We know so little when we dream of perfect years and happy children

It starts with a prayer, with 30 stiffly starched pleated skirts and 30 nervous little faces looking up at me.

A new year, a new beginning.

I survey my fourth graders with interest, searching for a hint of what is to come. Thirty knapsacks placed on pegs, 30 siddurim tentatively opened, and school begins.

I never know what surprises lurk around corners, but last year, unpredictability was the norm. We started school in September with optimism. After months of weird rules, lockdowns, and school closures, the numbers were going down and things were looking up. Until November.

“The cases are rising again,” my father mentioned at supper. I bit my lip. With a challenging illness, my father is at high-risk of catching Covid. While we sprayed down the groceries with disinfectant, and barely ventured anywhere, I was still spending hours daily with my class, and that was a problem.

We discussed me moving out, we discussed me taking a break from teaching. In the end, the solution came from my parents, who decided that for the sake of 30 children and one very motivated teacher, they’d relocate indefinitely to our house in the countryside. Weird times became weirder.