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starting again

I've been a little stuck trying to find things to write about now that school is over. I want to share thoughts and inspiration here but I think sometimes I get weighed down by expectations that it must be a particular length or profound in some way. I have to admit that I don't feel inspired to keep writing but I made the commitment so I will do 40 blog posts. It's just going to take a bit longer than I thought.

So what is inspiring me lately? Where is there joy? I've been preparing to give a talk on Education for Life and it's been fun to ponder all the amazing ways the EFL principles are present and expanding and spreading in our world and throughout education. People are starting to really rethink the purpose and methods of education in a whole new way. The old systems are breaking down and suddenly we're trying to prepare children for a world that doesn't yet exist, that we can't imagine, that they will create!

In the midst of the pandemic even we are finding we have to redefine what we're doing. The good thing is we have a certain built in flexibility to make that a bit easier. We don't have lots of strict rules, regulations and standards that dictate who and what we teach. Both as a school and as classroom teachers we are constantly responding to the needs of the moment, of the individual child or family or circumstance. We expect to do this. Every year we reconfigure the grades and classes to best suit the students and teachers, the numbers and the needs of each class. Each day we are willing to meet our students and our class as a whole and work with whatever energy is there, no matter what our plan might have been Certainly the circumstance and needs of this moment are unique and somewhat unprecedented but the creativity and intuition that are required are skills that we have been cultivating and applying all along and they are skills that we are cultivating in our students too.

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