I may have mentioned this before, but I am currently on hiatus as a middle school teacher. Although that is the case, I have been staying up to date on trends and so forth, but one thing that completely caught me off guard was seeing the devastation of some areas after Hurricane Helene.
I had planned to take a trip to add to my literary trip collection that I usually have in my classroom for when I do return to teaching, but that is something that had to be postponed as many of the roads I planned to take were washed away due to flooding and mudslides.
This made me think about how would I choose to teach after a natural disaster. When big events happen, I’ve always make it a point to allow normalcy of routines and opportunities to process. Writing can be cathartic, as many need to process through this information themselves. They may have had loved ones injured. They may have had their houses destroyed or damaged. Allowing students to find ways to help one another as some may have been fortunate to not have any damage.
In my local area, some things were hit and miss. I had one small hole in the roof of my house, but across the street, entire trees were on the ground. Tops of trees were sheared off in the wind. Down the road? Houses were crushed. Whole landscapes were changed. Power was out for us for 24 hours. Other areas, it took a week to restore. Some places more than that.
What I witnessed in my neighborhood was a lot of children playing outside after the storm had cleared. We had no internet for almost a week, even if we had power. It was nice to see people outside and not inside.
My grandchildren were displaced at Mom’s because she lived in the mountain area, so they were staying somewhere else. And when they were back home, they were with me having an opportunity to stay at my house overnight, something that they can’t do much of during school days. We made it as fun as we could.
Many schools in our area were out for a fall break, so the timing was better, but I know that many of my teacher friends were happy to get back to make sure that their students were safe and accounted for after the storm.
I’m hoping that I will be able to get back on track with my blogging since things are back to normal. I managed to read quite a few books that I’m looking forward to reviewing for you, plus compiling my research for some upcoming articles. Later.
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