to the class of 2020

 

I first knew you as 10th graders.

And I loved you then.

Some of you were artsy. Some of you were authors. Some of you were athletes. Some of you were leaders. Some of you were gamers. Some of you were musicians. Some of you rarely spoke. Some of you made me laugh.

But you were all teachers.

My teachers.

You taught me how to approach teaching in an international school. You taught me how offer more clarity. You taught me about talent.

You taught me about the appreciation for education. I’ll never forget the first week, how so many of you stopped on your way out the door to say “Thanks Miss!” I have been blessed with so many great moments throughout my teaching career, but the regularity of students thanking me on their way out the door was completely new. Completely foreign.

“Thanks Miss!”

Wow.

Well, now, I thank you.

I thank you for your gratitude, for those pauses at the door. I thank you for welcoming me into your hearts. I thank you for your brutal honesty that pushed me as an educator. I thank you for your gifts that made my experience at Graded so rich.

I thank you for our discussions about what we were reading. I thank you for your questions.

But most of all, I thank you for how you have handled this pandemic.

You have been mature in the midst of grief. Loving in the losses. Reflective in this unreal reality. Present in the pain. Authentic in the awfulness. Brave in the brutality.

And you have been grateful, even now, even with all this, against all the odds.

And the odds are not in your favor.

2020 sucks.

It is a thief that has stolen your special moments. It is a sickness that has choked the final breaths of your high school experience. It is a train that has derailed your carefully constructed tracks. It is a closed door that has separated you from your precious peers. It is the party pooper that crashed your graduation ceremony. It is a sledgehammer that has smashed normal.

And now those bits, those pieces, those fragments are scattered all over with no broom in sight.

The questions overwhelm, don’t they? The normal questions that all seniors have had through the course of history: who am I? will I belong? what do I even want? will I make it? will I make friends? will my family be ok? how will I pay for it? what if I fail? how will I manage my time?

Now those old, historical questions are confounded with new, historic questions of a pandemic: will my grandparents be safe? how will I stay healthy? what will online college look like? can I travel? what about the borders closing? will the economy collapse? how do I say goodbye to my teachers & friends & teammates? how do I find closure?

I am sorry the weight of the unknown has been doubled.

I am sorry you don’t get a proper goodbye.

I am sorry you were robbed of so many memories.

I am sorry I can’t give you a big, congratulatory, bear hug.

I am sorry.

But, also, I am not sorry. Because I believe in you.

In this unprecedented moment that is a crossroad, an AHA, a pivot, an influencer…I believe in you, class of 2020.

I believe in your soul to feel all the feels and create space for the complex and contradictory emotions of the human experience–and to be better for it.

I believe in your ability to pause and evaluate what is most important, what “normal” should be–and to live from that conviction.

I believe in your potential to create policy and systems that save the world–and to save your children’s world.

I believe in your privilege, in your right to use the distinguished education you have EARNED (thank God you’re done with IB–Iamright?!) to affect positive change in society–and to lift up the least.

I believe in your hearts, in the hope that you will slow down the pace of our world so we can breath and be, instead of just rushing and doing.

I believe in your voice to garner and inspire changemakers–and to defy the odds.

So no, in this year of a global pandemic that has shut down the world as we know it, the odds are not in your favor.

But you are powerful rebels and can give them a big “so what, odds, so what?”

You are what we need right now.

I believe in you, class of 2020.

And now, as you walk out that door, albeit virtually, allow me to say:

Thank YOU!

I love you.

Congratulations class of 2020!!!

I believe in you class of 2020!