During the last 10 weeks of the 2019-2020 school year, many schools around the country had moved to an all virtual format out of an abundance of caution due to COVID-19 and the impact it would have on students, teachers, and schools. It was during this time that I began binge watching shows on Netflix because it provided a mindless activity for me to do to take my mind off of all the craziness that surrounded me. Heaven forbid I would take up an activity like exercising regularly that would benefit me more holistically, but I digress. One of the shows that I began watching was Schitt's Creek and not long after I finished watching it, I came across a TikTok that spoofed a classic scene from the show and compared it to the world of education that we had been thrust into. The scene asked the perplexing question of how you fold cheese and rather than trying to explain it further, you can watch the TikTok video HERE.
I'll admit that I watched this video hundreds of times and laughed hysterically because it encapsulated perfectly the emotions I was going through as I was trying to figure out how to lead a school during a pandemic. It's not like I was able to call someone up who had been through this situation before and ask them for advice on how to navigate the situation. The reality was that everyone was experiencing something for the first time and nobody had answers. Everyone was trying to make sense of different directions and mandates that left them bewildered because it didn't seem like anyone knew what was going on. In essence, we were all trying to figure out what folding the cheese actually means.
It seems like a lifetime ago that we embarked on this virtual/hybrid learning journey. Many schools developed reopening plans to get students and teachers back into buildings safely, but the uncertainty of where we are going still looms heavily in our minds. Nationally, we are inundated daily with numbers of positive COVID-19 cases, deaths caused by the virus, and speculation about when a second or third wave of the virus will hit us. We eagerly await a vaccine to get us out of this mess and seek any information that will help us uncover some answers to the variety of questions we have. In the world of education, we are given directives and mandates about how the pandemic education experience should look as if it is a one-size-fits-all scenario, we are experiencing the disengagement of families in the educational process, and we are being held accountable to outcomes and standards that don't take into consideration that virtual learning doesn't work for all students. Unfortunately, the only answer to the myriad of questions we have is to "fold in the cheese" and it leaves us angry and frustrated because no one seems to know what that actually means.
The enduring question we are faced with now is how we are going to respond when we ask questions and the only response we get is to fold in the cheese. My contention is that we aren't going to get a direct answer because no one actually knows the answer. Instead, we just need to fold the cheese the best way we know how and see how it goes. In some cases, the outcome is going to be awesome and we are going to be so happy and in others, we are going to completely fall flat and vow not to do it that way again. Either way, if we will be open minded and committed to folding in the cheese, we can improve our chances of weathering this storm and actually finishing the recipe. We may not like how the dish ends up, but cheese makes everything better, so fold it in.
#ONWARD
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