I shared on Wednesday’s announcements, the Governor has officially extended the school building closure in Illinois through the end of the school year. We will continue to conduct Online Connected Learning through June. We are working now to determine end-of-year celebrations. Ideas, concerns, and questions are welcome.
Invitation: Cognia, GCE’s accreditor, is hosting a conversation with eight high school students from across the world to try to understand more about how their lives have changed in recent weeks—how they feel about learning from home, missing school events, and being separated from their friends. If we listen closely, these students’ words may lead us toward meaningful change in how we think about education.
Date: April 28, 2020
Time: 4:00 to 5:30 p.m. EDT
Click here to register.
Audience: Students, educators, parents
Featured Panelists:
The panel consists of high school students from the United States, South America, Europe, and the Middle East.
Moderator:
Dr. Mark A. Elgart, president and CEO, Cognia
NOW, THIS WEEK’S MORNING MESSAGE
This week’s theme:
WHAT MATTERS NOW
My submission:
Accepting her Oscar in 2005 for her role in Walk the Line, Reese Witherspoon quoted June Carter Cash: “I’m just trying to matter.”
Days run together, simultaneously too long and too short.
What day is it today?
I change out of my pajamas, take a shower, brush my teeth.
I take comfort in the routine, assurances of my own health.
I preserve normalcy for the sake of my children.
For my sake too.
There is still so much to do.
I find joy in small things.
I miss human connection.
My mind still works and thrills at good ideas and complex problems.
What can I solve today?
There is an opportunity in this current circumstance.
Opportunity to help people in need.
Opportunity to remember those who have been important to me.
Opportunity to reach out.
Opportunity to clarify priorities.
Opportunity to invent and create.
Without anyone watching, I am limited only by my own imagination. I can be who I am, rather than who I am supposed to be.
I think school still matters – at least, if we learn there. Maybe the two things that have always mattered most are relationships and education. The latter in service to the former. In learning one discovers oneself and one’s promise. Simultaneously, learning makes space for the appreciation of others’ integrity, others’ good ideas. Learning makes way for empathy, then for community, for collaboration, ultimately for citizenship – that is, living together. So education enables authentic friendship.
Even isolated in our homes, we remain in community. Paradoxically, it is our care for one another that keeps us apart.
So I will get out of bed today. I will do my work. Because I miss you.
U2, “Beautiful Day“:
The heart is a bloom
Shoots up through the stony ground
There’s no room
No space to rent in this town
You’re out of luck
And the reason that you had to care
The traffic is stuck
And you’re not moving anywhere
You thought you’d found a friend
To take you out of this place
Someone you could lend a hand
In return for grace
It’s a beautiful day
Sky falls, you feel like
It’s a beautiful day
Don’t let it get away
You’re on the road
But you’ve got no destination
You’re in the mud
In the maze of her imagination
You’re lovin’ this town
Even if that doesn’t ring true
You’ve been all over
And it’s been all over you
It’s a beautiful day
Don’t let it get away
It’s a beautiful day
Touch me
Take me to that other place
Teach me
I know I’m not a hopeless case
See the world in green and blue
See China right in front of you
See the canyons broken by cloud
See the tuna fleets clearing the sea out
See the Bedouin fires at night
See the oil fields at first light and
See the bird with a leaf in her mouth
After the flood all the colors came out
It was a beautiful day
Don’t let it get away
Beautiful day
Touch me
Take me to that other place
Reach me
I know I’m not a hopeless case
What you don’t have you don’t need it now
What you don’t know you can feel it somehow
What you don’t have you don’t need it now
Don’t need it now
It was a beautiful day
Cabell King
Head of School
