Four Years Ago Today

Written at 4:10p on 3/13/2024

Four years ago today, I was at home on a Friday afternoon. I was at home because there was nowhere else to go.

Four years ago today, I was ready for a nap. The entire week built up to this afternoon when it was announced that our school district would close its doors for four weeks.

Four years ago today, every student had in hand a WWII novel, assigned by my colleague and I. Some copies were from our school’s book room, but many were from the shelves of other teachers (thank you Beth and Amy!), from the school library, from the public library, from my Amazon cart. No wonder I needed a nap.

Four years ago today, a student asked me what would happen to the SOLs, the state standardized tests we take in May. I responded that if we had to worry about the SOLs, we had much more to worry about.

A student recently told me that four years ago, she was in fourth grade. Her fourth grade teacher started every Monday with a journal prompt. As teachers do, this teacher left school that Friday with the journal prompt already written on the board, ready for when students returned four weeks later.

“How did you spend the past four weeks?” was finally erased after one year.

Four years ago today, I had no idea what the next four years would look like. Or even the next four months, the next four weeks, or even the next four days.