Head of School's Message: December 7
Kindergarten students returned to the Chandler campus today, and plans are in place for First and Second Grades to return on January 11. Pasadena’s Health Department has informed schools that the K-2 waivers remain in effect.
The health department will wait until January before determining whether other grades will be allowed to return. The health department feels the numbers of infections are too high to make that decision now. Pasadena’s Health Department Director Dr. Ying Goh will be meeting with local school heads on December 15, and I will have more information for you after that meeting. On January 11, Kindergarten, First and Second Grade students will be back on campus, but it is yet to be determined when other grades will be allowed to return.
We are biologically engineered to get upset by news like this. That was the big takeaway from an article in the New York Times on November 29, “Pandemic Proof Your Habits,” by Kate Murphy, summarizing neuroscience research into the impact of the virus on our psyches. Our brains become like overheated computers when confronted by uncertainty. The exertion, combined with a sense of threat, produces fear, irritability and stress. We end up with less bandwidth for higher-order thinking, recognizing subtleties, resolving contradictions and developing creative ideas.
Some people, thankfully none of them at Chandler, cope with this stress by turning nasty. The neuroscientists advise us to establish new routines within the limited environment we find ourselves in. Something as simple as filling a bird feeder at a certain time, calling a friend regularly, or reading to the kids. We cannot control when we return to school, but we can create routines that anchor us, so we are better able to take life’s surprises in stride.
Chandler teachers have been doing this with your children in the distance learning program. Last Tuesday afternoon, I walked through the gym on the way back to my office from the Middle School. Chandler’s Athletic Director Bill Anderson had Zoom breakout rooms from his 6th Grade PE class projected onto the gym wall. The students were playing the basketball shooting game, ‘horse.’ With laptops set up in their driveways, students shot at a basket then ran back to the computer to watch their opponent try to make the same shot. Competition was intense. That’s the kind of activity students will remember when they get to the other side of the valley, and everyone has a chance to reflect on what they did to make it through the pandemic.
